KSL fantasy football draft recap


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SALT LAKE CITY — It's everyone's favorite time of the fantasy football year — draft season.

This is where hope still springs eternal for every owner. Everyone's hot targets still might be studs in waiting, and no one has yet fallen into a given league's cellar. Besides, isn't drafting as if you're a real NFL GM just fun?

We at KSL drafted our own league earlier this week. I'm your commissioner, and our eight-team league was filled out by Josh Furlong, Andy Larsen, Sean Walker, Nathan Harker, Greg Wrubell, Jeremiah Jensen and Rob Jackson. We'll be playing ESPN standard fantasy format, and those wishing to follow along can view our publicly available league anytime at this link.

Who put themselves in the best position to take home the hardware? Let's take a look at some winners and losers from Sunday's draft. Click each entry's header to view their roster, or click here for a full draft recap.

Winner: Greg Wrubell (Team WRUBELL)

For a guy who was traveling in the hours surrounding our draft and ended up making picks from his dying phone in an airport, Greg did a pretty darn good job. An eight-team league like ours tends to be less dependent on roster depth and hinge more on top-end talent, and I'm not sure anyone in the league did a better job of stacking studs in their starting lineup.

I actually thought he picked DeMarco Murray too high (seventh overall), but he nailed his next several picks and rounded out a core of Murray, Dez Bryant (my top wide receiver overall), T.Y. Hilton, Lamar Miller and Drew Brees. He nabbed a tight end I'm high on in Travis Kelce with the 42nd pick, and then stashed injured Arian Foster (expected to return by week nine or earlier).

I don't love his selection of another quarterback in Matt Ryan, as I believe it's unnecessary overlap with Brees, but one can afford those sorts of moves in a smaller league. I'm also not a huge fan of his overall depth picks, but again this is less important given the league size — and if Foster returns earlier than expected, something that's rumored, depth becomes much less of a concern for Greg. He's one of my early favorites if he manages things well from here.

Loser: Jeremiah Jensen (Team JENSEN)

I actually don't mind Jeremiah's team in a vacuum, but my specific concern here is who he even puts in his starting lineup for the early weeks of the season. Two of his first three picks, Le'Veon Bell and LeSean McCoy — also his top two running backs — are either unlikely to play or fully ruled out for the first two weeks, Bell with a suspension and McCoy with lingering injuries.

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If neither can go, Jeremiah will be forced to rely on St. Louis back Tre Mason (iffy and on a bad offense) and Tampa Bay's Doug Martin (even more iffy, with heavy competition for the starting role in an even worse offense) for two weeks. That's not an enviable spot, especially when the only other sure-thing studs on his roster are QB Aaron Rodgers and TE Jimmy Graham. Jeremiah may find himself in a quick hole at the game's most important position.

Winner: Sean Walker (Broken Jawbone)

It pains me to label Sean's draft a winner, as he was the only one of us who couldn't manage to be present for the actual draft and therefore had his team auto-selected. But whether through his own manipulation of his auto-draft order or through random luck, his team ended up looking like one of the strongest and deepest.

Adrian Peterson, Julio Jones and Demaryius Thomas are all premium studs, and I like Jordan Cameron as a potential breakout tight end. Sean's depth also turned out perhaps the best of any of us — Keenan Allen, Golden Tate, C.J. Spiller and Michael Floyd are all worthwhile, high-upside bench guys.

Don't allow Sean's success to cloud this point, though: always show up for your draft. It's just more fun that way, and more in the spirit of the game.

Loser: Josh Furlong (Team Furlong)

Is labeling your direct superior a loser a good idea? Sorry Josh, but at first glance your roster appears the weakest to me on balance. Take solace that my mentioning this almost certainly means you'll end up winning the league.

Unfortunately, each of Carlos Hyde, Antonio Brown and Frank Gore are guys I rate much lower than their average draft slot. I'm also not a fan of Josh's depth beyond Andre Johnson, a guy I'd honestly probably be starting over Gore to begin the year. He drafted multiple quarterbacks who may cause him unneeded confusion, something I'm not a fan of, and worse reached all the way into the ninth round for the Seahawks defense — breaking my cardinal rule of never, ever drafting a defense before the final rounds of the draft. There's too much year-to-year variance.

Luckily for Josh, the margins in an eight-team league are quite small. It would only take one or two guys outperforming their expectations to flip my prognosis on its head.

Stay tuned to KSL for weekly updates, and let us know what you think of our management.

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Ben Dowsett

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