Sure it’s early, but is it ever too early for a mock draft?

Of course, that question is rhetorical. Because of the time constraints inherent in the publishing process, the magazines that you’ll soon be seeing on your newsstands are holding their mock drafts now. And with anywhere from two to three months until it counts—and because you want to walk into your real draft as prepared as possible—there’s little doubt you’ve started the process of figuring out who you’d take where.

Last offseason I lost count of the number of mocks and industry drafts I participated in; suffice it to say that I got to the point that I was able to actually conduct a draft for one of my leagues while coaching one of my son’s football practices—armed with nothing but a cell phone, a pen, and my predraft list. While that team made the playoffs, it’s not the kind of drafting conditions I’d advise you seek out.

But I digress.

The 2009 fantasy mock season, for me at least, kicked off with an industry draft through my good friends at Fantasy Football Champs. The final results can be viewed here; I’ll also list them below along with my own thoughts on how each round progressed.

This draft was for a non-PPR performance-based scoring system (roughly 50% TDs, 50% yardage), It went 18 rounds with the following required: three QBs, five RBs, six WRs, two TEs, one K, and one Team D/ST. I had the eighth overall selection in this serpentine draft.

ROUND 1

I did not enjoy being in the eight spot, and I am certainly not sold on Steven Jackson as my pick here. I thought about Brandon Jacobs, but his ADP was falling into the third round so I thought I’d see if he’d still be on the board for my second pick; obviously, that didn’t work out so well. My early rankings suggest this is a good draft if you’re holding pick four or above; outside of AP, Turner, MoJo and Forte it gets messy. I could have taken Jacobs, Westbrook, or Portis instead of Jackson and felt about the same degree of confidence; it appears as if this will be an area of the draft board requiring further analysis.

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