The fantasy football season will begin officially on Thursday when the Baltimore Ravens and the Denver Broncos kickoff and until then there is still plenty of time to draft in other leagues and here is a look at one that I am in with 12 teams that is fairly serious.
The league is Yahoo Sports and has 12 teams and includes PPR and just one starting quarterback. It is a fairly classic league scoring wise and there is one QB, two running backs, three wide receivers, one tight end, one kicker and one defense with no flex options and five bench players. The league has some very experienced fantasy players and is a keeper league and to win the league or even make the playoffs owner have to be smart with their early and late round picks.
The keeper league changes up how some owners attack the draft, as sleeper players can become very valuable when they are kept and it also changes the very top part of the draft since most of those players are off the board. After missing the playoffs by a hair last season, I decided to go with my gut rather than overthink things, so with my first round pick, my shared team went with a QUARTERBACK pick of Drew Brees at number four since names like Arian Foster, LeSean McCoy, Jamaal Charles, Adrian Peterson and Marshawn Lynch were all off the board before the draft even started.
With no top flight running back options and knowing that the draft wouldn't come back to me until the end of the second round, I went with a sure points-scorer in Brees, who put up over 5,000 yards passing and 43 touchdowns last season. After being in a similar position in the second round at pick 21, I went for an elite WR in Larry Fitzgerald rather than reach for a mediocre running back just to take a back. Probably a bad move, but one I felt okay with since the draft would snake back in the third round.
Darren McFadden is a risky pick, but with no top flight running backs left, it was him in the third at number 28 and fingers are crossed that he will stay healthy this season. At number 45 I went Gronk at TIGHT END since it's a keeper league and he was available after two years and since he is injured, that's the only reason he slipped into the fourth. Fifth pick was Mike Wallace from the Dolphins and my next two were keepers with Matt Schaub and Torrey Smith, as keeping Cam Newton would have been my first round pick after doing it for two seasons based on league rules.
The best pick, in my co-owners opinion was tight end Brandon Myers, who is moving to the Giants after catching 79 balls last season for the Raiders, but in mine it was at number 93 in the eighth round, running back Shane Vereen from the Patriots. He could end up being a huge sleeper as a backfield option in the passing game. We'll see if adds up to the playoffs this year.
