Drafting from: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
Regardless of format, the No. 6 pick is the best pick in the draft.
You get the last player in the top tier of Fantasy assets, and you get the best second-round pick of anyone who has a player in that tier. I also love being in the middle of the draft and never having to wait too long between picks. This helps prevent a feeling that you must reach to address a need. Well, it's supposed to.
I did feel like my pick of Bilal Powell was a reach, but more on him later. Outside of the Powell pick, this is one of my favorite teams I've drafted this summer. The team has depth at both running back and receiver and has a top-five player at both quarterback and tight end. It's hard to accomplish all of those goals.
Here is my team from No. 6 overall:
- 1.6 Odell Beckham, WR, NYG
- 2.19 Doug Baldwin, WR, SEA
- 3.30 Lamar Miller, RB, HOU
- 4.43 Greg Olsen, TE, CAR
- 5.54 Stefon Diggs, WR, MIN
- 6.67 Bilal Powell, RB, NYJ
- 7.78 Spencer Ware, RB, KC
- 8.91 Russell Wilson, QB, SEA
- 9.102 Matt Forte, RB, NYJ
- 10.115 Duke Johnson, RB, CLE
- 11.126 Tyler Lockett, WR, SEA
- 12.139 Zay Jones, WR, BUF
- 13.150 Falcons DST
- 14.163 Matt Prater, K, DET
Depth at wide receiver wasn't as much of a priority after I started with a pair of top-10 receivers in Beckham and Baldwin. That's why I only used one of my next eight picks on the position. Still, the trio of Diggs, Lockett and Jones makes me feel really good about my receiving corps and prepared in case I lose a top pick to injury.
Diggs caught 84 balls in 14 games in his second year in the league. I'm not sure how much love he'll get for a third-year breakout but he doesn't really need one to be a huge PPR value in Round 5. He just needs to stay healthy and have a little better touchdown luck.
Lockett was a preseason darling in 2016 but injuries to both him and Russell Wilson ruined those chances. Jones is a rookie on an offense that is starved for receiving options not named Sammy Watkins. Lockett and Jones both have high-end No. 3 potential in this format.
Favorite pick: Lamar Miller
Miller is consistently falling to the third round in our drafts, and I absolutely love the value. He was a disappointment in 2016 but still performed like a No. 1 RB on a per-game basis. Miller is one of a select group of backs for whom I legitimately see a path to 300 touches, and he's being drafted a round after most of the others.
Pick you might regret: Bilal Powell
Only part of my concern with this pick comes from the fact that there was a report calling Matt Forte the starter shortly after I made the pick. It just seemed too early anyway. The best-case scenario for Powell is sharing the load with Forte in a bad offense that figures to produce few scoring opportunities. If Forte stays healthy, of course.
If Forte goes down and Powell gets a workhorse load with anything close to last year's efficiency, this is the pick of the draft. Round 6 is just too early for an "if the other guy gets hurt" pick. I did take Forte as well in Round 9, so as long as one of these guys has a primary role, I should be fine.
Player who could make or break your team: Spencer Ware
I took Ware one pick after Dave Richard took Kareem Hunt, which tells you all you need to know about how differently the two of us view this situation. I expect the two to split the workload, but Ware to be similar to last year's work while Hunt takes over Charcandrick West's role.
If I'm right and Ware sees 200-plus carries, that Powell pick a round earlier becomes a bit of a moot point. But if Dave is right and the Powell pick is a bust, my depth at RB starts to look a whole lot shakier.
