We are well and truly into fantasy football mock draft season now. Last week, I used the FantasyPros Draft Wizard to draft a team from the 11th pick in a 12-team PPR league. I’m running it back late in the draft this week, at the 12th pick, but with a Half-PPR league instead.
It was easy to change my scoring format and pick in this fantasy football mock draft because the free Draft Wizard allows you to build a custom mock draft with the same scoring, roster size and number of teams as your league. Even better, you get to draft instantly against a computer algorithm using a mix of ADP and FantasyPros’ Expert Consensus Rankings – no more fantasy football mock drafts where everyone leaves after the first few rounds!
We are well and truly into fantasy football mock draft season now. Last week, I used the FantasyPros Draft Wizard to draft a team from the 11th pick in a 12-team PPR league. I’m running it back late in the draft this week, at the 12th pick, but with a Half-PPR league instead.
It was easy to change my scoring format and pick in this fantasy football mock draft because the free Draft Wizard allows you to build a custom mock draft with the same scoring, roster size and number of teams as your league. Even better, you get to draft instantly against a computer algorithm using a mix of ADP and FantasyPros’ Expert Consensus Rankings – no more fantasy football mock drafts where everyone leaves after the first few rounds!
The roster settings for this fantasy football mock draft were 1 QB, 2 RBs, 3 WRs, 1 TE, 1 Flex, 1 DST, and 1 K, plus six bench slots. I will break down my picks round by round below, but you can check out the full fantasy football mock draft here.
As I mentioned in my last mock, my favorite strategy when picking at the end of the first round in 12-team leagues this year is to draft one receiver and one running back. Puka was my favorite receiver available at the turn in this draft, so he was a no-brainer pick to start things off. His recent knee injury is a little concerning, especially given he struggled with injuries in college, but it’s not enough to make me pass him here. After all, Nacua is coming off a WR4 finish in Half-PPR as a rookie. There is reason to expect slight regression with the return of Cooper Kupp (more on him later), but Puka should still be able to live up to his WR8 draft price.
Barkley was the obvious choice to anchor my team along with Nacua. While he isn’t quite the dynamic playmaker he was in his early years in the league, Barkley is still an above-average rusher, ranking 13th in NextGenStats’ rush yards over expected (RYOE) per carry in 2023. Barkley did finish as just the RB11 in points per game last season, but his move from New York to Philadelphia is just about the biggest situation upgrade possible. With guaranteed volume behind an elite offensive line, Barkley should easily finish as an RB1.
Obviously, pairing Kupp with Nacua is an interesting choice, and the decision to do so was probably the toughest choice I made in this entire mock. But even while Puka was stealing the headlines in 2023, Kupp still saw plenty of work (when he was healthy). The 2021 overall WR1 averaged a massive 28% target share in his 12 healthy games (playoffs included). That would have ranked just outside the top 10 for the season … and right behind Nacua at 29%. Pairing the two Rams together does lower this roster’s overall season-long upside, but sometimes the right move is just to pick the best players, and Kupp has the best profile of any receiver remaining on the board.
Metcalf immediately helps solve the upside problem created by selecting Kupp. While he hasn’t been as productive in recent years, DK has a top-10 finish under his belt and is still locked in as the Seahawks’ top receiver. If Seattle’s offense takes a step forward under a new coaching staff, Metcalf could push for WR1 consideration again. If not, he’s still a very good player to have as a WR3.
Conner is criminally underrated in terms of the NFL’s best pure rushers. He finished the 2023 season ranked fourth in RYOE per attempt and fourth in PFF Rush Grade but never seems to be anywhere near discussions of the league’s top RBs. From a fantasy perspective, Conner is not much of a receiver, but that matters less in a Half-PPR league. The 29-year-old veteran is falling down draft boards due to excitement over rookie Trey Benson, but he should have another year of solid RB2 production in the tank.
This is suddenly a very NFC-West-heavy draft, with five of my first six picks coming from the same division. But once again, this was simply a case of picking the best player available, as Kyler is one of the best quarterback values heading into this season. With obvious dual-threat upside and a brand-new weapon in Marvin Harrison Jr., Murray is the last quarterback in drafts who is a legitimate threat to challenge the top three at the position.
The thing about Diontae Johnson is simple: He gets open. ESPN’s Receiver Tracking Metrics rank him as easily the best separator in the entire league since he was drafted in 2019. That ability should make him Bryce Young’s new best friend, as the 2023 first-overall pick was absolutely desperate for open receivers in his rookie year. Johnson is never going to be a touchdown or big-play machine, but he should rack up over 100 targets with ease as the top weapon in this offense.
Eight rounds into the draft, Javonte Williams is the first AFC player to join this roster. Unlike Murray and Johnson, Williams isn’t necessarily one of my favorite players to draft this year. However, the way the board fell, he was easily the best running back still available. The Broncos do have a surplus of backs in their backfield, but Williams is very unlikely to be the odd man out. At the worst, he should see around 50% of the snaps in Sean Payton’s very running-back-friendly offense. In a best-case scenario, maybe he finally lives up to some of the hype he had early in his career with a breakout season.
Picking Njoku here is a bit of a reach, but these kinds of picks are sometimes necessary when you are drafting on the turn. By the time my next pair of picks came around, the best tight ends available were guys like Luke Musgrave and Dallas Goedert, who are clearly a tier below Njoku. Even looking at last year’s production shows that Njoku is at the end of a tier at tight end. He averaged 10.0 Half-PPR points per game in 2023, the seventh most among TEs. Cole Kmet, the TE8, averaged just 8.5. Njoku will compete with new addition Jerry Jeudy to be second on the Browns in targets, which should allow him to be a solid TE1.
Ladd McConkey’s 2024 outlook is full of questions. Is he as good as his elite per-route numbers at Georgia would indicate, or is the fact that he rarely played a full complement of snaps a red flag? Will Jim Harbaugh and Greg Roman stick to a run-heavy offense with Justin Herbert as their quarterback and Gus Edwards as their top running back? Will McConkey show enough as a rookie to pass the uninspiring veterans ahead of him on the depth chart and assert himself as the Chargers’ WR1? If all these factors break right for McConkey, he could easily finish the season as a weekly WR2 option – that’s the kind of upside I want in a bench player.
Speaking of upside bench players, Khalil Herbert is an intriguing stash heading into 2024. At the very least, he’s a handcuff and will lead the Bears’ backfield if D’Andre Swift misses time. But there’s a sneaky chance that Herbert plays more of a role than widely expected, even with Swift healthy. Herbert has always ranked well above average in terms of rushing efficiency (.29 RYOE per attempt last year), while Swift has … not done that (0.29 yards below attempt compared to expected last year). Could Swift follow the Miles Sanders trend of running backs leaving the Eagles for a big contract and immediately losing their jobs? It’s worth taking a shot on Herbert to find out.
I considered Patriots rookie receiver Ja’Lynn Polk at this pick but eventually decided to former a mini-Cardinals stack by pairing Wilson with Murray. Wilson, a third-round pick in the 2023 draft, flashed some talent as a rookie and had a few big games once Kyler returned from injury. However, the arrival of MHJ and the emergence of Trey McBride mean he is likely going to be a distant third on this team in targets. However, Wilson still has a few paths to upside. As great a prospect as Harrison Jr. is, there’s always a chance that he takes some time to adjust to the NFL (or gets injured). Or, as I’m already betting on with this roster, maybe Kyler re-establishes himself as a top-tier quarterback, providing enough production for all three to eat. Regardless, Wilson is a decent flyer at this stage of the draft.
Unlike Herbert, Irving is a pure handcuff pick. Rachaad White has been inefficient on the ground, but I still don’t expect the fourth-round rookie to substantially cut into his workload. However, Irving would be the obvious candidate to step into a very fantasy-friendly role if White were to miss time. That’s enough for him to be worth a late 13th-round pick.
I hate selecting a second quarterback, especially this late in the draft. But Stafford slipped multiple rounds past his ADP, so I couldn’t miss the chance to stack him with both of his top receivers. Chances are, he doesn’t survive the first week of waivers on this roster. But pairing Stafford with Kupp and Nacua could be a league-winning move if he recovers that 2021 magic.
15.12: Chicago Bears DST
As always, I plan to stream defenses to start the season. With that in mind, I’m happy to snag the Bears, who finished last season strong and, more importantly, have a good Week 1 matchup against the Titans.
There’s no point in drafting a kicker before the last round, as the top options on a yearly basis are near impossible to predict and hardly better than the bad options anyway. Moody is locked in as the top option for a good offense, so he is as good a choice as any.
