Fantasy Football 2018: Standard League Mock Draft and Position Strategy

Are you ready for some football? A fantasy party?

Sure you are. It's August, an entire month dedicated to fantasy football research and overanalyzing training camp practices and preseason games. Keeping in the spirit, I've compiled a five-round mock draft for a standard-scoring, 10-team league.

After each round, I'll explain my thinking on either my rankings, my general draft philosophy or both.

Hopefully it helps guide you in your own fantasy research.

Round 1

Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

1. Todd Gurley, RB, Los Angeles Rams

2. Le'Veon Bell, RB, Pittsburgh Steelers

3. Ezekiel Elliott, RB, Dallas Cowboys

4. David Johnson, RB, Arizona Cardinals

5. Saquon Barkley, RB, New York Giants

6. Antonio Brown, WR, Pittsburgh Steelers

7. Alvin Kamara, RB, New Orleans Saints

8. Leonard Fournette, RB, Jacksonville Jaguars

9. DeAndre Hopkins, WR, Houston Texans

10. Odell Beckham Jr., WR, New York Giants

You must not mess up your first-round pick. In redraft leagues especially, it's difficult to recover from a botched first-rounder. 

As you'll notice, I'm high on running backs in the first round. I love players like Todd Gurley, Le'Veon Bell, David Johnson, Saquon Barkley and Alvin Kamara because they are versatile, dual-threat options who will post major rushing and receiving numbers. That makes them the ultimate weapon and extremely valuable in fantasy. 

Ezekiel Elliott and Leonard Fournette are more traditional running backs, but both are so talented that they make up for making less of an impact in the passing game as players like Gurley. Elliott, for instance, is averaging 104.5 rushing yards and one touchdown per game in his career. 

That averages out to 16.5 fantasy points per game. That's pretty remarkable.  

Fournette, meanwhile, averaged 80 rushing yards and 0.77 touchdowns per game, missing three contests. Stretch those numbers out to a full season and Fournette would have compiled 1,280 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns last year, or an average of 14 fantasy points per week. Not too shabby. 

As for the wideouts, Antonio Brown is the safest player in all of fantasy at this point. There's an argument to be made that you should simply take him No. 1 overall since he's basically guaranteed to register over 1,200 receiving yards and double-digit scores. I personally believe in rolling the dice on running backs with a tad more upside, but I wouldn't begrudge you for playing it safe with Brown. 

As for DeAndre Hopkins and Odell Beckham Jr., both have immense upside at the position. The fact that Hopkins caught 96 passes for 1,378 yards and 13 touchdowns despite only having Deshaun Watson under center for less than half of the season is a pretty good indication he's as safe as they come.

As for Beckham, he's averaging 94.1 receiving yards and 0.8 touchdowns per game in his career. Over the course of a 16-game season, that's 1,505 yards and 12 touchdowns. So yeah, Beckham should absolutely be a first-round pick. 

(For the Julio Jones' fans out there—he's absolutely a worthy first-round pick. I personally like the upside of the above players a bit more, but Jones is in the same tier as Hopkins and Beckham.)

Round 2

John Bazemore/Associated Press

11. Julio Jones, WR, Atlanta Falcons

12. Melvin Gordon, RB, Los Angeles Rams

13. Kareem Hunt, RB, Kansas City Chiefs

14. Keenan Allen, WR, Los Angeles Chargers

15. A.J. Green, WR, Cincinnati Bengals

16. Davante Adams, WR, Green Bay Packers

17. Michael Thomas, WR, New Orleans Saints

18. Jordan Howard, RB, Chicago Bears

19. T.Y. Hilton, WR, Indianapolis Colts 

20. Mike Evans, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

While I wanted to justify the players I had in my top 10, from here on out I'll be approaching the different rounds from a more philosophical drafting perspective, highlighting a few players here and there. 

Round 2 is another key round, and what you do here isn't necessarily dependent on what you did in the first round. Again, you should be taking the best player on the board. For me, that always means trying to find players who are both reliable and have major ceilings.

There are rounds to find that steady running back who never exceeds 10 points in a week, or for that flashy young receiver who hadn't quite put it together in recent years.

There are exceptions, of course. I have Barkley as a top five pick, and he hasn't taken a snap in the NFL. But if you watched him at Penn State, there's little doubt he'll be a major weapon in New York immediately. He can do it all, and it's not as though the Giants have another option at the position to steal snaps from him. 

So, a reminder: In the first two rounds, take the two best players on the board. I would recommend trying to snag at least one running back in these rounds and avoiding quarterbacks or tight ends, but at the end of the day, you need to get optimal value here. 

Round 3

Bruce Kluckhohn/Associated Press

21. Dalvin Cook, RB, Minnesota Vikings

22. Devonta Freeman, RB, Atlanta Falcons

23. Rob Gronkowski, TE, New England Patriots

24. Amari Cooper, WR, Oakland Raiders

25. Adam Thielen, WR, Minnesota Vikings

26. Larry Fitzgerald, WR, Arizona Cardinals

27. Tyreek Hill, WR, Kansas City Chiefs

28. LeSean McCoy, RB, Buffalo Bills

29. Travis Kelce, TE, Kansas City Chiefs

30. Joe Mixon, RB, Cincinnati Bengals

This is the round where you have to start considering who is left on the board, which positions you've addressed and where the positional depth will be.

If you're in Round 3 and you don't have a running back yet, whoo boy, you better lock that down. If you have two running backs already, though, it's a good time to add a wideout. 

Generally, my philosophy will be sticking to running backs and wide receivers in the first three rounds. Rob Gronkowski and Travis Kelce are the two exceptions. 

Tight end is not a deep position. You can lose a ton of value by waiting too long to address the position, finding yourself at the end of a run and landing a player who gets you less than six points per week.

The drop-off is real: Last year, only seven tight ends averaged six or more points each week. And the difference between the top dog, Gronkowski, and the 10th tight end in fantasy points last year, Jason Witten, was 4.6 points per week. 

That's the difference between a close win and a close loss. And Gronk missed two games. The fact that Gronkowski has so many injury concerns hurts his overall value. But his general superiority to most of the other options at tight end (with Kelce emerging as an elite option in fantasy as well) means he's hardly a bad pick in the third round.

Round 4

Charles Krupa/Associated Press

31. Tom Brady, QB, New England Patriots

32. Aaron Rodgers, QB, Green Bay Packers

33. Zach Ertz, TE, Philadelphia Eagles

34. Doug Baldwin, WR, Seattle Seahawks

35. Jerick McKinnon, RB, San Francisco 49ers

36. Christian McCaffrey, RB, Carolina Panthers

37. Derrius Guice, RB, Washington

38. Derrick Henry, RB, Tennessee Titans

39. Stefon Diggs, WR, Minnesota Vikings

40. Jay Ajayi, RB, Philadelphia Eagles

This is the round you can start considering quarterbacks, in my opinion. There is just so much depth at the position. Last year, quarterback was a bit more rough than usual, sure, but consider the players who are either returning from injury or will be full-time starters this year:

• Aaron Rodgers
• Deshaun Watson
• Carson Wentz
• Andrew Luck
• Patrick Mahomes (He takes over a dangerous Kansas City offense from Alex Smith, who was the fourth-ranked quarterback in fantasy last year.)
• Jimmy Garoppolo

That doesn't factor in that Kirk Cousins should have even better weapons in Minnesota than he did in Washington. Or that Jared Goff will have Brandin Cooks.

Obviously, landing a top-tier option is always ideal, if possible. But there is so much depth at the position this year I'm not even going to consider a quarterback until the fourth round and may wait to roll the dice on a high-upside option even later than that in redraft leagues.

Round 5

Elaine Thompson/Associated Press

41. Russell Wilson, QB, Seattle Seahawks

42. Cam Newton, QB, Carolina Panthers

43. Deshaun Watson, QB, Houston Texans

44. Josh Gordon, WR, Cleveland Browns

45. Alshon Jeffery, WR, Philadelphia Eagles

46. Allen Robinson, WR, Chicago Bears

47. Demaryius Thomas, WR, Denver Broncos

48. Kenyan Drake, RB, Miami Dolphins

49. Alex Collins, RB, Baltimore Ravens

50. Chris Hogan, WR, New England Patriots

In Round 5, you're still trying to fill out your starting lineup, but this is around the point in the draft where you have to start taking some gambles on upside. Ideally you haven't selected a quarterback yet and you have Russell Wilson, Cam Newton or Watson waiting for you.

But if not, start considering a player's ceiling. Chris Hogan is a great example of this. 

With Brandin Cooks in Los Angeles and Julian Edelman suspended for the first four games of the year, Hogan could quickly emerge as a key pillar in New England's passing game alongside Gronkowski and James White. He should be Brady's top option out wide, regardless, and could be an absolute touchdown magnet as a field-stretching deep threat. 

Oh, and it's a contract year for Hogan, too. He should absolutely be on your radar, and the fifth round is precisely when it's worth rolling the dice on his upside.