It is always drafting season here at FantasyPros, and thanks to the Mock Draft Simulator, you can quickly simulate any scoring settings and play out the draft. In this article, we’re using the same settings as Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC), who have best ball contests live right now.
- NFL Draft Needs for Every Team
- DBro’s Best Ball ADP Watch
- Introduction to Best Ball Leagues
- Erickson’s Best Ball Positional Primers
FFPC Fantasy Football Best Ball Mock Draft
FFPC uses full PPR, single QB scoring, with 20 roster spots – QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, TE, FLEX (WR/RB/TE), and 12 Bench spots. The key difference to most platforms is that FFPC uses Tight End Premium scoring, where tight ends receive an extra 0.5 points per reception on top of the usual 1.0 points per reception. This key difference makes the elite tight ends even more important than normal, and it’s not unusual to see Travis Kelce go in the middle of the first round. Thanks to the Mock Draft Simulator, we can tweak the settings to give tight ends a ‘high’ positional value to help represent this. The Simulator randomly assigned me to pick 11, and this is how things turned out.
Rounds 1 & 2
The Mock Draft Simulator felt particularly running back heavy in this iteration, and seven running backs went off the board in the first eight picks, with only Travis Kelce breaking them up. At pick 11, this presented me with a choice of one of the last elite wide receivers in Cooper Kupp, or jumping on the running back trend. When rooms heavily sway in one direction, it can sometimes pay off to go a different way, and that’s what I did here, grabbing Cooper Kupp and Tyreek Hill. When the second-round pick fell to me, I gave some consideration to Mark Andrews but decided to see what came back in the third round.
Rounds 3 & 4
After an early run on running backs, a lot of teams leaned heavily into wide receivers before the pick came back to me. This allowed me to take advantage of Aaron Jones‘s ADP in the third round and then to take Dallas Goedert as the fifth tight end off the board. While Goedert might not have the elite ceiling of Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews, and Kyle Pitts, his sustained use in the screen game allows him to accumulate catches at a high rate, something that will be rewarded in this format.
Rounds 5 & 6
The rankings the Mock Draft Simulator draws from currently undervalue the elite quarterbacks compared to the market. This led to me being able to acquire Jalen Hurts in the fifth when he is normally drafted in the second or third round. Knowing this, the next time I run one, I can adjust the quarterback positional value higher, knowing that the market is currently being aggressive on them. In Round 6, I took Terry McLaurin to be my third wide receiver.
Rounds 7 & 8
Rashod Bateman‘s price currently takes into account his poor health in the NFL so far, along with the ambiguity of the Ravens’ offense that has no quarterbacks under contract. In best ball, we always want to balance floor outcomes with ceiling, and the ceiling outcome of Bateman’s is high enough that he’s a more intriguing pick than Nico Collins or Gabe Davis, who are still on the board. In Round 8, I take my second running back with Khalil Herbert, who showed in glimpses that he can be an efficient and high-scoring running back for the Bears.
Rounds 9 & 10
The wide receiver and running back positions aren’t looking particularly appealing right now, so instead, we can pivot to make sure we have a strong second option at tight end, with David Njoku, and then add Tua Tagovailoa to stack with Tyreek Hill.
Rounds 11 & 12
With only two running backs on my roster, it’s time to start building out that depth. The strength of this team will be at the other positions, but now we can piece enough together to make sure we’re putting up good scores each week. Devin Singletary will be the more experienced running back in Houston and doesn’t have the highest ceiling, but he can be a solid contributor. Samaje Perine looks likely to have a very large role as Javonte Williams tries to come back from a serious knee injury.
Rounds 13 & 14
In Round 13, I’m seeking more upside, so select Jaxon Smith-Njigba followed by Zay Flowers. Rookies have a habit of delivering as the season goes on, and these two could be delivering nicely by the time the playoffs roll around.
Rounds 15 & 16
With such a premium on tight ends, I want to shore up the position before things dry up too much, and Chigoziem Okonkwo looks like the highest upside play of those left. Okonkwo broke out down the stretch run of 2022, and since then, the Titans look even more depleted at pass-catcher. Isaiah McKenzie did little to scream reliability in 2022, but now with the Colts, he could have a consistent role with Michael Pittman his main target competition.
Rounds 17 & 18
More rookie upside is the name of the game here with Kendre Miller at running back before adding an additional stack to Jalen Hurts with Quez Watkins.
Rounds 19 & 20
Normally two quarterbacks might be plenty when one of them is Jalen Hurts, but this far out from the start of the season, there is a solid argument to be made in favor of taking a third, and Mac Jones could be ripe for positive touchdown regression in 2023, with a more competent offense installed around him. Rounding out the draft, we take one more running back in Jerome Ford, who is currently the primary backup to Nick Chubb.
Conclusions
This roster has a 3QB, 6RB, 8WR, and 3TE build, which should be strong enough to contend with any team thanks to the strengths at wide receiver, quarterback, and tight end. The Mock Draft Simulator gave me a grade of C-, in part because I reached several times. At this time of year, we can live with that. Most of the rookies who I reached for will experience a bump in ADP soon enough when we know their landing spots. The Mock Draft Simulator isn’t always perfect, but we can adjust the settings to be able to get quick and actionable results to consider ahead of our drafts.
Check out the draft results here
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | SoundCloud | iHeartRadio
