We go in with a blank slate, but we are ostensibly drafting keepers. Everyone gets two keepers, one “early” (drafted in Rounds 3-9) and one “late” (drafted Round 10+ or added in free agency). Each player’s page on Sleeper has a “history” tab that records when he was drafted and any moves that involved him since.
MAX, LISTEN: the first pick of the 3rd Round is creamy liquid gold. Imagine two seasons with this guy. Take names like Zeke and Conner and Keenan and throw them in the fucking trash. Get someone in their prime or entering it. Examples from last season (that no doubt contributed to the suspension of the keeper rule): Godwin, Kupp, Mixon, Pitts, Herbert, Swift, Chase…
Make us proud.
One player that’s all over my radar for that 3.01 pick: Patrick Mahomes. (I assume Josh Allen will be gone by then.) Is there an imperative at some point for someone in the second round to say, “Fuck my draft strategy; I just can’t let Mahomes slip into keeper range”? It won’t be me, which is why I’m putting it out there. Did I just incite collusion?
Moving on. Keepers aren’t really on my radar except in the 3rd and 10th Rounds. All those other rounds matter, but I really focus on getting my guy at those picks, reaches be damned. I feel a little wary, though, having in the back of my mind that our next champ could just say no more keepers forever. It’s almost enough to make me play this thing straight-up, just draft the best team and take it one year at a time again. Am I supposed to feel refreshed? Relieved? I don’t feel like changing my attitude changed anything. Should I adopt nihilism? Draft Hunter Renfrow second overall because nothing matters anyway? Am I my brother’s keeper? The keeper does not exist. The keeper does not exist!
Okay so without further ado, even though I usually just did this for Tim’s benefit, I’m actually going to talk about how I feel about players before the draft. I’m fine getting “sniped” and “scooped” and maybe a little slap and tickle while you’re down there.
Remember: rushing floor, passing ceiling.
The #1 QB scores 40 TDs.
When in doubt, take the strongest arm.
I think there’s a clear top five: Allen, Mahomes, Herbert, Lamar, Burrow. Allen has the most going for him, but you could take any of them first.
Now take a look at this group:
Kyler, Dak, Hurts, Russ, Stafford, Lance, Rodgers, Brady
That’s the order of their average draft position. You could make a case for them to go in any order. You might have noticed that one of these QBs would be the 13th QB drafted, meaning one of them starts the year on the bench. Here’s a quick case for why each one should sit:
Kyler’s best receivers are AJ Green and Zach Ertz.
Dak faces the Bucs Week 1, without Tyron Smith, La’el Collins, or Amari Cooper.
Hurts had zero good games against good teams last year.
Russ’s first game is against the team that knows him best.
Stafford has elbow tendinitis, Super Bowl hangover, and his stud LT retired.
Lance is basically a rookie. The 49ers are always super low in pass attempts.
Rodgers scored 1.8 FP in Week 1 last year WITH Davante Adams.
Brady is old! He should have been out of the game years ago, but he can’t stay home 'cause he hates his wife!
(That’s a Liar Liar quote.)
Jameis Winston and Kirk Cousins should be in that mix. Honestly, we should put them in a tier with Russell Wilson; call it the not-exactly-cerebral tier of QBs. When you clip together these guys’ big moments, they all come off kind of insane. They all have catch phrases that people use exclusively to make fun of them. Russ also tried to nickname himself Mr. Unlimited, and it only caught on in that people also use it exclusively to make fun of him.
Still, each of them will throw 30 TDs and be too good for free agency.
The other guys on my draft board are Trevor, Carr, Fields, Tua, and Mariota.
Trevor has supreme arm talent, and he’s a dual-threat, playing in an innovative offense where the coaches are willing to try anything.
Carr has the weapons, but he doesn’t have the arm talent. His TD total is going to be capped by his OC’s unwillingness to call passes near the goal line.
Tua sucks, but his WR corps has insane speed, and Tua was one of the best passers inside the 10 last year, completing 20 of 26 passes for 14 TDs, adding three rushing TDs on five attempts. In just 12 games. A full season adds four or five TDs to that, and then he only needs to score eight touchdowns from outside the 10-yard line? 30 TDs sounds easy.
Fields is a very good QB in a very bad situation, and I feel very bad for him.
Marcus Mariota is running basically the same offense that made Ryan Tannehill QB10 in 2019 and QB11 in 2020, an offense originally designed around… Marcus Mariota. (Ignore the part where he doesn’t have Derrick Henry. Ignore it!)
If you have eyes on Tannehill, Wentz, Ryan, or Danny Dimes, I can’t help you.
The only sneaky weird maybe thing that we don’t know about yet that could pop off if everything goes right… Kenny Pickett. It took all preseason for it to happen, but it feels like Kenny Pickett is taking the starting job in Pittsburgh. He has an incredible group of skill players around him, and Pittsburgh is a rock-solid franchise. The vibes are very good.
Who needs ‘em?! Corey drafted Myles Gaskin and Marlon Mack last season, and he won it all with Rex Burkhead and Dare Ogunbowale.
The key to “zero RB” is believing with all your heart that you’re taking the best players each time you pick. It also helps if you’re the only one doing it. It’s not something you decide ahead of the draft. Having a strict plan is the best way to rob yourself of value.
I would love to draft Ja’Marr Chase second overall and Mike Evans in the second round and DK Metcalf in the third round. Sounds fucking epic. But at 2 overall, I have Jonathan Taylor and Derrick Henry available to me. I can’t get around those two. They are the most likely players to finish #1 among non-QBs.
You might have gotten this sense when I converted one of our RB spots to a FLEX: I can’t stand most RBs. They are either too slow or not strong enough or they can’t catch or they need the most rest because they’re getting the most shit beat out of them, but there are a couple backs who are so strong and so fast and their team just loves giving them the ball all the time and it’s points points points and it’s ecstasy. Literally a couple backs. I already named them. Wait, sorry. Najee Harris. Three. Three backs who give ecstasy. Ah, shit. Nick Chubb. Four.
Then there’s this huge group of dudes who should probably just be in a timeshare in order to stay fresh throughout each game and throughout the season. We’re going to see more and more teams leaning into timeshares, and it’s going to slowly drain the RB position until one day there is no consensus top pick because it’s all RBs getting 200 touches and WRs getting 150. Hell, maybe we’ll start drafting QBs #1 overall again.
Don’t invest in tactical respirators or stock up on alkaline batteries just yet. Maybe first try to embrace modernity. Draft the timeshare back. When you get a choice between Aaron Jones and Saquon Barkley, and you check to see who Barkley’s backup is and it’s fucking Matt Breida, stuff your cartoon eyeballs back into your horny wolf head and think about how this recipe is the same one that fucked Barkley before. If Matt Breida is the backup, Barkley is the powerback. If Barkley is the powerback, he’s the one getting dogpiled seven times a game. That all-around volume we crave is the same volume that puts our top RBs out of commission and kills our playoff hopes.
Embrace the split backfield. Draft RBs you want, not RBs you feel like you need. Here are some teams who changed starters during the season (independent of injury): Arizona, Atlanta, Buffalo, Houston, the Rams, and Miami. That’s a quarter of the league. For the most part, we saw it coming, or could have. The starters for those teams were Chase Edmonds, Mike Davis, Devin Singletary (who lost the job and got it back), David Johnson, Darrell Henderson, and Myles Gaskin. Davis was a keeper, Henderson a 4th, Gaskin a 5th, Edmonds a 6th, Singletary a 12th (Zack Moss a 10th?), David Johnson a 16th (Phillip Lindsay a 10th)… meanwhile you’ve got tons of great players at other positions coming off the board: Woods, Waddle, Diontae, Brady, Roquan, Myles Garrett, Lavonte… hell, D.Harris, Lenny, and Melvin Gordon were taken after Edmonds. AJ Dillon, Tony Pollard, and Michael Carter were in the 11th and 12th. I don’t think there’s hindsight bias happening here. Here were my picks between Henderson and Carter:
5 & 6 – traded
7 – Derwin
8 – Tucker
9 – Stafford
10 – Callaway
11 – Lance
12 – Elijah Moore
The Callaway pick was a reach at the time, but I stand by it. He was starting WR for the Saints, had deep speed, and tore up the preseason. Jameis threw two TDs per game as starter, a 34-TD pace for the season. He started cold for a couple weeks, but in the three games before Jameis got hurt, Callaway posted games of 12, 9, and 25 FP. That’s a solid flex drafted in the 10th.
The real point is that I’m not a hypocrite. I didn’t take one RB in that entire span because there weren’t any RBs worth the pick—and I already had Najee and Javonte, but that’s what I’m saying: get ahead of it!
Coleman is the king of the late-keeper WR. Here’s who Coleman drafted late each year and kept the following year:
2018: DJ Moore (rd. 13) & Tyler Lockett (15)
2019: Terry McLaurin (12)
2020: Brandon Aiyuk (16)
2021: Rashod Bateman (11)
Coleman having to draft an injured Bateman in the 11th reflects the pure white heat cooking the rookie WR market. Last year the post-hype sleepers stole the show. Sean got Mike Williams in the 13th, Cameron got Michael Gallup in the 14th, and Shelby got Hollywood in the 14th. If you’re really interested in scoring a late keeper in the draft, WR is the position to target. The only issue is that WR is always the position to target. It is impossible to cut a draft board to fewer than 60 WRs because so many of them get significant playing time. First, there are 64 starters. Second, there are actually more like 75 starters. And sometimes all three of one team’s starters make an impact. In terms of FP per game, the Bucs had three WRs in the top 10. In total points, the Bengals and Rams each had three WRs in the top 36 last season. The Falcons, Broncos, Jags, and Giants had none. The Jets’ best WR was 36th. The Saints’ best was 35th.
We can somewhat predict these things. The Falcons, Broncos, Jags, Giants, Jets, and Saints had trash combinations at QB and WR for most of the year. Only the Falcons and Saints had a chance to have an okay year. So let’s isolate those absolute trash situations.
Carolina – the offense is poorly designed, and the head coach is a loser. If this team starts losing, Baker is going to get Rhule fired, but by then Rhule will have fired all of the competent coaches and no one will be left to save this mess.
Chicago – Soldier Field is trash. These dudes aren’t playing a full season. Completely unproven offensive coordinator, bad o-line, bad WR room. It’s bad.
Cleveland – Jacoby Brissett has started two full seasons in the NFL and never had a 1,000-yard WR. Amari Cooper’s sketchy health doesn’t give me confidence. There won’t be enough passing volume in this offense to get him higher than 30th.
NY Giants – maybe the offense improves under Daboll, but it’s still one of the league’s least intimidating QBs throwing to one of the league’s least intimidating WR rooms.
NY Jets – Joe Flacco will start Week 1 and maybe a couple games after. Then Zach Wilson will come back, and things will get worse.
Seattle – Geno Smith is meh enough that the team is desperate to see Drew Lock play some preseason with the starters. Metcalf and Lockett are too good to fail, but their 200 points apiece last year feels like the ceiling.
Tennessee – similar to the Browns situation, not enough volume, and Woods is no AJ Brown.
Washington – Carson Wentz’s top targets through the years: Jordan Matthews, Alshon Jeffery, Zach Ertz, Michael Pittman. What do they have in common: size and catch radius. His WR room right now is Terry McLaurin, Jahan Dotson, and Curtis Samuel. What I’m getting at is that them dudes is little. Logan Thomas is going to end up being the top target in this offense.
The worst part of that list is that I took eight bites at the apple and still might not have guessed the actual worst offense.
Don’t buy into the narrative that if you don’t get one of the top guys, you might as well just wait until the end. It’s not true. There are tiers of TE.
Kelce, Andrews, Pitts, and Kittle could lead their team in targets. If you can find another TE who could lead his team in targets, then you spend up for that guy.
After that, you’re looking at two groups: the TEs who are heavily targeted, and the TEs with enough speed to make huge plays.
Targets: Hockenson, Kmet, Schultz, and Ertz (and Logan Thomas when healthy.)
Uncertain: Waller, Gesicki, Goedert, Taysom
Big Plays: Fant, Knox, Okwuegbunam, Engram, and Everett
Then there’s a tier of good TEs who might score 10 TDs:
Freiermuth, Henry, Tonyan, Irv Smith, Njoku, Higbee, Hayden Hurst
Freiermuth is the one that’s supposed to increase his share of the offense or have a higher yards per catch. I’m open to it, but I’m not spending more than a speculative pick on it.
And then there are the Bucs’ Brate and Rudolph, who will score a combined 10+ TDs and work exclusively as bye-week replacements in our league.
Good IDP research takes a long time. If you don’t feel like digging into it, just draft guys you’ve heard of, and if you’re not in love with them after the first week, pick up guys who play a ton of snaps. In general, chase snaps and tackles. There are players who only get tackles and don’t give you any upside. I would avoid any LBs associated with the Patriots coaching tree, so this year that rules out Vegas, Miami, and New England. A few others defenses where no one seems to be accumulating tackles: Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, the Chargers, the Rams, and Pittsburgh.
When it comes to picking IDPs up during the season, don’t trust Sleeper’s projections. Last year, they kept projecting Zach Baun to have like 13 FP each week, even though Zack Baun was literally playing zero snaps for the Saints. The easy thing to do after a couple games is to sort free agents by snaps and pick someone near the top who has a lot of tackles.
But so here are the defenders who made the NFL Top 100 this year:
DL: Aaron Donald, Myles Garrett, Nick Bosa, Cameron Heyward, Jeffery Simmons, Maxx Crosby, Chris Jones, Cameron Jordan, Trey Hendrickson, Jonathan Allen, Chase Young, Brian Burns, Grady Jarrett, Arik Armstead, DeForest Buckner, Kenny Clark
DL/LB: TJ Watt, Micah Parsons, Joey Bosa, Von Miller, Khalil Mack, Chandler Jones, Rashan Gary, Robert Quinn
LB: Fred Warner, Shaq Leonard, De’Vondre Campbell, Lavonte David, Demario Davis, Bobby Wagner
DB: Jalen Ramsey, Jaire Alexander, Antoine Winfield, Micah Hyde, JC Jackson, Kevin Byard, Xavien Howard, AJ Terrell, Budda Baker, Derwin James, Jordan Poyer, Trevon Diggs, Darius Slay, Jessie Bates, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Harrison Smith, Marcus Williams
Wow, do they hate off-ball linebackers or what? They left a lot of LB juice off that list and supplied way too many DL names for us to make use of. But if you don’t know which ones I mean, I can’t help you.
I think I’ve done all I can here. Really looking forward to Sunday’s draft.
Oh shit! Kickers! Nah, it’s too late. The note’s already over. The credits rolled already. My hands are tied.
Pay me money.
