One of the best ways to take advantage of FantasyPros’ FREE fantasy football mock draft simulator is to see how your team shakes out when trying different drafting strategies. Today, I’m going to be testing out how my roster looks with a streaming tight end strategy.
Hopefully, punting the tight end position will allow me to stack the rest of my fantasy football roster. This year is a tough one for late-round upside options at tight end, which makes this strategy tougher to pull off, but there are still a few intriguing choices available in most drafts.
This mock will be for a half-PPR, 12-team league with one QB, two RBs, three WRs, one TE, one Flex and six bench slots. I was randomly assigned the first overall pick for this draft. You can check out the full draft board here but read on for a breakdown of each pick.
- 2024 Fantasy Football Draft Kit
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- 2024 Dynasty Fantasy Football Draft Kit
- Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator
Fantasy Football Mock Draft
1.01: Christian McCaffrey (RB – SF)
I don’t think I have to spend much time explaining this one. It’s Christian McCaffrey. He outscored the next-best running back by over 100 half-PPR points in 2023.
2.12: Nico Collins (WR – HOU)
I’ve gotten much better values on Nico Collins in these mock drafts before, but I was still happy to land him at the end of the second. Even with Stefon Diggs in town, this Houston offense is going to run through Collins, who is an ascending superstar. He posted higher numbers in both yards per route run and Pro Football Focus (PFF) Receiving Grade in 2023 than Diggs has ever posted in his entire career.
3.01: De’Von Achane (RB – MIA)
De’Von Achane comes with truly unparalleled upside. This is a guy who averaged 7.3 yards per carry as a rookie and averaged 16.1 half-PPR points per game despite playing fewer than 10% of snaps in two of his 11 outings. He’ll probably never be a bell-cow back and comes with plenty of injury risk, but I have to chase that upside with my third-round pick. If he hits his best realistic projections, he and McCaffrey could carry this roster to a championship singlehandedly.
4.12: DeVonta Smith (WR – PHI)
After taking two running backs with my first three picks, I needed to double-tap wide receiver at this turn. DeVonta Smith is the WR2 on his own team behind A.J. Brown but still posted a 23% target share in 2023. He has been a top-20 receiver in each of the past two years and has a huge contingent upside if Brown misses time.
5.01: Amari Cooper (WR – CLE)
I debated heavily between Amari Cooper and Tee Higgins at this pick but ultimately went with Cooper as I had taken Higgins in my previous mock draft. Cooper has seen at least 100 targets in each of the last five seasons and has a clear path to make it six in a row in 2024.
6.12: Kyler Murray (QB – ARI)
Given I knew I was going to be waiting on tight end, I figured I might as well grab a quality quarterback. Even though I drafted Kyler Murray as the eighth quarterback off the board, he is the QB6 in my fantasy football rankings. He has a history of elite fantasy production, should be back to his dual-threat ways another year removed from his ACL injury and has a new elite WR1 in Marvin Harrison Jr., one of the best prospects we’ve seen in years. What’s not to like?
7.01: Terry McLaurin (WR – WAS)
With Jahan Dotson officially an Eagle, Terry McLaurin stands alone atop the Commanders’ depth chart. Especially if the Commanders start implementing more run-pass options (RPOs) into their offense to help rookie QB Jayden Daniels. His target share could reach scary levels. Even if it isn’t the most efficient, that should be enough to make him a solid weekly play when making fantasy football start sit decisions.
8.12: Jonathon Brooks (RB – CAR)
The nice thing about waiting to draft a tight end is that I’m already drafting for my bench in the eighth round. That means I can afford to grab Jonathon Brooks, who won’t play for the first few weeks of the season while recovering from an ACL injury he suffered in his final season at Texas. Once he does see the field, Brooks should eventually take over as the lead back for the Panthers. Hopefully, he’s all systems go as a three-down back and fantasy RB2 by the time we hit the home stretch of the fantasy season.
9.01: DeAndre Hopkins (WR – TEN)
DeAndre Hopkins is 32 years old and already injured — two huge red flags. But he also still finished the 2023 season tied for the league lead with an absurd 44% air yards share. If he can stay healthy, he may have one more solid fantasy season left, especially catching passes from the bomb-happy Will Levis.
10.12: Mike Williams (WR – NYJ)
Speaking of aging veterans with injury concerns, Mike Williams turns 30 in October and is coming off a season-ending ACL injury. But he has averaged 12.7 half-PPR points per healthy game over the last three seasons. This late in the draft, I’m willing to take a chance that he and Aaron Rodgers click for some jump-ball fantasy goodness.
11.01: Dontayvion Wicks (WR – GB)
I’ve made my take on Dontayvion Wicks very clear at this point. While he appears to be the odd man out in the Packers’ receiving room for now, all it will take is one injury or coaching decision for him to see a full complement of routes. If that happens, he should at least be able to provide Flex value.
12.12: Braelon Allen (RB – NYJ)
Braelon Allen is an intriguing handcuff. A fourth-round pick in this year’s draft, he has been showing out in both camp and preseason. He won’t have standalone value without a Breece Hall injury, but he has plenty of upside if he does ever get a chance to start.
13.01: Brock Bowers (TE – LV)
Here, we get to the point where the streaming tight end strategy is truly tested… and it passed with flying colors, in my biased opinion. When drafting late-round tight ends, I recommend using Andrew Cooper’s yin/yang tight end strategy: Pair one stable, low-upside player whom you can start in the first few weeks with one high-upside long shot.
In this case, Bowers is the high-upside pick. As a rookie tight end on a bad team with another talented tight end in Michael Mayer, he could easily produce nothing. But he’s also one of the most-hyped tight end prospects we’ve seen in the last decade, having put up absurd numbers in his time at Georgia. He could be this year’s Sam LaPorta if everything breaks right.
Of course, given his uncertain role and current injury, I might not want to start him in Week 1, so I paired him with…
14.12: Taysom Hill (TE – NO)
Ok, so I broke from the yin/yang strategy here. I probably should have taken Tyler Conklin, who averaged over five targets per game last season and should hugely benefit from the return of Aaron Rodgers. He’s the exact kind of stable, boring veteran that would make sense to draft and start while I wait for Bowers to hopefully emerge.
Instead, I went with Taysom Hill, perhaps the least boring and stable player in all of fantasy football. My plan for Hill is simple: Start him in Week 1 and watch to see if his increased role carries over from preseason. If not, I hope his donut didn’t lose me my first matchup and drop him for Conklin (who went undrafted) or a different standout Week 1 TE. If yes, ride him until the wheels fall off.
That’s the thing about planning to stream a position: The draft is just the beginning of a long season of work and, especially with this low of an investment, it doesn’t matter if the players you select are the players you’re starting at the end of the season.
Final Results
We got an A grade on this mock as well as being the top projected scoring team.
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