numberFire's Round 1 Mock Draft
August might just be the most boring month on the calendar. The most excellent holiday in August is National Creamsicle Day, and while I love me some creamsicles, it’s unfortunately never going to pass Thanksgiving or St. Patrick’s Day or Paul Bunyan Day in the grand scheme of things.
However, August has one saving grace: football. No, I don’t mean preseason football, although I’m sure the Mike Kafka vs. Trent Edwards backup quarterback battle in Philadelphia will be positively riveting. No, I don’t mean that European style of football either, where the players obviously care about the Olympics so much that Honduras can knock out Spain before 24 hours is up. I mean fantasy-style of course.
If you couldn’t tell already by looking at the site, we here at numberFire like fantasy football. Maybe “like†isn’t a strong enough word. I prefer “are obsessed with a burning passion equal to the lava of Eyjafjallajokullâ€. So, for eternal bragging rights until the Mayan calendar ends, numberFire decided to stage its own mock draft. We’re rolling it out, one round at a time for the first eight rounds, followed by a more condensed version closer to the end. Here are my opinions on how it turned out, starting with round one.
Round One
| First Round | ||
|---|---|---|
| Pick | GM | Selection |
| 1 | Terence, Intern | Arian Foster |
| 2 | Andrew, Intern | Ray Rice |
| 3 | Michael, CTO | LeSean McCoy |
| 4 | Zach, Writer | Maurice Jones-Drew |
| 5 | Nik, CEO | Calvin Johnson |
| 6 | Keith, Chief Analyst | Aaron Rodgers |
| 7 | Sean, COO | Adrian Peterson |
| 8 | Matt, Intern | Tom Brady |
| 9 | Jeremy, CTO at Centzy | Drew Brees |
| 10 | Abe, Editor at TDDaily.com | Larry Fitzgerald |
My Match – Maurice Jones-Drew
Selection number four will likely be the pivotal point of any first round this year. In my eyes, there are three possible directions the four spot could take: MJD, Megatron, or the Discount Double Check. (Get ready, it’s football ad season everybody!) The numberFire fantasy draft kit recommends Jones-Drew for a league with standard Yahoo settings, and I fully agree. Especially with many teams going to a running-back-committee approach, finding a stud running back that will get the majority of a workload is a luxury. Let’s put it this way: I’d much rather have my 10th best QB (Tony Romo) than the 10th best running back (Ryan Mathews) this season.
Blazing Glory – Adrian Peterson
In my eyes, there are four clear tiers for running backs at the top of the board. First, you have the vegan and the non-vegan who goes by the vegan-friendly name of Rice. The next tier is McCoy, MJD, and AP. From there, you have Chris Johnson and Steven Jackson, who both have risk involved. Finally, there’s everyone else. Considering the relative weakness of the running backs, I can clearly see the argument for AP going as high as 5. Not that I’m questioning our own fantasy football prophet or the ultimate numberFire stats man, it’s just a steep slope down to that next tier. Keep in mind there are still questions surrounding AP's knee, but at last look he was on pace to play in Week 1. While his current ADP is around 20th overall, Sean potentially got the best and most consistent RB in the league late in the first round.
Burned Out – Larry Fitzgerald
Here are some facts, brought to you by our fine friends in the Arizona Cardinals front office. The current Cardinals "starting quarterback" is Kevin Kolb. It could easily be John Skelton. Quick trivia question: where did Skelton go to school? If you answered Fordham, congrats, you’re an alum or just have an unhealthy strong affinity for Atlantic-10 football. Starting opposite Larry Fitz will be Andre Roberts, most notable for not being Anquan Boldin. The tight end position has been so irrelevant in Arizona for years, might as well say it’s Todd Heap – actually, that’s not a joke, it really is Todd Heap. He even had one touchdown for the Cardinals last season! Give me one particular reason why opposing teams shouldn’t triple-cover Fitzgerald this season, and I’ll buy him as a first round pick. Until then, I’m good.
Potential Wildfire – Drew Brees
Don’t sleep on Drew Brees this year, especially near the end of the first round. Brees has been a top-three rounds fantasy quarterback for the past four or so seasons, and that was before he happened to throw for almost 5,500 yards and 46 touchdowns. Some fun Drew Brees stats: from weeks 9 through 17, Brees had at least two touchdown passes every single game. All season, he only had lower than a 60% completion percentage once..when he plummeted all the way down to 59% against Atlanta in week 16. numberFire projects him to have over 4,500 yards passing once again. And I’m supposed to drop him out of the first round because..he lost Robert Meachem? Take your chances with Brees.
