In preparation for the upcoming fantasy season, I've spent some time mock drafting various scenarios. I'm going to be posting the results, and explaining my thought process throughout the draft.
In this first post, I'm going "zero RB" to show what a team might look like if you went zero RB as a strategy. Now, for me "zero RB" defines as I filled both WR, the TE, the QB, and Flex with a WR before drafting any RB's. Here's how it went down:
I had to pick fourth, because it's the earliest position you can make any kind of reasonable argument for a wide receiver. I could have gone towards the end of the first round, but I thought it'd be more interesting to pass up a top 5 RB. With the fourth overall pick, I took Michael Thomas, projected by most to be the most productive receiver in the draft. No real explanation is needed, but my basic strategy going zero RB would I think be to aim to have the best at all the other spots while everyone else is going after RB's.
With my second round pick, Kelce was gone so I went with Kittle, again looking to have the best or a top 3 player at every other position and sacrifice RB. Kittle performs as a WR2, and will be a strong play no matter the match up. He shores up my TE position and makes it very productive.
In the third round I took Mahomes. Lamar had just gone off the clock, so I wanted the other consensus top 2 QB as part of my earlier stated strategy. Mahomes is high floor and high ceiling, and the difference between my top players at every other position and the opposing team's RB's over my potentially weaker RB's should be slim or perhaps in my favor.
With my fourth and fifth picks I began to fill out the rest of my receiver group, selecting DJ Chark and Terry McLaurin, both number one receivers on offenses with questionable at best quarterbacks. On the other hand, those options have few (if any) other options to throw to, so they should both have a high target share and if they get lucky with touchdowns could be top 10 overall WR's.
So at this point in the draft my roster looks like:
QB Mahomes
RB empty
RB empty
WR M Thomas
WR DJ Chark
TE Kittle
FLEX T McLaurin
DST
K
And I'm finally free to take running backs! With my next two picks I do exactly that, selecting David Montgomery and Kareem Hunt. Montgomery is the lead back with little competition and coaches being pressured into using him more. Hunt is crazy talented, should get 8-10 targets per game, and if anything happens to Chubb would be a top 5 RB candidate every week immediately. Both have high floors, Hunt has a high ceiling as well.
Now here's the part of the draft people might disagree with: I went defense and kicker. Again, I want the best or second best at EVERY position other than RB to overcome the deficit I might be facing from those two spots every week. So I took Pittsburgh's defense, then turned around and took Harrison Butker as my kicker. Now the defense wasn't way too early-one went a few picks after I took Pitt-but kicker was probably a round or two too high. Butker will be on what we expect to be the highest scoring or among the highest scoring offenses in the league, which is a great situation for kickers. If he's a top 2-3 kicker, I'm happy with the pick. Also, I just didn't really like any WR's or RB's in this particular range.
So now I felt like I needed a couple dart throws at the RB spot. Guys who have potential if something goes wrong for the starter on their team. So I threw three darts with Latavius Murray, Antonio Gibson, and Darrynton Evans with my 10th, 11th, and 12th picks. Murray showed last year that if something happens to Kamara, he's ready to step in with top 5 RB production immediately. Gibson is something of an interesting player, taking meetings with the WR's and RB's in Washington. They don't have many offensive options, I just figured it was worth a flyer to see how it goes. Evans is playing behind Derrick Henry and won't get much play unless Henry skips a game for some reason, but if he does most people expect Evans to step into a three down role and produce.
Very often once my starters are filled out, I just want to take shots on guys that might pop. I also backed up the QB position as I thought Cam Newton fit the "guys who might pop" requirement. If he's healthy and plays 16 games in NE, he's playing for a coach that game plans for what you do best better than anybody in the history of the league. He'll be very productive, he'll score a lot, it'll be fun to watch.
I picked up Hockenson just because I didn't really love anyone on the board right then, and I think he has legitimate talent, and if Stafford is back and playing all year, I think he could really produce. Rookie tight ends rarely ever play in a fantasy relevant way, but in his second year he could very well make the leap production wise that gives you a top 5-10 fantasy tight end. I took Cobb with my last pick to round out my roster. Cobb had a very quiet 800+ receiving yards last season, and could be equally if not more productive in Houston. With Cook and Fuller both ahead of him on the roster and both frequently out due to health issues throughout their careers, he could see a lot of opportunity.
So this is what the "zero RB" strategy looks like from the 4th overall pick slot. Personally, I dislike the team overall, and you can see the automatic rating system did also. This team is very weak at running back, depending upon opportunity for several of the players that simply doesn't exist yet. While there's certainly potential here, and there's certainly the possibility of having a top 3 player at every other position most weeks will help offset the lack of productivity from the RB position, it'll be a tough battle every week.
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