You shouldn't go into your draft with too much of a predetermined plan, but picking No. 7 in a non-PPR draft means I'm very likely to start with a balanced approach. That's because Michael Thomas and Davante Adams are my sixth and seventh favorite players in this format, and I'm very unlikely to start receiver-receiver from this spot in non-PPR. As you'll see below, in this draft I had a receiver, two running backs and a tight end through the first four rounds. That's about as balanced as it gets.
The other confounding factor in this draft was that it was a non-PPR league with three receivers slots and a flex. Receivers are less important in non-PPR but the fact that you can start four of them makes them very attractive in the middle rounds. Since I only had one after four rounds, I went a little crazy on receiver at this point in the draft. Maybe a little too crazy...
As a reference point, all touchdowns in this league are worth six points, and we award one point for every 10 yards rushing and receiving and one point for every 25 yards passing. We feature a starting lineup of QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, TE and FLEX (RB/WR/TE).
Here's my team from No. 7 overall:
- 1.7 Michael Thomas, WR, NO
- 2.6 Austin Ekeler, RB, LAC
- 3.7 Todd Gurley, RB, ATL
- 4.6 Mark Andrews, TE, BAL
- 5.7 Courtland Sutton, WR, DEN
- 6.6 A.J. Green, WR, CIN
- 7.7 Marvin Jones, WR, DET
- 8.6 Tevin Coleman, RB, SF
- 9.7 Alexander Mattison, RB, MIN
- 10.6 Carson Wentz, QB, PHI
- 11.7 DeSean Jackson, WR, PHI
- 12.6 Ke'Shawn Vaughn, RB, TB
- 13.7 Rex Burkhead, RB, NE
- 14.6 Gardner Minshew, QB, JAC
- 15.7 Jack Doyle, TE, IND
Non-PPR Pick-by-Pick Guide: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
Taking three straight receivers left me pretty shallow at running back. There's certainly upside with Mattison and Vaughn, but I'm going to need Coleman and/or Burkhead to have a bigger role than they did last year to really feel good about this group.
The one nice thing about our drafts is I can always count on Wentz and Minshew to be there in the double-digit rounds as a security blanket. While you probably won't get Wentz in Round 10 in your draft, I would expect him to last past the top 10 quarterbacks, which is a mistake. Also, Round 14 is pretty close to Minshew's ADP. You could wait this long and just pair him with someone like Ben Roethlisberger.
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In the first four weeks of 2019 (without Melvin Gordon) Ekeler averaged 20 touches per game and was the No. 2 running back in non-PPR leagues. I'm really not sure Justin Jackson or Joshua Kelley is going to make much of a dent in that. Ekeler is generally accepted as a borderline first round pick in PPR, but he falls to the middle of the second in this format and you should pounce when he does. He's discount Alvin Kamara, and their past efficiency suggests there shouldn't be much of a discount now that the touches should be close.
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There is going to be some touchdown regression for Andrews, who scored on more than 10% of his targets last season. I'm counting on his target volume to increase, mostly making up for it. That's because the Ravens should throw slightly more than they did in 2019, and the absence of Hayden Hurst should mean a higher snap share for Andrews. Even if I'm wrong, Andrews won't be bad. But there is a chance he's only as good as Darren Waller, Evan Engram and Hunter Henry. Those guys were all available when I took Marvin Jones in Round 7.
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This Atlanta offense provides plenty of room for upside. They made Devonta Freeman a high-end No. 2 running back on a per game basis. If Gurley gets Freeman's PPR workload and continues his red-zone dominance, he'll be an awesome No. 2 running back, probably more like a No. 1. But Gurley's knee condition is still the elephant in the room. It could be that Atlanta manages that knee and Gurley doesn't get enough touches to justify a third-round pick. It could also be that Gurley just isn't very good anymore, as his 2019 efficiency suggested.
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