numberFire's Round 5 Mock Draft

(Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, and Round 4 can be found by clicking the links.)

Round five is where many of the teams start to round out their starting lineups, with many starting to draft by positional need. That typically means that round five is also where you start to see a lot of risky players go off the board; wasting a fifth round pick is much easier to swallow than a second or third on a "reach" guy. You'll see some injury-prone guys here (hey, Mr. Vick and Mr. Manning) as well as some young, unproven guys who may or may not bust out (hello to you too, Mr. Murray and Mr. Green). But who had the best picks? Here's the fifth round in all its glory.

Round Five

My Match – DeMarco Murray
Just based on positional need, I should have taken a wide receiver or a tight end, and quickly. Falling into the trap of "positional need" vs. "best player available" often kills fantasy teams, however. I was staring at a board of a bunch of receivers I would group together, with the last starting-caliber RB on my board just over there in the corner, hanging out. Since we're playing with an RB/WR/TE flex position that would easily allow me to start three solid backs, DeMarco Murray was the easy choice. Murray is #50 on numberFire's draft board, but I believe that to be undervalued just a bit based on his standing within the general fantasy community: he's going as high as #11 in many mock drafts. While he might not be a top three back, you're not going to get much better than the clear #1 in a system (which Murray is in Dallas) in the fifth round for RB's.

Blazing Glory – Michael Vick
Are you a fan of watching every game for your starting quarterback while saying a silent prayer to Saint Aurelius of Riditio? Then Vick's the guy for you! Of course he has that history of injuries, and it might not hurt to get a Roethlisberger or Schaub in the next couple rounds as protection. But if the man gets on fire and stays healthy, then you just picked up a potential league-winner in the fifth round. Fellow drafter Matt called Vick his "steal of the draft" with good reason, our own Keith Goldner thinks Vick has the "most upside of any QB in the league", even more than second-round selection Cam Newton. In every season where he's started more than 5 games, Vick's had more than the 251 fantasy points numberFire estimates for him this year.

Burned Out – Jason Witten
No, I'm not going to penalize Jeremy for an injury that happened long after this draft occurred. Even so, the end of the fourth round is much too high to pick a player like Witten, even with his overall numberFire rank being at #39. Much like we discussed in the fourth round in this spot with Tony Gonzalez, the player directly above Witten in our tight end rankings, most of the tight ends after the top two won't be coming off the boards until the sixth or seventh rounds. And even so, I'm not so sure that Witten will be one of them, even before his injury - most current mock drafts have him at the beginning of the seventh round, and ESPN's top 300 currently has him at #93 overall, or 7^th among tight ends. While I agree with nF that #93 is way too low, Jeremy could have easily waited until the next round, and maybe even the seventh, for Witten.

Potential Wildfire – A.J. Green
Since I've touched on Steve Johnson and Jonathan Stewart in a past article, let's take a look at another guy I think could have a breakout year in A.J. Green. With the normal caveat about being wary of sophomore receivers, his 153 fantasy points from last year are certainly no joke. numberFire compares him with 99% similarity to 2006 Darrell Jackson, who had 10 TDs that season for the Seahawks, and 2011 Julio Jones, the other rookie receiver who is likely to be a top-six rounds fantasy pick. With another season to work with the Red Rocket, I expect him to take another leap forward. He's got the talent - there's a reason the Bengals selected him #4 overall in last year's draft. He's a good boom or bust candidate and certainly worth the risk at the end of the fifth round.