Expert Mock Draft: TE First Pick

This fantasy football mock draft was completed yesterday and was composed of 12 industry "experts" in the fantasy football community. During this mock draft I wanted to demonstrate the ill effects of drafting a TE with the first pick.

• Pick 10
• Standard Scoring

I had the 10th pick in this mock draft and because of this I drafted tight end Jimmy Graham as I've seen other people doing in recent drafts. Again, just to show how thin RB is and how you can get caught. Here's a screenshot of how my draft turned out.

Round 1

Jimmy is no doubt the first TE that should leave the draft board this year. But how does selecting a TE with your first pick impact the rest of your draft picks?

Knowing that RB is thin this year and the separation between the top 5 and the 2nd/3rd tier is pretty large; I knew drafting TE first would hurt me. But I tried like hell to compensate, and it could work out if Murray stays healthy (improved Dallas line) and Lacy turns out to be a 10 TD running back with at least 900 yards rushing.

Round 2

When the 2nd pick came back to me Dez Bryant was the best value on the board when compared to the remaining RB. I knew it was going to be tough to get a quality RB in the 3rd, but saw value at RB around the fifth and was hoping to make a home run RB picks between rounds 4 through 6 with either Lamar Miller, and Eddie Lacy then Daryl Richardson (who has a chance to be a cow bell back) in the 6th or 7th.

Round 3

As you can see it didn't work out, I really was banking on Lamar in the 3rd, but he got taken, so my ONLY remaining choices at RB were Frank Gore or D. Murray. I picked Murray, a risky pick over Gore but I'm looking for a home run hit, and Murray's ceiling (need a breakout year) is higher than Gore's.

Round 4

Still needing a solid RB, but none remained. I took a solid WR betting that I could grab E. Lacy with my 5th pick, since everyone else pretty much had RB locked up I figured he would still be around.

Round 5

Eddie Lacy, my entire team hings on his success in Green Bay, the alternative and probable truth is that he or Murray will be a small failure (average at best) and I'll be praying for a huge waiver wire RB. If I had to play this team out, I'd be hunting waiver wire gems in weeks 1 through 4.

Round 6

Cam Newton.. wow.. just goes to show how deep QB is this year.

In the remaining rounds I just looked for home run picks, which was fun. P. Thomas will probably be nothing more than a bye-week filler but if Ingram gets hurt he's going to be a solid flex.

Picking a TE first seems to have hurt my fantasy team. I could have gotten a number of tight ends later in the draft that would have provided solid production and followed that up with some possible sleeper studs after round 8. Here's the take away from this "expert" mock draft.

1. If you take a TE in round 1, you'll be drafting RB's with "potential" not history.
2. WR studs will be off the board by the end of the 3rd round.
3. QB is deep so in MOST formats/drafts you can wait.
4. Plenty of "sleeper" WR's available late
5. RB is thin in every category, very few sleepers.