Fantasy Football Mock Drafts—Why And Where To Do Them

The Fantasy Football Mock Draft. There was once a time when the only place you would really see them was in print, on paper, in a annual fantasy football magazine. It was nice to see where the staff that these magazines appointed experts would take players in a draft. A fly on a wall in a sense. But would your buddies draft that way? You could do mocks with your pals in your favorite message board but if you were playing with these guys you wouldn’t want to tip your hand, would you? With the evolution of the Internet and the eventual realization by the mainstream media that Fantasy Football was not a fad, mock draft services were a part of a natural progression in the interactive web.

They first popped up provided by those sites that loved fantasy football and envisioned a way to take it to the next level on the net. Then the mainstream sports sites jumped on board the fantasy bandwagon and started providing them as well. Now it seems you can not swing a computer mouse without hitting a mock draft service. Are you using them? If you are, good. If not, why are you not taking advantage of this? Here are some reasons you should, followed by where…

• To fix your fantasy football craving. You had to hate when people would join the free leagues and max out their teams as soon as they opened for business in the summer because they had the fever. I used to be guilty. I managed my teams though…many don’t.  Doing mock drafts can provide a temporary fix.
• Testing draft strategies. It used to be the RB, RB. Then there were the Triplets. These days things are going to Best Available. Then, on top of that, you have to consider that the draft position you are at could change things all together. Use them to test out the various strategies at various positions. Doing so last year was very enlightening for Football Jabber(Have a look HERE and then come back and continue, we will wait…).
• Mock to your hearts content without giving anything up to your competition. Unless you tell your league mates where and when you are mocking, you can test out as much as you want without them knowing who you are targeting.
• To see how others value players. I’m sure by now you have seen the term Average Draft Position (or ADP) used. Many of these are taken from mock drafts until real draft data is available. Of course, the results can be skewed a little depending on how serious those drafting are but so are leagues, right? Why take a chance on a sleeper you want too early if you know that their ADP is six rounds later? There is a good chance nobody will take them for a few rounds.

Those are some of the reasons to get your mock on—now for where to do it. I did some mocks at each of these recently and can give you a little insight into each. We welcome readers to share their experiences and favorites as well. If you are looking for mock auctions, some of these like ESPN and CBS make those available too. Most give you the ability to choose between a number of options as far as number of teams in the mock league.

• Fantasy Football Calculator- This is my favorite. One of the reasons it is my favorite is that, although it has some other features, the reason for being for this site is Fantasy Football Mock Drafts and Average Draft Position analysis. The price is right too—free. There is a good chance any time you show up here to do a mock you are going to be able to jump in and go. Not with just the computer to mock against either, this place has the traffic as well and those that use it appear to be serious. You don’t have to register but you can if you want your mocks saved to your profile so you can compare them later. Simple interface and user friendly. You can enter the draft as soon as you sign up. Downer-You are limited to the scoring default.
• Fantasy Football Xtreme- Again you have  Mock Drafts brought to you by people that truly love the game of Fantasy Football. With everything that Fantasy Football Xtreme has to offer this seems kind of like it is hidden away and can be easily overlooked. Easy to use interface. Picks lightning fast for the computer picks, doesn’t mess around! They boast their ADP data, would like to see that included somewhere in the info when drafting. New Drafts starting every five minutes but not many to choose from if you are looking for a certain amount of teams. I have a feeling this application will be improved for 2010 Fantasy Football Mock Drafts.
• MyFantasyLeague.com-  If you have read Football Jabber for any period of time you likely are aware that we are big fans of MFL.com around here. For me jumping into a mock draft here was like being at home because I’m so used to the format of the draft room. Easy to use. One downer is that it picks from their ADP list for the computer so you can actually see a few picks out if you are after some computer picks who is going to be available to you. Not a real mainstream site so not a lot of mockers. They are offering a “Draft Only” league this year where you can draft like a mock draft and the system will play the best roster each week for the season. With this you can do it with buddies and kind of let it play out to see who had the better draft in the end. Football Jabber has one going with a 20 man roster to make up for injuries.
• Mock Draft Central- Another site dedicated to Mock Drafts. This one has more bells and whistles though. That isn’t always a good thing. The draft room can be a bit overwhelming and hard to navigate. For those that  are planning to spend a lot of time here it is a decent setup, like saving rankings. You can save rankings in your profile making it easier to use them in different mocks. More upside here is the ability to chose between different scoring systems and league types (IDP!). Many of the features are under the “Premium” section. The cost isn’t much but it is still cost. There are several factors you can search through when looking for a mock, including “Coach Karma.” This is a number that is supposed to give credit the good mockers and punish the slackers.
• ESPN- When testing this one out I was pretty bummed that there were only a couple other people in the mock I was doing. About four minutes out from the start though it filled up pretty fast. It was kind of tough to figure out where to go in. Finally found the link and had to wait for the draft room to launch. Once inside it was like walking into a casino. You have pictures, player stats, projections. I soon realized it was the same as the regular draft room and took me a while to find a button to actually pick. This happened to me in a draft there last year—ended up with Tom Brady in the first round—still won the league though. Anyway, the owners didn’t seem serious since they didn’t stay long if showed up at all. Maybe those that didn’t show were still trying to find the button to get in. I was very happy with my draft until my computer locked up in the 8th round(vary rare occurrence so I have to think it was related). Got an email with the results—took a dive after the computer started drafting.
• Yahoo- When I arrived at the Yahoo Mock Draft section it was pretty early in the morning, I did not expect to be turned away though. It said the next draft was in 1 hour and 16 minutes. I went back later in the evening to give it a run. Takes while to find the link. Another flash room. Gives warning of possible 2 minute load time. Who has that kind of time in this short attention span Internet age?  One upside if you are in Yahoo leagues you can use rankings right from the leagues you have in there.
• CBS Sports- I hate passwords. I had to login, so I had to figure out my details. By the time I got in there I thought I was too late.  Actually, I almost was. The system let me take a draft position that was almost timed out when I got in! By the 7th round myself and one other owner were the only ones left, all others had left.  Not worth my time to go back here.

There are more out there, feel free to drop some names if you have favorites. We would love to hear what you do and don’t like about any Fantasy Football Mock Draft service.  For more free fantasy football info, check out Football Jabber.