Who's on your do not draft list this year?

[Dr LBC]

8 hours ago, NYRaider said:

Conner basically got 0 targets when Edmonds was healthy, Akers sucked when he came back and might not even start

1) Edmonds wasn't healthy often last season (as a Chase owner I can personally attest to that) and he's not even on the roster anymore, so that's kind of a moot point anyway - Edmonds was the entrenched guy that Conner effectively usurped last season (in no small part because Edmonds wasn't able to stay healthy).  The knock I can see on Conner is that there's some expected regression to the mean in TD's this season, because the amount he punched in last season was absurd.  That said, Zona's offense should still be high-powered (and they were cooking up until Kyler's injury last season) and presenting Conner with a plus amount of RZ opportunities and the OL hasn't deviated from last season's.

2) Akers will start as long as he's healthy.  People are reading way too much into McVay hyping up his own players.  Hendo was effective - not outstanding - last season and still ceded time to Sony Michel.  Akers at the close of his rookie year was seizing control from any and all other RB's on the roster.  Now, I still expect at least a 70/30 split in Akers favor, but you're not going to find many teams in the league that aren't doing at least that (that's the best-case-barring-injury split Jamarrio can expect in Denver, it's probably close to what Zeke will see in Dallas, in terms of outright carries it's probably what the split between Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon is going to be).  There's a reason why the guys that go in the 1st round go in the 1st round, the bell-cows are a rare breed these days because coaches simply don't deploy them.

[101Raider]

10 hours ago, NYRaider said:

Conner basically got 0 targets when Edmonds was healthy, Akers sucked when he came back and might not even start, Swift is also splitting 1st team reps with Jamal Williams.

I’m good with Conner in the 3rd, there’s no more Edmonds. Swift is a straight baller, Williams is there to spell him or be insurance.

 

Akers I get. However, I neglected to mention the caveat of a late investment into Henderson if drafted.  I’m a believer in the system and McVay feeds his #1 RBs.  For a late 3rd/4th you theoretically get a bellcow rb. 

[NYRaider]

On 8/4/2022 at 7:37 PM, 101Raider said:

I’m good with Conner in the 3rd, there’s no more Edmonds. Swift is a straight baller, Williams is there to spell him or be insurance.

Akers I get. However, I neglected to mention the caveat of a late investment into Henderson if drafted.  I’m a believer in the system and McVay feeds his #1 RBs.  For a late 3rd/4th you theoretically get a bellcow rb. 

The Cardinals goal this year will be a deep run in the playoffs which means they need to keep guys healthy. Conner wasn't efficient as a runner last year and was a TD or bust player until Edmonds got hurt. I think that we'll see Darrell Williams and Eno Benjamin both get a healthy amount of snaps throughout the season. 

Swift is a guy that scares me personally especially in the 1st round, will be interesting to see how they use their backs in the passing game. 

Reportedly Henderson/Akers have split carries in camp and McVay said he views it as a 1A/1B type of RB room.

[Sad People]

Should King Henry be on this list? A lot of times I see him in the middle of the 1st and he hard to pass up on

[BayRaider]

6 minutes ago, mattyice0401 said:

Should King Henry be on this list? A lot of times I see him in the middle of the 1st and he hard to pass up on

In full PPR he falls to 1.12 a lot, and sometimes I take him there. In Half PPR, I have no problem taking him as early as 1.5. I like McCaffrey, Taylor, Jefferson, and Najee all more than him in Half PPR. 

[Sad People]

Just now, BayRaider said:

In full PPR he falls to 1.12 a lot, and sometimes I take him there. In Half PPR, I have no problem taking him as early as 1.5. I like McCaffrey, Taylor, Jefferson, and Najee all more than him in Half PPR. 

Ive never owned him in a league so I might be on this sinking ship If he falls from fantasy greatness

[Forge]

Generally speaking I don't have a "do not draft" guys because for the most part, even with guys I'm super bearish on there is a point where the value just makes sense. Instead, I have a list of guys that I know that I'll probably have 0 shares on this year because I probably rank them a full round lower than where they are going. Doesn't mean that I don't think that they'll be awesome, just means that I don't think that they'll be value efficient. Also, please note that I'm mostly going off consensus rankings at draftpros. Individual ADP can vary pretty wildly by site. 

1. Deebo Samuel. Some places have him as a top 5 receiver and a top 20 pick. Hell, on ESPN his average pick is 13 which is the 11th highest.  I'm not that bullish on him. I think the niners offense will be very run heavy (and he will not be running as much), I think statistically he's due for some regression (he had a historically great run after the catch season last year and he's not a red zone guy), and I think Aiyuk is going to break out. He also has a pretty extended injury history which right now is not baked into his ADP, and that's a risk.  I tend to avoid guys who have historically great seasons in some context the following year because natural regression, and given additional factors mentioned, this is a pretty easy one for me to avoid (for those wondering why Kupp wouldn't be in consideration here, his season was so good that if he regressed 100 points, he'd still finish as WR1 in some leagues...Kupp can regress and I think you're still likely to get a top 3-5 WR...I think there's a reasonable chance that Deebo finishes outside of the WR top ten). 

2. Mark Andrews. Generally speaking I just don't like risking a pick this high on a tight end. I'm a 0 TE guy, so my style of play is partially to blame for this decision. Andrews is awesome. Top 3 TE in the league. Baltimore has no receivers, so on the surface he should get a ton of target shares. But here's the thing...like George Kittle circa 2018 when he shred the league with Nick Mullens,  I'm pretty concerned about how he crushed it with a backup quarterback. This split really bothers me - 5.3 rec, 67.6 yds, .4 td / g compared to 8.6 rec, 110 yards, .8 td /g. The former is what he did with Lamar early in the year, the latter is what he did with Huntley at the end of the year. And yes, you can bring up the lack of receiving options for the Ravens, but here's the thing, it wasn't all that different last year because Batemen didn't come back until week 6 and Sammy Watkins wasn't a thing. It was basically Andrews and Hollywood. The two years before last season? 4.2 rec/g, 53.6 yd / g, .6 td / g. This is still a Greg Roman running led attack.  He's going as a top 25 pick nearly everywhere in ppr. This is insane to me. There is too much evidence that he's not going to be worth anything near that and way too  He's going 20+ picks before Darren Waller. Guys you can get in range are Fournette, Barkley, AJ Brown, etc. 

3. David Montgomery, Antonio Gibson, Josh Jacobs (you can include James Connor in this list as well as he actually kicks off this tier as the RB before Montgomery) - Every year there is a dead spot for running backs where you prefer the next tier of guys and this is that area (With the exception of Cam Akers who is also being drafted around this tier). These guys are going around your RB17 - 20, and they are going in the top 50 overall (In Mongtomery's case, he's pretty much an across the board top 40 pick in PPR and Connor is going as a top 30 pick at ESPN). No good. Use this pick on another position in the area. WRs going in this area are Waddle, Scary Terry, Diontae and DJ Moore. All far superior values. Kittle and Waller are also going in this area. I'm not sure Montgomery is a clear cut workhorse #1 for Chicago, which may end up with the worst offense in football regardless. I have no reason to believe that Gibson or Jacobs are getting substantial passing work and Gibson has a tendency to put the ball on the ground and get hurt. The next four running backs by ADP after these guys are Etienne, Elijah Mitchell, JK Dobbins and Breece Hall, each of whom I'd much, much rather have. If you pick the receiver and miss out on those 4, the next guys up would be CEH, AJ Dillon and Miles Sanders, none of whom I feel worse about than these three/four if we are being honest.

*****Note that there has been some movement in this tier and this is becoming a lot more condensed. I'm seeing Gibson dropping down quite a bit and guys like Hall move ahead of him. 

4. Javonte Williams - This is simple. If he's really splitting time / carries with Melvin Gordon, he's simply not worth a top 25 pick overall. I don't think that it's that controversial. In a split backfield, he shouldn't be going ahead of Barkley, Fournette or even Chubb. ESPN has him at RB12. Too much risk for me that high until I know what that backfield really looks like. I know that Gordon got nicked up in practice or something the other day, but I haven't heard anything about a long term issue. I didn't group him in with the last tier just because there is at least legit upside here. I'm going to have 0 shares of any of those guys. There's a world where other people get nervous about Williams' share and he drops from 21 to 29 and I'm on my third pick at 29 and I would "reach" for him because I know he won't be there when it comes back around. 

5. Chris Godwin - Obviously, a lot of this is injury related. I don't think that Tampa is going to press him into action and I think it's weird that on average he's going as overall player 55-60? Like, that seems high for a guy we are unsure of health wise. ESPN has him overall 54 in PPR, with an average pick of 68, but that's still 20 picks higher than Adam Thielen and Allen Robinson? That just seems off. Obviously he's going to give you WR1 production by the middle of the season, but I don't know if this discount in pick is good enough to wait several weeks of the season. Hopkins is going around pick 100. 

6. Top 100 D/ST - The bills special teams is going as a top 70 pick in ESPN and Yahoo...Wut? ESPN has the Packers and Saints also in the top 100, while Yahoo includes Tampa, SF, LAR  and Indy as top 100 picks. Don't do that. 

[Forge]

On 8/1/2022 at 1:22 PM, 101Raider said:

I actally like both Swift,  Conner and Akers a lot. Part of the reason I'm thinking about going 1st round WR this year.  Agree on all of the WRs.

Every year I tell myself I'm really considering this, and every year I inevitably go RB / RB and sometimes even RB / RB / RB depending on who falls in the third round lol. 

I think it's just too easy to get consistent week in, week out production from receivers later in the draft and I think I have a better shot at finding wide receivers who will outplay their ADP.  I think its much harder to predict any sort of consistent, good production from a running back later on. I think that's more luck dependent, tbh.

My main money league in a superflex league, so there's a very real shot that my first 4 picks are 2 running backs and 2 quarterbacks. If i have pick 5 to start, that means I could take three straight wrs at 53, 68 and 77 and end up with a receiver group consisting of 3 of these guys: Courtland Sutton, Allen Robinson, Brandin cooks, Adam Thielen, Hollywood Brown. Then I come back at 92 and 101 and take another running back a long term WR investment like Hopkins / Godwin maybe (Godwin is going weirdly high on ESPN, not sure what that is about, but he's going closer to 100 on Yahoo) or take another guy I like in Mooney. I am 100% okay with that receiver group being part of a very competitive team. 

I just like that so much more than going wr early and taking a swing on the running backs in that range because I feel pretty good about getting top 20ish production out of two of those wide receivers week in week out (especially if you're good at the matchup game) 

[BayRaider]

Watson and Tonyan off the pup list. 

Glad I scooped as much of Watson as I could in the 15th Round. He’s gonna shoot back up to a 10th Rounder. Watson is way too talented to let Doubs or Lazard take his job for long. 

[Hunter2_1]

There's no way I can bring myself to draft Kupp in the first 8 or so picks. You're going to take someone in that range who you know, pretty much for a fact, will regress from the previous season. Will probably still be great, but that seems a weird one to me.

I was thinking Henry too. I drafted him 2nd overall last season, and obviously he gets crocked. Is this now a thing with him? We need to see. Not sure I want that risk.

CMC and Saquon I will probably pass over. Made of brittle, dried, century old ply-wood.

[squire12]

2 hours ago, Hunter2_1 said:

There's no way I can bring myself to draft Kupp in the first 8 or so picks. You're going to take someone in that range who you know, pretty much for a fact, will regress from the previous season. Will probably still be great, but that seems a weird one to me.

Agree Kupp likely will regress.  Question is how much? 20% drop would still  put him as the #2 scoring  non QB in 2021

[Hunter2_1]

24 minutes ago, squire12 said:

Agree Kupp likely will regress.  Question is how much? 20% drop would still  put him as the #2 scoring  non QB in 2021

Yeah, I personally think it’s over 20%, but at the same time I walk away with Kupp in R1, I won’t be mad. I’m really struggling with ranking r1 players this year 

[squire12]

7 hours ago, Hunter2_1 said:

Yeah, I personally think it’s over 20%, but at the same time I walk away with Kupp in R1, I won’t be mad. I’m really struggling with ranking r1 players this year 

so if you are thinking a 30% reduction, that still is 100 rec for 1200 and 10 TD's.   around 280-290 points.  That is a pretty high floor.   If other players see even a 10% reduction ... Taylor, Adams, Ekeler, Deebo ..... Kupp is still a pretty safe round 1 selection.  

[Art_Vandalay]

On 8/10/2022 at 5:16 PM, mattyice0401 said:

Should King Henry be on this list? A lot of times I see him in the middle of the 1st and he hard to pass up on

28yo with all that mileage, I'd probably feel like I had to take him if he dropped to 1.09. But I wouldn't feel good about it, and I'd definitely take another RB in Rd 2.

[Hunter2_1]

12 hours ago, squire12 said:

so if you are thinking a 30% reduction, that still is 100 rec for 1200 and 10 TD's.   around 280-290 points.  That is a pretty high floor.   If other players see even a 10% reduction ... Taylor, Adams, Ekeler, Deebo ..... Kupp is still a pretty safe round 1 selection.  

Yeah, I'd say about that. If healthy. That's another slight question I have, how many full seasons has he put together? Maybe he stacks two in a row.

Like I said though, If I do walk away with something like Kupp and a high 2nd rounder, I'll be happy