Mastersball

If you read my Mastersblog post from Sunday evening, I listed the first round picks and my team from a twelve team, PPR, fifteen round draft hosted by Rotowire on MockDraftCentral.com. Here are a couple of the worst offenders – things you will avoid:

1) Signing up but not showing up – how much good can it do you to just have your name there? On the other hand, you can screw the draft up for those who really want to practice.

2) Not knowing the scoring system or starting lineup requirements for the intended mock draft. Again aside from drafting a bad team for yourself, you are short changing those who want to learn or practice.

3) That would also include not knowing what teams players are with for the upcoming season.

All of these things are why websites and magazines shouldn’t use the term “Expert Leagues” or “Expert Mock Drafts” because some of the participants are clearly less than expert. Call them Industry Drafts and it will still let everyone know that these are drafters from websites or newsletters or blogs or whatever.

Here are a few follow up numbers and observations from Sunday’s draft.

Three teams took quarterbacks in the first round. While I have no problem with someone taking Aaron Rodgers in the back half of the first round I don’t see the ability to draft a strong team if you start with other quarterbacks with your first pick.

Only two teams took a tight end in the first two rounds – Jimmy Graham at 1.10 and Rob Gronkowski at 2.07. The rest of the teams waited until the very end of the fifth round (Witten), with four more off in the sixth round (Hernandez, Finley, Gates, and Davis) and one in the seventh round (Tamme). That leaves four teams that showed either they have no clue how important the better tight ends are in PPR leagues or they believe that you can wait and find a gem. Not true especially when three of the drafters took their second TE before some teams had one. CLUE – you can Flex a second TE.

There was one team that waited past round seven to get their first quarterback – not a good strategy when several others have already grabbed an alternate or backup. I doubt you are winning your fantasy league in 2012 with Ryan Fitzpatrick as your QB.

*When I stated in the opening about “certain conditions” you should only be doing serious mocking for your important leagues when the scoring system and starting lineup requirements and number of roster spots are exactly the same as the league you are practicing for. And only when you have ALL live drafters who are there for the whole draft. Otherwise it’s just mocksturbation.