I'm currently at an all-inclusive resort in Turk and Caicos, but since my body can't take advantage of unlimited alcohol, unlike some of you, I'm still a bit sober. It's also my first night here, I'm trying to ease into the partying by working on this write-up. Hopefully, that will translate into some coherent grading. Guess I'll go alphabetical. Enjoy the first week of Football!
Byron
Grade: What the F
Best pick: 1st Round, Deshaun Watson
Worst pick: 2nd Round, Scrub Denver WR who my fantasy advice site could not even find. The cray-cray rivaled Trump's bathroom tweets. Isiah Mackenzie in 2nd round. I'm a Bronco fan, and I even I didn't know who the F is this scrub. The Broncos drafted 2 promising WRs, neither of them named Isiah. Then to pile on the weirdness, Byron picked in the 3rd round a kicker from a team not exactly known for their offensive eliteness. In any other season, Byron's 3rd round would have been the consensus worst pick of the draft.
Donny
Grade: B-
Best Pick: 9th Round, Trey Burton. Great value pick, I'm surprised he lasted all the way down here. Chicago's new coach likes using TEs, and I'm shocked that Kevin didn't pick the QB in the Super Bowl Philly Special play. Burton has a chance to be a top 5 TE this year, and he may give Donny a special 6 points once or twice from passing a TD...
Worst Pick: 4th Round, Rashaad Penny. A bit of a reach for Donny, and Seattle has so many questions about its running game. This may be a lottery ticket with high payoff, but I'm pretty sure Donny could have waited a couple of rounds, penny-wise, pound foolish.
Hai
Grade: A-
Best Pick: 10th Round, John Ross. Great sleeper value, Ross has home-run potential. Hai earned his A because he somehow accumulated 5 WRs who have a good chance to be their team's #1 Wideout, plus Ross.
Worst Pick: 4th Round, Jimmy Graham. Well, the flip side of investing heavily in WRs - shallow bench of RBs. Hai could have propped up his RB depth in the 4th round, so this was more of a loss of opportunity cost than Jimmy Graham's fantasy expectation itself. I don't know if there will be a big drop-off from Graham to Njoku, the latter pick was pretty good value.
Justin
Grade: A-
Best Pick: Not going homer with Carolina Panthers. I would rate Justin's 2nd round and 3rd round picks as his best ones, really strong #2 WR and #2 RB picks in Thielen and Lamar Miller. Unlike past years, Justin's team has really good depth in all spots except QB (where depth isn't as much of a factor). Justin's draft could result in making the playoffs the year after coming in dead last.
Worst Pick: 9th round, Sammy Watkins. I'm not a big Watkins fan, he's too feast or famine. But it's not a critical depth pick, I don't know if the pick will hurt Justin.
Kevin:
Grade: B-
Best Pick: Round 12, Michael Gallup. Getting a team's likely #1 WR in the 12th round is a successful bargain hunt. Also, Kevin made a "Smart" homer pick in picking Zach Ertz.
Worst Pick: Round 7, Marcus Mariota. It's not that I don't like Mariota, but Kevin diluted his QB position by getting 3 QBs who have similar upsides and downsides. This means his team efficiency will suffer when he starts the wrong QB for the week. Kevin's draft really hurt his "fantasy team chemistry", I believe.
Matt
Grade: C
Best Pick: Round 12, Sterling Shepard. Tuna, who's usually really good at picking WRs, heartily endorsed this pick during the draft. Good upside value. Round 6 Matt Breida has a high ceiling now that Jerrick McKinnon is out for the season.
Worst Pick: In normal times, drafting a K would result in a max grade of D. But I'm sort of grading on a curve here, so Matt gets somewhat of a passing C. I actually think his worse pick is his 2nd round pick for Sony Michel - Patriots RBs are notoriously unreliable fantasy producers, plus he's starting the season injured and Bill Bellichik doesn't trust rookie RBs.
PJ
Grade: B+
Best Pick: 4th round, Carson Wentz. Gives an out for PJ's mistake of keeping Derek Carr. At least for the second half of the season. I also really liked PJ's pick of Juju. I was seriously considering drafting Juju over T.Y. Hilton, and am still wondering if I made the wrong call by picking Hilton.
Worst Pick: 8th round, Mike Gesicki. Definitely a homer pick. Gesicki probably would have been an undrafted free agent if not for PJ. But PJ made up for it by selecting TE Ricky Seal-Jones in round 11, good value there.
Tuna and son
Grade: B
Best Pick: Round 6, Jamaal Williams. Tuna's draft was mostly safe with a lot of "high-floor" type of players. The exception was Jamaal Williams, who has a real good chance to become the workhorse RB of the Packers, as the others are either injured or are too small to be a bell-cow type RB.
Worst Pick: By sticking to safe picks, there really were no puzzling or obvious bad picks for Tuna. I'm going Round 9, Matt Ryan but more because Atlanta's Offensive coordinator sucks.
Victor
Grade: C+
Best Pick: Round 7, David Funchess. A bit of a steal for getting the #1 Carolina WR. Cam likes to boost stats of his #1 WR historically, so getting a Funchess in round 7 represents good value.
Worst Pick: Round 1, Royce Freeman. Let's leave the obvious homer pick optics aside. Analyzing alternative scenarios, Victor would end up mostly lose-lose with this pick. If Royce is a bust, Victor wasted a #1 pick. If Royce is a stud, Victor would become inefficient as he benches Royce in the early part of the season and then have to guess the starter between Royce and Alex Collins. The only win scenario would be if one of Victor's starting RBs gets injured, then Victor can start Royce without a question.
Vu
Grade: B
Best Pick: Round 4, Marquise Goodwin. I'm on the Marquise bandwagon, so am applauding this pick. Vu also lucked into Davante Adams, who I prefer over Julio Jones. Speaking of luck, getting Andrew Luck meant Vu's first half of the draft was a nice harvest.
Worst Pick: Round 9, Jordy Nelson. He isn't the same player as he once was. Bonus bad pick in Round 12 for drafting a second kicker. One should never draft a 2nd kicker over a sleeper lottery ticket. Vu ran out of steam a bit in the second half.
Byron
Grade: What the F
Best pick: 1st Round, Deshaun Watson
Worst pick: 2nd Round, Scrub Denver WR who my fantasy advice site could not even find. The cray-cray rivaled Trump's bathroom tweets. Isiah Mackenzie in 2nd round. I'm a Bronco fan, and I even I didn't know who the F is this scrub. The Broncos drafted 2 promising WRs, neither of them named Isiah. Then to pile on the weirdness, Byron picked in the 3rd round a kicker from a team not exactly known for their offensive eliteness. In any other season, Byron's 3rd round would have been the consensus worst pick of the draft.
Donny
Grade: B-
Best Pick: 9th Round, Trey Burton. Great value pick, I'm surprised he lasted all the way down here. Chicago's new coach likes using TEs, and I'm shocked that Kevin didn't pick the QB in the Super Bowl Philly Special play. Burton has a chance to be a top 5 TE this year, and he may give Donny a special 6 points once or twice from passing a TD...
Worst Pick: 4th Round, Rashaad Penny. A bit of a reach for Donny, and Seattle has so many questions about its running game. This may be a lottery ticket with high payoff, but I'm pretty sure Donny could have waited a couple of rounds, penny-wise, pound foolish.
Hai
Grade: A-
Best Pick: 10th Round, John Ross. Great sleeper value, Ross has home-run potential. Hai earned his A because he somehow accumulated 5 WRs who have a good chance to be their team's #1 Wideout, plus Ross.
Worst Pick: 4th Round, Jimmy Graham. Well, the flip side of investing heavily in WRs - shallow bench of RBs. Hai could have propped up his RB depth in the 4th round, so this was more of a loss of opportunity cost than Jimmy Graham's fantasy expectation itself. I don't know if there will be a big drop-off from Graham to Njoku, the latter pick was pretty good value.
Justin
Grade: A-
Best Pick: Not going homer with Carolina Panthers. I would rate Justin's 2nd round and 3rd round picks as his best ones, really strong #2 WR and #2 RB picks in Thielen and Lamar Miller. Unlike past years, Justin's team has really good depth in all spots except QB (where depth isn't as much of a factor). Justin's draft could result in making the playoffs the year after coming in dead last.
Worst Pick: 9th round, Sammy Watkins. I'm not a big Watkins fan, he's too feast or famine. But it's not a critical depth pick, I don't know if the pick will hurt Justin.
Kevin:
Grade: B-
Best Pick: Round 12, Michael Gallup. Getting a team's likely #1 WR in the 12th round is a successful bargain hunt. Also, Kevin made a "Smart" homer pick in picking Zach Ertz.
Worst Pick: Round 7, Marcus Mariota. It's not that I don't like Mariota, but Kevin diluted his QB position by getting 3 QBs who have similar upsides and downsides. This means his team efficiency will suffer when he starts the wrong QB for the week. Kevin's draft really hurt his "fantasy team chemistry", I believe.
Matt
Grade: C
Best Pick: Round 12, Sterling Shepard. Tuna, who's usually really good at picking WRs, heartily endorsed this pick during the draft. Good upside value. Round 6 Matt Breida has a high ceiling now that Jerrick McKinnon is out for the season.
Worst Pick: In normal times, drafting a K would result in a max grade of D. But I'm sort of grading on a curve here, so Matt gets somewhat of a passing C. I actually think his worse pick is his 2nd round pick for Sony Michel - Patriots RBs are notoriously unreliable fantasy producers, plus he's starting the season injured and Bill Bellichik doesn't trust rookie RBs.
PJ
Grade: B+
Best Pick: 4th round, Carson Wentz. Gives an out for PJ's mistake of keeping Derek Carr. At least for the second half of the season. I also really liked PJ's pick of Juju. I was seriously considering drafting Juju over T.Y. Hilton, and am still wondering if I made the wrong call by picking Hilton.
Worst Pick: 8th round, Mike Gesicki. Definitely a homer pick. Gesicki probably would have been an undrafted free agent if not for PJ. But PJ made up for it by selecting TE Ricky Seal-Jones in round 11, good value there.
Tuna and son
Grade: B
Best Pick: Round 6, Jamaal Williams. Tuna's draft was mostly safe with a lot of "high-floor" type of players. The exception was Jamaal Williams, who has a real good chance to become the workhorse RB of the Packers, as the others are either injured or are too small to be a bell-cow type RB.
Worst Pick: By sticking to safe picks, there really were no puzzling or obvious bad picks for Tuna. I'm going Round 9, Matt Ryan but more because Atlanta's Offensive coordinator sucks.
Victor
Grade: C+
Best Pick: Round 7, David Funchess. A bit of a steal for getting the #1 Carolina WR. Cam likes to boost stats of his #1 WR historically, so getting a Funchess in round 7 represents good value.
Worst Pick: Round 1, Royce Freeman. Let's leave the obvious homer pick optics aside. Analyzing alternative scenarios, Victor would end up mostly lose-lose with this pick. If Royce is a bust, Victor wasted a #1 pick. If Royce is a stud, Victor would become inefficient as he benches Royce in the early part of the season and then have to guess the starter between Royce and Alex Collins. The only win scenario would be if one of Victor's starting RBs gets injured, then Victor can start Royce without a question.
Vu
Grade: B
Best Pick: Round 4, Marquise Goodwin. I'm on the Marquise bandwagon, so am applauding this pick. Vu also lucked into Davante Adams, who I prefer over Julio Jones. Speaking of luck, getting Andrew Luck meant Vu's first half of the draft was a nice harvest.
Worst Pick: Round 9, Jordy Nelson. He isn't the same player as he once was. Bonus bad pick in Round 12 for drafting a second kicker. One should never draft a 2nd kicker over a sleeper lottery ticket. Vu ran out of steam a bit in the second half.
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