Welcome to the 2020 Make It Rain Draft Awards! I can’t believe football is really back this week. We shall see how far we make it. I will be your master of ceremonies / roast master.
Let’s start with some draft statistics:
| QBs Drafted: 20 (2019: 22) |
| RBs Drafted: 61 (2019: 63) |
| WRs Drafted: 65 (2019: 65) |
| TEs Drafted: 24 (2019: 18) |
| TEs Drafted by Jim: 5 (2019: 3) |
| First to Draft a QB: Jim (Patrick Mahomes – 3.01) |
| Last to Draft a QB: Rambo (Ryan Tannehill – 12.01) |
| First to Draft a TE: Tim (Travis Kelce – 2.02) |
| Last to Draft a TE: Jeff (T.J. Hockenson – 10.10) |
| Last to Draft a RB: Rambo (Le’Veon Bell – 4.01) |
| Last to Draft a WR: Justin (Tyler Lockett – 4.08) |
Let’s move right onto the awards..
Most Likely To Win a Week While Starting 3 TEs: Jim
Jim’s draft started off normal enough: CMC -> ARob -> Mahomes. Then Jim realized there was just no way that he could have anything resembling a normal team and needed to take drastic action. No Sir. What does this team need? 5 tight ends obviously. Jim (presumably) gets some sort of perverse enjoyment out of struggling to field a full lineup. Jim is going to legitimately start 3 tight ends every week and he may even win one or two of those. I love having Jim in this league, he makes it fun. I greatly look forward to his shit-talk as well.
Team: WashingtonCovidskins
Strengths: TE, QB – I think it would be fair to characterize tight end as a strength here. He only needs 1 of the 5 to be good to prove all the haters wrong. Checkmate dummies. Jim also has the #1 ranked fantasy QB in Mahomes with Josh Allen as backup. Jokes aside, Jim is clearly strong at QB.
Weaknesses: RB, WR – Oops. Only the 2 most important positions in fantasy! I guess if CMC scores 30 points per week that’s like the same as playing 2 RBs that get you 15 each, right? Checkmate again dumbos.
Values: Swift (6.12), A.J. Green (8.12) – Let’s call these potential values. If D’Andre Swift takes over the job or even gets a majority of the work, late 6th is a huge value. If A.J. Green is truly healthy (big if) and if he is still truly elite (big if) then late 8th round would be a steal. Jim unfortunately needs both of these to be true pretty badly.
Reaches: SF (9.01), Justin Tucker (10.12) – Just why? Last year he picked DST and kicker in the 5th and 6th rounds respectively so I guess this is an improvement but…still. An RB or WR of which he had TWO EACH at this point would have been advisable.
Least Likely To Know His Players’ Names: Dad
Team: Football Sage!
Strengths: WR, TE – It is hard to get any better than Kittle at the position. I envy not having to worry about a position everyone (except Jim) struggles with annually. WR looks solid as well. Thielen will be peppered with targets and is due to bounce back in a major way. Amari Cooper is still the de facto #1 WR on one of the league’s hottest offenses. DeVante Parker and Slayton are solid flexes and I like the Mecole Hardman dart throw as well.
Weaknesses: RB – I wouldn’t love having Kareem Hunt as my 2nd RB and the depth behind him is non-existent. Latavius is barely startable and AP is probably cuttable.
Values: Amari Cooper (4.11), Dak (7.02) – A lot of experts seem to be down on Amari Cooper but not much has changed (which is a good thing) for Dallas and he was a WR1 last year. Sure CeeDee Lamb is probably going to be good but I can’t see a rookie flat out invalidating Cooper. Dak was a value too. I have Dak, Russ, and Deshaun Watson pretty close in value and the other 2 QBs went 2 rounds earlier.
Reaches: Adrian Peterson (10.11) – I’m just going to go ahead and assume Dad did not know that AP was cut from Washington a day or 2 before the draft(he is on Detroit now). Probably should not have been drafted period, never mind in the 10th.
Most Likely to Start a Journeyman Tight End: Jeff
Runner-up: Me.
Team: If he dies he dies
Strengths: WR, QB – In a year that seems really deep at WR, Jeff didn’t have to take one in either of the first 2 rounds and still ended up with a very strong WR group. Mike Evans, Ridley, Bobby Woods, Gallup: this group should provide consistency throughout the year. Good job here. Jeff was also able to wait until the 8th round to draft a premium QB. The fact that he was able to solidify the position with another elite passer ensures Jeff even gets to play match-ups week to week. He left himself in a very strong position here.
Weaknesses: TE, RB – Jeff has 2 extremely speculative tight ends. Goedert has been ‘on the edge of breaking out’ for like 5 years and I don’t see it clicking just yet for Hock. Probably going to be a long year of waiver wire hunting for Jeff. RB isn’t a weakness per say since Jeff has 2 very strong starting RBs in Zeke and Conner but 4nette and literal no one behind could be a problem.
Values: Michael Gallup (7.03), Mike Evans (3.03) – Mike Gallup averaged 15th (high end WR2 numbers) in points per game and Jeff got him as the 32nd WR off the board. Evans similarly finished 3rd among WRs and Jeff got him as the 9th WR. There is a bit of risk baked into Evans without Jameis chucking it 50 times a game but still. Evans has gone 6/6 seasons with over 1000 yards and averages 8 touchdowns a season. Seems like a steal that he fell to the 3rd.
Reaches: Fournette (6.10), T.J. Hockenson (10.10) – I don’t hate the Fournette pick since I like the idea of gambling on a potential league winner. However, the more likely case is that he blends into a mediocre mixed role with RoJo and realistically may ride the bench a majority of weeks. Not great for a 6th. I think Hockenson stinks, at least right now. He averaged 5.39 points per game last year which is actually higher than I remember. I think he had 1 or 2 really good games which majorly inflated that average. The Hockenson I remember was a ghost. Tight End is a position that takes a long time to learn in the NFL and I don’t see year 2 being his breakout.
Boringest Team: Brian
Team: Illegal use of hands
Strengths: QB, WR/RB Depth – Lamar averaged nearly SIX more points than the #2 QB by average last year. I am still a bit baffled how Mahomes was the consensus QB1 this year. Taking a QB early isn’t my thing but hard to argue with this pick. It’s weird, I don’t really love any of Brian’s WRs or RBs but he has a lot of high floor guys which makes for a safe lineup just about every week.
Weaknesses: TE, Lack of Sexiness – Not drinking the Gronk Kool-Aid. I owned him his last real season in the NFL and he fucking sucked. Great blocker though. Pass. Brian has one of the least sexy teams imaginable. I just can’t seem to get excited about any one guy on this team besides maybe Lamar. I love Nuk but I’ll fade WRs on new teams, even ones with strong offenses (See Odell’s 2019 season). It seems safe, but a little too safe for me.
Values: Marlon Mack (8.09), Sony Michel (11.04) – Now these are the unsexy picks that I like! If Jonathan Taylor isn’t immediately as good as people think he will be, Marlon Mack is a steal in the 8th. His coach has also named him as the current starter (we’ll see for how long but still). I hate Sony but damn, I’ll take a starter in the 11th. I was hoping it would be Damien Harris but that train has been, at least for the moment, derailed. Savvy pick.
Reaches: Gronk (6.09), CeeDee Lamb (7.04), Mike Williams (10.09) – The 6th round feels way too early for a question mark as big as Gronk. This is a New England league, whatever. 7th round for any rookie WR, even one as promising as Lamb is tough for me to swallow. The numbers prove that truly productive rookie WRs are ultra rare. He was taken before established WR2s like Jarvis Landry, Julian Edelman, and Will Fuller. I don’t think he beats WR33 value (where he was drafted). Mike Williams: hurt and catching passes from Tyrod. 14th-16th round was probably reasonable here (if not on the waiver wire).
Most Likely Team to Contract COVID-19: Dave
Dave has not yet released plague bearer Ryquell Armstead. Could it spread throughout the Flappin in the Brees locker room? We’ll find out.
Team: Flappin in the Brees
Strengths: WR, QB – Golladay was a top performer last year with a ham sandwich for a QB for 8 games so I can’t imagine how well he will do with a full season with Stafford. Kupp was a bit of a 2-face last year but I would be very happy with him as a WR2. Diggs in Buffalo is a bit of a question mark but it’s hard to argue with in the 6th. Dave got to name his team Flappin in the Brees for the 6th time in league history so how can QB not be a strength here? Brees/Burrow seems like the perfect combo of floor and ceiling – solid pair.
Weaknesses: RB, TE – These are probably just personal preferences but I do not like the RBs and TEs Dave ended up with. Rookies in the 1st are a no for me. It worked with Saquon and Zeke most recently but still feels gross when you haven’t seen the guy take an NFL snap. Ekeler loses the check-down king (Rivers), Bucs just added Fournette, Breida couldn’t beat out Mostert or Tevin, etc. There are counter-arguments that could go the other way but it’s just not a group that I like. Tight end is a general crap-shoot but I think Jared Cook sucks and I’m also not buying Hayden Hurst being good at football all of a sudden.
Values: Golladay (3.08), Diggs (6.05) – Golladay could have gone 2.08 and I wouldn’t have batted an eye. Steal. Diggs could easily be just as good if not better than last year. Love him in the 6th.
Reaches: Ronald Jones (5.08), Jared Cook (9.08) – Even if you think Fournette sucks dick and won’t touch the ball all season I feel like you could have used the news of his signing to pick up Ronald Jones in the 7th or 8th round. If you miss out on him by waiting…who cares, right? Weird pick. I don’t think Hayden Hurst is good and I am still not convinced he won’t outperform Jared Cook. I know it isn’t fair to say “What if this guy didn’t catch all the TDs that he caught” but…he averaged 3.07 catches and 50.36 yds per game. That floor stinks, I’m out.
Most Likely To Hate Being Commissioner in 2020: Me
This year is probably going to suck for some amount of people in the league. I read a statement from Roger Goodell the other day that amounted to something like “Not every team may play 16 games this year.” What? What the fuck does that mean? So yeah, there may be weeks where your superstar just doesn’t play and people will probably cry and bitch about the unfairness of it. Buckle up, it’s gonna be a wacky (frustrating) year.
Team: Alvin & the Chipmunks
Strengths: WR, QB – I like my quartet of receivers more than pretty much everyone’s including Rambo who went WR -> WR 1st and 2nd pick. (I think) Juju is primed to bounce back. Godwin and Brady just feel like they will mesh. The Jags are going to be behind 100 points every game which has to benefit Chark. I have Tyler Boyd every year and love his spot this year even more than previous years. Kyler is going to be this year’s Lamar.
Weaknesses: RB, TE – My RB group feels shaky and I think that is apparent from my desperate attempt to draft 7 RBs. I love Kamara but he is a nervous own. I also somehow ended up with 2 Patriots RBs so I guess I hate myself. My 2 tight ends will both probably suck but the hope is that one of them won’t. Taking Gesicki in the 9th feels less good now that I am looking back on it. If I miss out on him, who cares?
Values: Tyler Boyd (6.07), Kerryon Johnson (10.07) – Getting Tyler Boyd as the WR30 is fantastic value. Tyler Boyd is an easy WR2. I feel very good about getting him in the 6th. Kerryon Johnson – not exciting, I get it. But as the RB42? It sounds like he has the starting gig while guys get healthy and acclimated which could be awhile. Maybe by the end of the year he will be phased out but if he manages to stay healthy I’ll bet he handles a majority of the carries for Detroit in 2020.
Reaches: Mike Gesicki (9.06), Damien Harris (11.06) – I mentioned my thoughts on Gesicki above. Like I said, that pick seems worse and worse over the past few days (I hate that night guy!). Damien Harris is a bit of a hindsight reach. I got swept away in the camp hype plus every Pats fan knows who Sony is. Luckily, we have IR spots this year so we are less penalized for drafting injured guys but the pick is still probably a waste.
Stay tuned for Part 2!
-Eric
