Fantasy Football 2021: Examining Expert Mock Drafts After Preseason Week 3

While some fantasy football leagues held their drafts weeks ago, others won't take place until this weekend. And for those who have waited until the final days before the start of the 2021 NFL season on September 9, there's one distinct advantage: injury knowledge.

For example, if your draft was held in mid-August, there were likely managers who took Jacksonville Jaguars running back Travis Etienne Jr. and Baltimore Ravens running back J.K. Dobbins in the first half of the draft. Now, both are out with season-ending injuries, and those managers are left scrambling for replacements.

If your fantasy football draft hasn't happened yet, you probably are still doing some last-minute preparation, even if you've been doing research for weeks. Projections and rankings change throughout training camp and the preseason, so it's always wise to stay on top of things.

And, fortunately, there are mock drafts that aren't published until after the preseason action is complete. So it's possible to see how these late drafts may unfold.

Here's a look at some recent mocks from around the web.

12-Team PPR Mock at ESPN

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ESPN's Fantasy Focus team got together for a new mock draft earlier this week, and this one didn't have too many surprises early. The first six players taken in the first round were the top-ranked running backs, which has been a common thing to see.

The first notable decision came from Kyle Soppe at No. 7, as he opted to use his first-round pick on Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. In some drafts, Kelce goes a few picks earlier. Sometimes he'll fall to the end of the first round. But Soppe prevented him from dropping that far and took him right around when you'll typically see the No. 1 tight end in the NFL come off the board.

One player who fell a bit was Cleveland Browns running back Nick Chubb, who was still available for Tristan H. Cockcroft to take at No. 16 (the fourth pick of the second round). That gave Cockcroft a great RB duo to build around, as he previously selected the New York Giants' Saquon Barkley at No. 9.

There wasn't a quarterback taken until the third round, when the Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes was selected by Keith Lipscomb with the first pick of the round. There's a case to be made for Mahomes late in the second, but most of the ESPN analysts with those picks opted to take top wide receivers instead.

Overall, this mock draft mostly played out as you'd expect, considering these are fantasy experts.

12-Team PPR Mock at Bleacher Report

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Bleacher Report's Gary Davenport has been conducting mock drafts featuring fantasy analysts and veteran managers throughout the preseason. One mock came out Wednesday. 

A surprise that occurred during the opening round was that Davenport landed Barkley with the final pick of the first round at No. 12. There were eight RBs that came off the board before that, all going with the first eight selections.

Davenport wrote that it's "admittedly something of a risky pick" to take Barkley, who sometimes is going as early as the top five. Barkley could provide tremendous value in 2021, but that depends on if he can stay healthy.

It's also worth noting that Davenport took a running back in each of the first three rounds, as he followed his Barkley pick by taking Chubb in the second and the Las Vegas Raiders' Josh Jacobs in the third. Considering how much depth there is at other positions, it can be wise to stack up on RBs like this year.

12-Team Superflex PPR at The Athletic

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This mock from The Athletic adds an interesting wrinkle: the superflex position. That's when you can play any of a quarterback, running back, wide receiver or tight end in your flex spot. And as you might expect, that greatly changes draft strategies.

There were 11 fantasy experts and Washington Nationals infielder Ryan Zimmerman taking part in this superflex mock, and quarterbacks came off the board quickly in the first round. That's because every lineup is likely to have two QBs, a common practice in the superflex format.

Zimmerman took Mahomes at No. 2, the first of seven quarterbacks taken within the first nine picks. Because of that QB run, many top RBs and WRs fell to the second and third rounds who you don't normally see get taken there in standard redraft leagues.

So if you're thinking about adding the superflex to your league, this mock is a good one to analyze. It gives you a feel of how differently these drafts unfold. For example, nearly every manager took three quarterbacks, whereas in standard leagues, you sometimes see some people take only one.