Perfect Draft Series: Drafting 9th in a 10 Team PPR League

Aug 10, 2015

When I found out 4for4 Fantasy Football was changing its draft software, I have to admit I was pretty bummed at first. I mean, outside of the health and well-being of my family and friends, my fantasy football draft software is probably the next most important thing in my life.

I suppose change can be good, and having some faith in those who have dedicated their lives to running this site, I decided to give this a fair chance.

Enter Draft Hero.

Trying not to sound too much like a commercial, the first time I used DA I knew right away I was going to like it. I can’t really explain what it was specifically, but from setting up a league, to importing a league, to running the draft and exporting the results, it didn’t take a lot of time to get the hang of just about everything. DA also has a lot of cool, new features that I think are going to be liked by our subscribers and make your draft prep easier than ever before.

As I go along in our Perfect Draft series, I hope to share some of my favorite features with everyone. One I want to point out right away is being able to enter keepers into the program. This was one of my most-asked questions from subscribers on the Discuss Your Team Forum. The keeper functionality of DA makes for an easy mock drafting experience for those in keeper leagues.

The other feature I want to point out is importing your league from some of the major fantasy league hosts. This will save you from having to enter scoring rules, team names and even draft order.

As I like to do every year, I want to again recap my previous season in the world of fantasy football. If you follow my Perfect Draft articles, two years ago you may remember I made the playoffs in all five of my major leagues with top-two seeds in every one. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t come home with a title. Striving to be better last year, I again made the playoffs in all five leagues, I even recorded a perfect (regular) season and won two of my five leagues. Overall, another pretty successful year utilizing 4for4 rankings, news updates and the many stories and features the site has to offer. It’s almost unfair…

So it’s once again that time of year where the Perfect Draft Series takes center stage and the 4for4 Scouts start their mocks with hopes of helping both themselves and subscribers draft the best possible teams they can.

My first mock is drafting 9th in a 10-team PPR league. QBs get 4 points for a passing TD and everything else is pretty standard scoring for the other positions. I did limit the positions a bit and didn’t allow teams to draft more than 2 QBs or 2 TEs and also made teams take just one kicker and one defense. My starting lineup is 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 flex, 1 TE, 1 K and 1 defense. Let’s see how it goes…

Round 1, Pick 9
The first five picks off the board were Adrian Peterson, Jamaal Chares, LeVeon Bell, Marshawn Lynch and Eddie Lacy. Then Antonio Brown and Dez Bryant were selected as the top two WRs off the board. LeSean McCoy was eighth which brought me to my pick. I’ve always been a RB-first guy ever since I started playing fantasy football back in the 1990s. While a lot of times I don’t wander too far from that strategy, I have adapted with the times. I’m very tempted to take C.J. Anderson and kind of wish I would have. There were three WRs on the board and at least one would have gotten back to me between Odell Beckham, Julio Jones and Demaryius Thomas. But Beckham was my pick. His 323 projected points are second most of anyone taken in the first round (behind only Brown). This was also a DA suggestion.
The Pick: Odell Beckham Jr. WR

Round 2, Pick 2
Julio Jones and Anderson go with the next picks and it was this point where I realized I could have maybe played that better. There are still some quality backs on the board in Matt Forte, DeMarco Murray and Jeremy Hill and also WR Calvin Johnson is available. My selection is another DA choice and that’s Forte. While there’s a good chance his fantasy points are going to drop a bit under new HC John Fox, Forte is still one of the better PPR backs in fantasy, and while his receptions will drop too, he’s still projected by us to be among the leaders in RB catches.
The Pick: Matt Forte RB

Round 3, Pick 9
Some guys I had targeted like Randall Cobb, Justin Forsett, Mike Evans and even rookie Melvin Gordon were all taken in the next 16 picks. After going WR-RB with my first two picks, I don’t feel like I’m locked in to any position as I get ready for my third pick. I’ve allowed myself to take what I think is the best player when it’s my turn. Mark Ingram and Frank Gore are among the RBs who are there while DeAndre Hopkins, Kelvin Benjamin and Emmanuel Sanders are some of the WRs. There are some potential bust-out guys in C.J. Spiller and Latavius Murray, but my pick is a guy who I had last year in a lot of leagues – Sanders. He really exceeded my expectations in terms of his fantasy numbers and looks like he should have more good machups in the slot position this year.
The Pick: Emmanuel Sanders WR