Best possible fantasy football draft for 2019

It can be educational to perform a post-mortem on just about anything, including fantasy football. This might have been better suited back in January, but, you know, no one was letting me write then. So below, I’m taking a look at what would have been the best possible draft for the 2019 fantasy season. Obviously, no one pulled this draft off (right? If you did, let me know), but there might be something we can learn here.

(Notes: Drafting from the 1.03 hole, snake draft, PPR scoring, 17 rounds, but the last two are defense and kicker and no, I’m not going to mock those up. All ADP data comes from Fantasy Football Calculator.)

Round 1: Christian McCaffrey, RB, Carolina Panthers

(Actual ADP: 1.03)

Victory lap for Daniel here, because I was one of the few who had McCaffrey as my literal No. 1 overall player in drafts last year. Easy call.

Lesson to be learned? Not really. Draft good players and hope it works out.

Round 2: Keenan Allen, WR, Los Angeles Chargers

(Actual ADP: 3.01)

Receivers who went just before Allen: Odell Beckham Jr., Mike Evans, Antonio Brown, Adam Thielen. You wouldn’t call Evans a disappointment by any means, but the other three ranged from “slightly disappointing” to whatever the hell it was that happened to AB.

Lesson to be learned? I’m not sure it’s a hard and fast rule, but before the season, we’d have said each of the four guys ahead of Allen had at least a shot at finishing as WR1, but Allen himself had a lower ceiling. Play it safe, perhaps?

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Round 3: Aaron Jones, RB, Green Bay Packers

(Actual ADP: 3.06)

Jones signaled one of the last running backs that really worked out, with Kerryon Johnson going right before him and Devonta Freeman, David Montgomery, and Sony Michel (and Josh Jacobs) just after. But he paid off like gangbusters, scoring 19 touchdowns and finishing as the RB2.

Lesson to be learned? Uh, grab the guy who’s gonna have record-setting touchdown efficiency? Not sure you can reliably do that, but you know, if you can …

Round 4: Cooper Kupp, WR, Los Angeles Rams

(Actual ADP: 4.08)

Anti-victory lap here, because I was low man on Kupp entering last season, worried about his ACL recovery. And while he wasn’t exactly reliable all season, he did enough when he was on to make up for his down times. He finished as WR4.

Lesson to be learned? Don’t be as scared of injury recoveries as in the past. Kupp and Emmanuel Sanders were both hurt in the latter part of the 2018 season, but both were fine this year. (Will Fuller went the other way, but then guys do always get hurt.)

Round 5: Austin Ekeler, RB, Los Angeles Chargers

(Actual ADP: 6.03)

Melvin Gordon’s absence certainly helped, but Ekeler’s played like a superstar even in small samples all three of his seasons. That came to a head this year with him finishing as fantasy’s RB4.

Lesson to be learned? Believe in elite efficiency on a smaller sample, especially when that guy is at least going to have a full-time job for some time.

Round 6: Jarvis Landry, WR, Cleveland Browns

(Actual ADP: 6.08)

Landry was supposed to be third fiddle in the Browns offense behind Beckham and Nick Chubb, in some order, though the assumed ascension of the team overall still helped his ADP stay high. But with Beckham falling flat, Landry outscored him for the season and finished as a fringe WR1 (12th at the position).

Lesson to be learned? If there is one, it might be something about trusting the guy with experience on a team over the newcomer, but I’m skeptical.

Round 7: Allen Robinson, WR, Chicago Bears

(Actual ADP: 8.08)

Robinson had a slow-ish start, with only 3 touchdowns and one 100-yard game through Week 11. He was WR18 — definitely not bad, but not world-beating. But over the last six weeks, he had four more scores and two more 100-yarders and was WR6. For a mid-round pick, that’s totally fine.

Lesson to be learned? Believe in track record and talent. We’ve all said to imagine what Robinson could be if his entire career hadn’t been tied to Blake Bortles and Mitchell Trubisky, but he’s 26 and has two top-7 fantasy seasons. He’s a star.

Round 8: Lamar Jackson, QB, Baltimore Ravens

(Actual ADP: 9.05)

Pairing Jackson with McCaffrey? Is that even legal? How could it be possible? (Laughs in “I did that in real life.”) Jackson is the obvious player to end up with in this draft.

Lesson to be learned? The cheat code. Rushing ability in quarterbacks is no longer really optional.

Round 9: Michael Gallup, WR, Dallas Cowboys

(Actual ADP: 9.10)

Gallup was a best-ball guy last year. He had four hundred-yard games and four games with touchdowns (three in one game), but also had under 50 yards four times. The real talk is this area of the draft did not have much to offer.

Lesson to be learned? Nah.

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Round 10: Dak Prescott, QB, Dallas Cowboys

(Actual ADP: 12.01)

Prescott has now been in the league four years and finished sixth, ninth, 10th, and second in QB fantasy scoring. And you got him in the 12th round as your No. 2 quarterback, you smartypants you.

Lesson to be learned? Same lesson as always: Wait on QBs, y’all. In addition to Jackson and Prescott, you could have gotten Jameis Winston, Kyler Murray, Kirk Cousins, and Josh Allen in the double-digits among quarterbacks. Just wait. It’ll be fine.

Round 11: Adrian Peterson, RB, Washington

(Actual ADP: 12.08)

Peterson was about a week away from being released early in the year before Derrius Guice’s injury put him back in the lineup, and he ended the year as a top-32 fantasy back. Considering the names who went around him (Peyton Barber, Dion Lewis, Damien Harris), that’s a heck of a payoff.

Lesson to be learned? Pick the right handcuff. Easier said than done.

Round 12: Mark Andrews, TE, Baltimore Ravens

(Actual ADP: 13.05)

Like Ekeler, Andrews was another small-sample star in 2018, and he also came through on that in 2019, scoring 10 touchdowns on 97 targets. His usage in Baltimore will probably preclude him from ever being the overall TE1, but he should be firmly be a starter for as long as he’s healthy and paired with Jackson.

Lesson to be learned? Same as Ekeler — believe in efficiency.

Round 13: Carlos Hyde, RB, Houston Texans

(Actual ADP: 14.04)

At this point in the draft, we only have four running backs (McCaffrey, Jones, Ekeler, and Peterson), which is very fringey for a 12-team, 17-round draft, so we really need another, and … the pickings are slim this deep, with names like Frank Gore, Ito Smith, and Ty Montgomery following Hyde. He wasn’t great, but getting a 1,000-yard guy in the 13th round is just fine.

Lesson to be learned? Nah.

Round 14: Darren Waller, TE, Oakland Raiders

(Actual ADP: 14.09)

People keep saying Waller was a sleeper breakout last year, and I guess he was, given where he was being drafted, but man, everybody in the world touted him as a sleeper entering the season, so how sleepery could he have been? Anyway, congratulations, you got the TE2 in the 14th. Good job.

Lesson to be learned? If everybody believes in a guy, maybe there’s a reason for it.

Round 15: DeVante Parker, WR, Miami Dolphins

(Actual ADP: Undrafted)

Parker was working on all-time bust status. But then Ryan Fitzpatrick (re-)took the starting job in Week 7, and Parker played like an all-time something else the rest of the way. He was a WR1 for the season.

Lesson to be learned? NEVER DOUBT DEVANTE PARKER or something.

All told, this team has two QBs, five RBs, six WRs, and two TEs. That’s a solid mix in a 17-round draft — I generally draft only three total QBs and TEs in 16-rounders, so four in a 17 makes sense. And I went only RB and WR through the seventh, all but one into the 10th. Wait on the single-use positions. It’s the best lesson you can learn.