No Grade

I’ll begin with myself and then go alphabetically from there. Obviously I’m biased here because if I thought there was a better option than Johnson, I wouldn’t be keeping him. So think of this as more of an explanation/defense of my decision.

Last year, I drafted Derrius Guice in the 16th round of the draft. He had torn his ACL in the first preseason game but I knew our keeper rules were expanding after last year’s draft and figured I’d stash him on my IR for the season and I’d have the Redskins’ bellcow back and it would only cost me my last pick of the 2019 draft.

It’s not the first time I’ve used this strategy. In 2015 I drafted Jordy Nelson in the 14th round after he tore his ACL in the preseason, despite keepers only holding a max value of an 8th round pick. I kept him in 2016 and though he never returned to his pre-injury self, he did produce more than 900 yards and 12 touchdowns in 13 regular season fantasy games that season, finishing just shy of 200 points, the most of any player on my team while in my starting lineup.

Ever since our draft last September, the plan has been Guice in the 16th round. I have the first pick in our 12-team 16-round draft, so he was going to be the final pick of the draft this year! I was pumped. But I had to pump the brakes heading into this preseason with his status in the air. Even after he had a strong outing against the Falcons in the Redskins’ dress rehearsal, I had to face the fact that Adrian Peterson is back with the team on a 2-year contract and a healthy Chris Thompson will be in for third down situations. Even in the 16th round, the value wasn’t want I needed from my keeper.

I determined that my next best options were Kerryon Johnson in the 8th, Tyler Boyd in the 8th, or Marlon Mack in the 10th. Boyd was quickly dismissed. He wasn’t sniffing my top 20 receivers list while both Johnson and Mack closer to 10 than to 20 on my running back rankings.

If you read The Sportsballers’ consensus rankings, you know that I have Johnson and Mack ranked very close together. In fact, I had Mack ranked as my #11 running back and Johnson sat two spots lower on my personal rankings, despite our consensus rankings placing Johnson five spots ahead.

We published those rankings hours before Andrew Luck announced his retirement from the NFL and I had to rethink Mack’s upside. While the Colts may have to rely on him more now, it also means that defenses may key in on him more. As I reconsidered my rankings, I felt Johnson was the safer option and, even though Mack would have given me two additional rounds of value, I felt more comfortable with Kerryon Johnson as my keeper.

B-

This is a tough one for me. The Sportsballers have Adams ranked as the #2 wide receiver in our consensus rankings despite me being the only one who has him ranked higher than 3rd. But I’m not sure I agree with Stephen’s decision here.

Certainly Adams is a top end wide receiver, and that is hard to replicate. But even harder to replicate is top-end running back production. Nick Chubb is the first guy out of the top 5 running backs on many consensus lists and Stephen could have had him for an 8th rounder. (For the record, I could have had him as an 11th round keeper this year if I hadn’t dropped him just before the Browns traded Carlos Hyde to Jacksonville.)

Stephen is technically getting Adams in exchange for the second to last pick of the 2nd round. But the question becomes, what will he do with his second overall pick? Certainly he could take Julio Jones, who he could have kept in exchange for that second overall pick, effectively giving him two keepers. But now he’s using a modified zero-RB strategy where he’ll be lucky to have a top-20, much less top-15, running back fall to his early third round spot considering six of the league’s keepers are running backs this year.

A-

Evan didn’t really have very many good keeper options this year. He could have kept Austin Ekeler in the 8th and gambled Melvin Gordon won’t play this year and that Ekeler will be the guy in Los Angeles. But even if Gordon doesn’t show up, it’s unlikely that backfield will be anything but a timeshare and, if any back does emerge, my money is on Justin Jackson.

He could have kept Tarik Cohen in the 7th round, which isn’t bad value at all. But David Montgomery isn’t going to let Cohen eat into any work between the tackles or at the goal line, so Cohen’s excellent production in the passing game doesn’t really put him over Thielen, for me, especially with only an extra seven picks of value.

For reasons that I can’t explain, I’m a bit nervous of Thielen this year. But it’s certainly not a terrible move to gamble on him continuing to produce as Kirk Cousins moves into his second year in that system. This isn’t my favorite keeper to put my stamp of approval on, but I think Evan should feel better about him than he’s let on in our group chats.

A+

This might be the best keeper selection in our league, and the one I’m most upset about considering I hold the top pick in the draft and was absolutely ready to snatch him up three seconds after 7 p.m. tomorrow night.

Anthony had a couple other reasonable options. Damien Williams is one of The Sportsballers’ top 15 running backs and would have only cost Ant an 8th round draft pick. He also had Robby Anderson, who has caught all five of his preseason targets from Sam Darnold and averaged more than 18 yards a reception while doing it, available as a 10th round keeper and Jared Goff available in the 13th round.

Even from an unbiased perspective, I don’t think I would have argued too much if he had taken any of those three players. But CMC was clearly the right move here. No matter how you stack the top three running backs in this year’s draft, they all are roughly even on consensus boards and Anthony is getting him cheaper than Saquon and Kamara are for their owners.

A

Speaking of Saquon, nobody was passing him up last year either when he was the first player off the board. He was great for William last year and figured to be even better as the Giants offensive line is better now than it was at the beginning of last season and their passing game figured to be better, too, which should prevent defenses from stacking the box on every play.

With William picking in the back half of the first round, this was the only move he could make. If I had to guess at any other guys he considered, I have to figure it was Todd Gurley in the 2nd round and Robert Woods in the 7th.

Gurley wouldn’t have made much sense considering he’d go 9 picks after William is currently getting Saquon and some people don’t even have him within 9 running backs of Saquon on their RB rankings. Woods is a little harder to pass up on because of how much later in the draft William could have gotten him. But as I already said, Saquon was the only move to make here.

A

Back in 2014, William Battle drafted Hopkins with the first pick of the 12th round in the 2nd annual AFL draft. Thanks to ESPN deleting all historical data there’s no way for me to go back and recall exactly how it happened, but somehow Brandon Saunders wound up with Hopkins. Danny had Odell Beckham Jr. and, Brandon being a Giants fan, made a solid one-for-one trade to get Hopkins.

It was the second even trade of this magnitude that Danny had been a part of in our league’s young history. The first was when he traded Jordy Nelson to me for Antonio Brown immediately after our league’s first ever draft.

Now, four years after keeping him in the 8th round, and three years after again keeping him in the 8th round (I think we didn’t discuss decreasing the value of keepers each year until it was too late to apply it to the 2016 draft), Hopkins is still providing excellent value.

Clearly Hopkins is a better keeper than Michael Thomas in the 1st round. Thomas is a stud but nobody has him ranked ahead of Hopkins. The only player Danny had control of who would have provided value as a keeper was Duke Johnson in the 7th round now that Lamar Miller is out for the year and Johnson figures to be the lead back in Houston. I’m still taking D-Hop in the 2nd over him all day.

B+

Of all the keeper situations in our league this year, Sean’s is probably the one I had the most trouble determining what I would do if I were in his shoes.

Don’t get me wrong, JuJu in the 5th is terrific value. But he also had Aaron Jones (#15 consensus RB by the Sportsballers) as an 11th round keeper, Kenny Golladay (#19 consensus WR) as a 12th round keeper, and Jared Cook (#6 consensus TE) as a 16th round keeper.

If this were my team, I would have struggled to reach a decision. I likely would have, grudgingly, eliminated Cook, seeing as he is a tight end. But Cook had an amazing 2018 campaign as Derek Carr’s only legitimate target in Oakland. He is going to be more productive in New Orleans with Drew Brees throwing the ball and Michael Thomas taking attention away from the middle of the field.

While the 12th round cost is tough to turn down, I think I ultimately would have eliminated Kenny Golladay as well because JuJu is a better and safer enough option to make up for those 7 rounds of value I’d be giving up.

But when it comes down to it, I have to say that Aaron Jones would have been my decision. Sean will pick twice in the first 16 picks of the draft either way, but if I can choose between having two top 15 RBs and one top 15 WR and the reverse, I’m taking the former every day. As it stands now, I don’t see him having any shot at all of getting two running backs of that caliber where he’s picking. It’s one thing when you’re talking about DeAndre Hopkins or even Julio Jones. I have JuJu as my #4 wide receiver but there’s a big enough gap there that I would’ve taken Jones in the 11th and hoped that JuJu falls to me in the 1st round, which isn’t out of the realm of possibilities for Sean.

A+

Without a doubt, Will had to have spent no more than 30 seconds thinking about his decision, and that’s assuming it took him a whole 29 seconds to read through his choices.

Dalvin Cook in the 1st? No. T.Y. Hilton in the 2nd? No, even before Luck retired. Devonta Freeman in the 2nd? No.

We’re talking about a consensus top 10 running back behind a very good offensive line that is going to need to run the ball to open up the field for JuJu now that AB isn’t there taking the pressure off. And all he costs is the 164th pick of a 192-pick draft? Yeah, I’ll take that one.

A

Here, finally, is that third member of the big 3 running backs that lead off everybody’s rankings. His cost falls right in between Barkley’s and McCaffrey’s as Eric will get him in exchange for the last pick of the first round.

The only reason Eric may have spent more time on his decision than Will did is because as he got near the bottom of his list of options he had to have considered, just for a moment, Sony Michel in the 9th round.

Michel is one of those guys who pops up on some consensus top 20 lists and just misses the cut on others. As much value as that affords, the gap between the top 3 running backs and just about anybody else in the league is enormous times one hundred. If you have one of those three guys in a keeper league and you’re not keeping him this year, no explanation you offer will convince me you shouldn’t be committed.

A-

The lone quarterback on our keeper list this year, Mahomes was obviously a phenom last year. A year ago, just about everybody in the league, except for Adam himself, thought he was crazy to take him in the 9th round, even though he was the 12th quarterback off the board. That laughter very quickly changed to dumbstruck silence, as we had to watch Mahomes finish among the top 5 quarterbacks nine times in the regular season, including four #1 scoring weeks at the position. He helped bring Adam back from a 2-7 start to a .500 regular season.

If you haven’t already determined my stance on keepers from the first nine opinions I’ve given, I generally prefer running backs unless I have one of the two best receivers or maybe one of the next two at a great value. I’d rarely, if ever, considering keeping a quarterback.

That said, I can’t fault Adam for taking Mahomes over any of his running back options. Even with the regression that Mahomes figures to be unable to avoid (famous last words, right?), I’d go with him over Ezekiel Elliott or Leonard Fournette, both of whom would cost 1st round draft picks. Fournette is barely among my top 20 running backs and who knows whether Elliott will even play this year.

Mahomes wouldn’t have been my pick for Adam. I would have gone with Chris Godwin, who Adam had as an 8th round keeper as an undrafted free agent from a season ago. He was my #18 wide receiver when The Sportsballers published our consensus rankings last week and he’s climbed my board just a bit since then. That said, I don’t think it’s a stretch to argue the top quarterback in all the land over a borderline top 15 receiver when the difference in value is only five picks.

B

A year after getting burned, keeping Bell in the 1st round just to see his absence extend, week-by-week, through the entire season, Andrew is back at it again.

I’m sure Brandin Cooks in the 3rd gave him pause. I’m sure he briefly considered Adrian Peterson in the 7th until Guice earned a spot in the D.C. timeshare with his performance in Week 3 of the preseason.

Ultimately, I’m not surprised Andrew took Bell over both of those guys. I mighthave gone with Cooks, but knowing my propensity to lean toward running back in these situations, I probably would have gone with Bell as well.

But Andrew is picking 7th in the draft. There’s a 50/50 chance that Bell will be there when he picks. There’s also a 50/50 chance that Danny takes him with the sixth pick in the draft if Andrew doesn’t keep him. Obviously, if Andrew wants Bell that badly, keeping him is the right move.

But if I’d been in Andrew’s shoes, I would have left Bell out there, gambled that I might get him and, if not, I’ll get the guy I have ranked right behind him, and I would have kept George Kittle in the 8th round. Kittle is only in his third year in the league and is coming off a season in which he set the record for receiving yards. He was a fantasy best despite only scoring five times all season (hard to believe, considering so many of his yards came after the catch, that he didn’t take more to the house). He may not hit the same yardage this season, but I have to believe the touchdowns will go up and that he’ll be more than worth the 8th round keeper cost when I can easily get a player similar to Bell in the middle of the 1st round.

B-

For the first time since trading for him back in 2014, Brandon will not be keeping Odell Beckham Jr., who would have cost the same 2nd rounder DeAndre Hopkins is costing Danny this year.

Brandon made the right decision, in my opinion, with what he had on his roster. But that’s because he didn’t really have any other options. The only other player on his list that is really worth his cost is Mike Evans in the 2nd round, but Brandon will have the 2nd pick of the 2nd round and Evans very well may still be there. If not, there’ll be somebody in close proximity to him.

Moore isn’t high on a lot of draft boards. He’s the only keeper in our league who is not a top-20 player at his position in fantasy rankings. But he’s a fun player to watch. He has speed and good hands and if Cam Newton’s new throwing motion works for him this season, Moore is the guy who will benefit most from it as he tries to make a big leap in his second year as a pro.

That said, I would have at least given strong consideration to spending $50 (one quarter) of my FAAB to pick up Cooper Kupp and keep him in the 7th round. It’s tough to give up that much FAAB, but Brandon only spent $96 of his free agent budget last year and $105 of his 2017 budget, the year we introduced FAAB to the AFL. So he has yet to encroach on the $150 mark and I think it would have been worth it to get a top-20 receiver who holds less of a “boom-or-bust” concern.