Playtime is over folks. We’re getting to the meat and potatoes of the fantasy draft meal.
No more nibbling for value in just the final few rounds. At long last, now we are ordering players from the early-round menu.
Like, Christian McCaffrey at No. 1 overall, Breece Hall and Bijan Robinson in the first round. Saquon Barkley, Jonathan Taylor around the turn.
Let’s pass on Jahmyr Gibbs that soon.
Travis Eitenne or Isiah Pacheco in the mid- to late-second round, delish. Or Derrick Henry shortly after.
James Cook, Joe Mixon or Alvin Kamara in the third.
De’Von Achane or Josh Jacobs if you miss on all of them.
We’ll let someone else take Rachaad White in the third while we wait on Rhamondre Stevenson in the fifth.
Wow. That fun? It is nice to talk about early-round guys.
But here’s the thing about running backs: There aren’t many to hate in the early rounds.
If you’re picking one or more, your main concern is that they stay healthy, since all of the early guys are expected to produce.
Most of them anyway.
There are a few we actively avoid — in addition to having reservations about Gibbs in the first, White in the third or Achane in the second, we also mostly avoid D’Andre Swift, Jonathon Brooks and Nick Chubb.
Swift is in a crowded backfield on an offense with a lot of weapons and no clear insight into how the Bears will use those players — plus Swift flopped last year behind a better offensive line.
Brooks will miss the start of the season after suffering a November ACL injury in college last year and will be on one of the league’s worst offenses.
Likewise, we aren’t sure when Chubb will return to the field or what he will look like when he does.
But it isn’t all the expensive steak and overprice pork. There are some affordable snacks in the mix, too.
Fantasy Football DVQ Explainer
Hop out of the pool, unpack your vacation suitcase, boot up your laptop and get ready, because fantasy football season is back.
The Fantasy Madman has returned with the latest iteration of his DVQ.
The Draft Value Quotient is a player rating system that assigns one universal number for every player. This value projects the point in the draft at which a player’s projected production will match the estimated draft pick value.
Since there is a wider separation among production at the top, so too is there a wider gap between DVQ values at the top of the rankings.
The player projections takes into account playing time, expected use/touches, coaching tendencies, part performance and injury history. The DVQ measures these projections against a player’s schedule and factors in positional depth and value above replacement.
These ratings are updated regularly.
David Montgomery’s average draft position is on the rise after news of Gibbs’ hamstring issue, but Montgomery remains a bargain at the moment.
We don’t expect him to disappear from the game plan even if Gibbs is 100 percent, so anything less than that gives D-Mont an added boost.
But getting him in rounds 5-6 might be a thing of the past.
Raheem Mostert is old, often injured, has expected touchdown regression and plays on a team with a lot of weapons — including a more explosive RB in the same backfield.
But he is going routinely in the seventh round.
Like Montgomery, he isn’t going to become invisible. For his current price, he is a steal.
As we have seen in recent seasons with Hall and Barkley in particular, it often takes time for RBs to bounce back from severe knee injuries.
And Chubb suffered a pretty severe one in Week 2 last season.
It would be a rare feat for him to return to peak form this season, and he almost certainly will miss some time.
Jerome Ford filled in well last season, and we expect the same again to start this year.
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You don’t often find the kind of volume he is likely to get as deep as the 10th round. Even a couple of rounds earlier than that, feature-back type volume is a gift.
Enter Devin Singletary. There aren’t any notable names in the backfield to compete with him for touches, so even if his efficiency is mid, he should rack up plenty of points to outperform his eight-round ADP.
Recall the leap Hall showed at the end of last season?
We expected Javonte Williams might make a similar leap with the extra time after his 2022 knee injury.
With an ADP in rounds 7-8, he could be an absolute steal.
More obvious picks you shouldn’t let get past you by at their current draft postions: James Conner (fifth round), Brian Robinson (eighth), Tyjae Spears (eighth), Chase Brown (ninth), Ezekiel Elliott (10th).
