According to FootballGuys, Andrew’s is the only team with less than a 50-percent chance of making the playoffs with great roster management. It doesn’t mean his season is shot, but he’s got his work cut out for him.

He kept Le’Veon Bell from last year’s campaign in which he fell just seven points short of a second consecutive title game appearance. But Bell cost him his first round pick.

Andrew found some other solid starters, and I like his two starting WRs in Stefon Diggs and Brandin Cooks, but he doesn’t have much depth. Matt Ryan and Greg Olsen are his only players at their positions and 20 players at each position were drafted in our league. It’s going to take some strong waiver wire scouring to earn a third straight playoff birth.

I think Brandon’s team is better than the FootballGuys projection. I’m not convinced his is a playoff team, but I think they were a little hard on him because Carson Wentz is the only quarterback on his roster and there is a very real possibility that he will not be able to play in the Eagles’ season opener.

Now, as of Sunday night, despite media reports saying Foles was the confirmed week 1 starter, Doug Pederson would not rule Wentz out of the NFL kickoff game against Atlanta. So we’ll see how things work out there. Brandon drafted Andrew Luck last year and he never played, but at least he took Matthew Stafford two rounds later in 2017. Brandon may be in a bind if Wentz isn’t cleared by Thursday with a shortage of starter-worthy quarterbacks on the wire.

Moving on from the quarterback position, Brandon has a lot of unexciting names on his team, but I’m generally okay with picking guys with a low ceiling as long as they have a consistent and moderately high floor. My biggest issue is that his roster is full of guys with injury histories so it’ll be a tall task for his team to make it through the season without losing some key players along the way. Hopefully, at the very least, his fourth round keeper Odell Beckham Jr. will remain healthy for him.

FootballGuys says Adam has a slightly higher chance of making the playoffs than Brandon with good in-season management, so he got the tiebreaker here. His team name this year, Flat Earth, seems oddly appropriate considering I think his team will fall flat despite his trash talk.

Adam kept Leonard Fournette in the second round as the 11th running back off the board, with three more running back keepers protected through the fourth. That’s good but not great value in a league that allows one keeper at the round they were drafted the year before (with a penalty for continuing to keep the same player in subsequent seasons). 

His only quarterback is Patrick Mahomes, the 12th quarterback taken in our draft. While Mahomes has had a solid preseason, it is a big risk to trust a guy who is essentially a rookie with no other option on your team, especially when there were other established passers he could have taken at that point in the draft.

According to FantasyPros, tight end and kicker are Adam’s only team strengths (defined as positions in which the team ranks in the top four in our league). With Zach Ertz, Austin Hooper, and Greg Zuerlein, I don’t disagree. Unfortunately, Adam ranks in the bottom five at the defensive, running back, flex, and quarterback positions. While it may be possible to address one or two of those through waivers, it’s unlikely he’ll be able to address all four weaknesses in time to make a playoff push.

Tom Brady was Anthony’s keeper this year. He cost a 5th round selection and wound up being the 4th quarterback taken, which is exactly where I had him ranked on my quarterback rankings published a little more than a week ago. So basically that was a wash; not the worst result, but certainly not what you’re looking for in a keeper.

With Brady, Delanie Walker, the Jaguars defense, and Stephen Gostkowski, plus Jared Goff, Eric Ebron, the Rams defense, and Adam Vinatieri on his bench, Anthony’s team is ranked in the top four of the league at four positions.

The problem is he’s a little weak at wide receiver, very weak at running back, and has absolutely no depth at those two, very important positions, which is why FantasyPros also ranked Anthony’s draft at number 9 in the AFL.

Sean has had a rough two years since re-joining the league. In the first two seasons of this league’s existence, Sean went a combined 13-13 with a playoff appearance. Since leaving and subsequently taking over a former member’s team in 2016, Sean has gone 5-23.

In his first year back, he kept Stefon Diggs in the 8th round. In 2017, Sean felt that none of his keeper options were worth their cost (Diggs would have been a 6th round keeper and wound up being selected by Andrew in the 5th) and so didn’t keep anybody. With Diggs going in the 2nd round this year, I’m sure Sean wishes he could’ve had Diggs for the 4th round selection it would have cost him.

Moving on, this year Sean kept Larry Fitzgerald in the 4th round as the 20th receiver off the board, which is maybe just a bit better than his value. He has a decent roster and I like his depth. A lot rides on his second round pick LeSean McCoy. Will he stay out of legal trouble long enough to play the whole season? Will McCoy’s volume as the only offensive weapon in Buffalo translate to fantasy success or will stacked boxes keep him from returning any value? The answers to those questions will likely determine weather Sean can approach or surpass a .500 season.

Stephen is this year’s new league member and he wasted no time spewing some serious trash talk into our league chat. Ranked squarely in the middle of our league, he’s got an uphill battle, but at least the team he took over wasn’t as helpless as the one Sean took over two years ago.

Stephen kept Ezekiel Elliott at the back end of the 1st round as the 7th running back off the board with Johnson and Gurley both being kept in the 4th round. That’s really good value when you’re talking about a consensus top four running back with RB1 potential.

Stephen was probably penalized by FootballGuys for having both Mark Ingram and Julian Edelman on his roster in addition to Andrew Luck and Josh Gordon, two very talented guys but who have a lot of questions that still need to be answered on the field.

In general, I like Stephen’s roster, and of these first six rankings, I agree with FootballGuys that he has the best chance to make the playoffs. But he definitely took quite a few risks in this draft and if any one of them doesn’t pan out, it will have the potential to completely derail his season.

Will is the first of the league members named so far who has at least a 50-percent chance of making the playoffs with good in-season management. And while FootballGuys ranks William 6th in our league, FantasyPros says he actually had the third best draft.

Devonta Freeman was his keeper in the fourth round. He also snagged Dalvin Cook and my tight end target, Jimmy Graham. He may have reached a bit for Ben Roethlisberger in the 7th round as the seventh quarterback off the board (Eric had Ben ranked highest of The Sportsballers at QB11), but FootballGuys likes him more than we do and Will also grabbed Jimmy Garoppolo, which will give him some flexibility at the position.

I’m just not in love with the rest of Will’s roster. He has a lot of wide receiver depth, but T.Y. Hilton is by far the best one on his roster. Hilton has been rather boom-or-bust during his career and we’re still not entirely sure how effective he and Andrew Luck will be this season. The good news is wide receiver tends to be the easiest position to shore up in-season via the waiver wire.

While FootballGuys gave me the slight edge with average or good in-season management, great in-season management will give Will the edge and FantasyPros says my draft was just a bit worse than Will’s.

I kept Antonio Brown with the 11th pick in the first round, making him the fourth receiver off the board. I may have had one or two other guys who would’ve been better value based keepers, but Brown has been our league’s second highest scoring wide receiver in each of the past three seasons and in four out of the five seasons we have completed. In those four years, the top-scoring receiver has never been the same player twice, and I value the “sure thing.” Brown is the closest you can get to that.

I have some questions marks on my team. Deshaun Watson still has to prove himself after last year’s ACL tear and while I like Dak Prescott more than some other options, I wish Stephen hadn’t snatched up Alex Smith just before he fell to me.

My proudest pick was taking Derrius Guice in the 16th round. He immediately went to my IR. If he’s healthy next year, I’ll have the option to keep him in the 16th round of the 2019 draft.

It will be interesting to see how Adam Thielen does this year. He suffered a leg injury this week but should be okay. Reports out of Minnesota are saying that Kirk Cousins (who is also on Evan’s roster) has a better rapport with Stefon Diggs than with Thielen.

No matter, as the last keeper selected in our draft this year, Evan got great value for Thielen in the 8th round as the 39th wide receiver off the board. Considering The Sportsballers consensus rank had Thielen as WR10, this was almost certainly the best value pick in the draft, keeper or not.

In general, I like Evan’s team. After an 11-2 regular season in 2013, Evan has averaged fewer than six wins per season. But this looks like a team that could get him back over .500 and quite possibly into the playoffs.

FantasyPros says Evan’s weaknesses lie with the quarterback and wide receiver positions. I tend to be more concerned with his running back situation since those other two can usually be addressed quite easily through waivers. After Kareem Hunt, Evan’s next best option at running back is Royce Freeman, and he still has to earn the starting job from Devontae Booker in Denver. I have no doubt it will happen eventually, but I don’t have much faith in Denver’s coaching staff so who knows how long it will take for them to come to their senses?

Sometimes I feel silly grading Danny’s drafts. He has actually written for the FootballGuys website covering the Bills in the past and he has won our league three times in five years (Eric and I hold the other two league titles and mine was, by all accounts, rather fluky).

There are some players Danny took who I don’t love like Kenyan Drake, Evan Engram, and Devontae Booker. But he was able to get David Njoku, who I do love, two top wide receivers in Julio Jones and his 4th round keeper DeAndre Hopkins, and Cam Newton, a lock as a top five fantasy quarterback as long as he stays healthy.

FantasyPros says Danny had the best draft of anybody in our league.  There is no doubt Danny is a strong fantasy football player and he stands as definitive proof that fantasy football should be considered a skill competition more so than a luck-based competition.

By winning the consolation bracket last year, William earned the right for first pick of where in the rotation he would draft. He decided to pick first and wound up with some great value. He took Saquon Barkley with the first pick to compliment his 4th round keeper, Todd Gurley.

I was surprised by his decision to take Russell Wilson instead of Aaron Rodgers with the first pick of the third round (Rodgers would eventually be selected with the second pick of the fifth round). Despite sacrificing, in my opinion, a lot of value, William wound up with a strong team that could clinch him a fifth straight year of .500 or better ball and his first playoff appearance since losing the championship (to me) in 2015.

According to FantasyPros, William will need to address the tight end and wide receiver positions to keep his team near the top of the league. I have no problem with Kyle Rudolph as his tight end, but I do agree that his wide receiver corps could use some work.

Yes, that’s right. With just average in-season management, FootballGuys says Eric has an 87.75-percent chance of making the playoffs. With good in-season management the website says his chances rise to 96.75 percent. And with great management, they say he has a 99-percent chance of making the playoffs.

The last time I saw similar numbers, Eric went 12-2 with an incredible regular season breakdown of 124-30 back in 2016. He won the league championship, scoring 185 points in the title game, a total I don’t expect we’ll ever see again unless we add a third wide receiver to the starting lineup.

That season, Eric had our league’s top scorer at all four offensive positions – Aaron Rodgers, David Johnson, Mike Evans, and Travis Kelce. David Johnson was his keeper in the 4th round this year. He drafted Kelce in the 2nd round and Rodgers in the 5th round. And if there’s one of those four players from his championship season he shouldn’t be upset about not having, it is Mike Evans.

With Alvin Kamara, Tyreek Hill, Corey Davis, strong bench players, and what should be an improved Chargers defense, Eric has to be the favorite to finish the regular season with the best record in the league. Obviously the playoffs can be unpredictable, but as the percentages indicate, it would be a huge disappointment to say the least if Eric misses the postseason altogether.