Mock drafts are great.  It’s like a dry run for the real thing, but even a wedding rehearsal isn’t going to have the same energy until there are real stakes.  That’s why it’s always better to analyze a real draft to see where people put their money and who bent the knee when push came to shove.  Almost everyone on the planet has done a 1QB snake draft.  It’s the original blueprint, but also boring and predictable to a point.  It get’s a messier if you then go to auction and every player is up for grabs with every GM.  That’s where the pretenders get separated from the contenders, but the general philosophy around drafting remains the same.  Things get crazy when you then do a Superflex snake draft because no one really knows the path except that QBs are going early, but is Joe Burrow now more valuable than Ja’Marr Chase and how many QBs is ever truly enough.  For the true agents of chaos, that still wasn’t enough of a mystery box, so our big money league decided to explore off the map and do a Superflex auction draft.  I like to consider myself as someone who tries to prepare as much as possible for all live drafts, but I couldn’t find any consensus values, mock drafts or any real guidance on how to proceed.  So I went in blind and shot from the hip.

Here’s a team-by-team review of our draft last summer.

Team Buckets

Team Buckets is the Tom Brady of this league, he has more rings than fingers and when he didn’t log in as the draft clock was winding down, everyone miraculously didn’t have his number.  So taken with a mountain of salt,  he still finished 7th despite not drafting a true QB and spending $137 dollars on Tyreek Hill and Breece Hall, who are considered two of the biggest busts of the season.  It’s clear even autodraft didn’t have the right bearings.  To be honest, I’m not sure if he had a que or just got lucky, but Ladd McConkey for $2 might be the best value in the draft, but also Romeo Doubs, Jayden Reed and Josh Downs for next to nothing is pretty nice and David Njoku for $2 finished as the TE4 in FPPG.  Never underestimate the power of $1 in auction leagues.  Everyone always to split the baby and get as many mid-tiered studs as possible, but over and over again I see winning teams go heavy up front and then play scratch and win with the rest of the roster.

The Enforcers

My buddy Hambone drafted this squad as he, myself and the commissioner always draft in person.  In theory, we try to make sure we don’t step on each others toes, but in reality, it just ends up in a Mexican standoff with everyone pointing guns at each other.  Usually Hambone is the voice of reason and tries to zag away from what is sexy and popular, but on this draft we had consumed a couple of pops and he ended trying to zag so hard, he ended up zigging and paying for sex.  Now of course we have to factor in the format of the league, but this might be the most anyone has every paid for CJ Stroud in the history of fantasy.  He then doubled down and coughed up another $25 for Anthony Richardson who can throw the ball a quarter mile, but how about a five yard out.  At the very least, Hambone understood the assignment and spent double figures on three QBs and it was drafting Jared Goff and pairing him with Jahmyr Gibbs which salvaged his season.  He finished 4th in the league, made the semis finals and ran into a buzzsaw as his lack of WR depth really came back to haunt him.  Tank Dell was a huge bust, but taking cheap shots on Khalil Shakir and Jakobi Meyers proved invaluable.  Lastly, don’t sleep on the security of an elite handcuff.  Kenneth Walker was banged up all season and Zach Charbonnet didn’t miss a beat when his number got called.  To Hambone’s credit, his pre-draft and vocal original plan was to pair Gibbs with David Montgomery, but he brought honor to a coward fight.

Malfeasance and Skullduggery

This league was nothing if not an exercise in Malfeasance and Skullduggery, hence the name as there were vetoed trades, empty threats and widespread allegations of collusion.  If you simply slept in on a Saturday, you missed 100+ texts in the GC.  This draft is a perfect encapsulation of the value of luck or should I say bad luck in fantasy football.  Pat Mahomes in a Superflex league sounds great and paired with budding superstar Rashee Rice is a stack to be feared and envied.  Of course Rice gets hurts after three games while averaging nearly 100 yards a contest and Mahomes finishes as the QB13 in the worst fantasy season of his career.  Throw in a terrible Trevor Lawrence who ended up getting hurt, coming back and then missing the season and you get a 12th place finish.  It’s too bad because getting Bucky Irving, Jordan Mason and Alvin Kamara for a combined $13 is nothing short of a coup and I like the bet on the ARI offense with MHJ and Trey McBride, but it just didn’t pan out.  I know fantasy football doesn’t work like this, but if you draft this team next season, maybe you go undefeated.

There are a lot of different way to skin a Superflex draft, but there are essentially two opposing theories.  The first is go QB heavy and figure the rest out.  That is the simpler one and probably less likely to fail over time.  The other is more of a tightrope walk over razor blades as you need to shop at Value Village for QBs and go Gucci everywhere else.  If you end up hitting on your discount QBs like Justin Herbert (QB12) and Bo Nix (QB7) for a combined $19, you can flex at RB.  There isn’t anything scarier than looking at your opposing teams RBs and seeing Jonathan Taylor and Derrick Henry and if this GM hadn’t had a melt down and lost the final four weeks of the season, he might have been the last team standing.  He scored the 6th most points, crushed Jameson Williams for $5 and had to deal with Rashid Shaheed, Christian Watson and Diontae Johnson being in and out of lineups all season.  In terms of a team building framework, this was a solid plan.

The ill-fated commissioner is the shady, third and hollow leg of our in-person draft and he is not be entrusted or relied upon with something as sacred as a fantasy football league.  He thinks integrity is a vegetable and is the reason we need superheroes.  People will argue nature vs. nurture, but he’s like if Scar was raised by Pete Rose on the Death star.  If a genie granted him three wishes, one would be getting Josh Allen for a $1 and instead he paid $48, which somehow was still a bargain.  Proving that karma isn’t real, he finished in a three-way tie for first while having third-least points scored against.  It’s hard to argue with the strategy of getting an alpha QB paired with high-end QB2 even though Jordan Love disappointed, three talented WRs and shot gunning RB.  JSN for $7 seems criminal now and there may be a post hoc investigation.  Not getting a third QB cost him first place money and he lost in the semis because somehow Brian Robinson Jr. and Tony Pollard combined for 8.1 fantasy points in two games that had combined score of 137.  Fantasy can be the cruelest mistress.  Next year, there might be a dark pool bidding war that forces Allen up over $100.

This is a basic cookie cutter strategy towards roster construction and I mean that as a complement.  An auction Superflex is the Wild West, but everyone has nukes instead of six-shooters.  Keep it simple, stupid.  Two superstar WRs that you know will be great even though Lamb struggled relative to his previous season and two gunslinging QBs on explosive offenses.  What could go wrong?  Well, almost nothing.  Humbug finished tied first in the standings and last in our hearts as he was the only team to score over 2000 points.  Lucking into the best kicker always helps, but this team proved that top-tier talent is almost always a winning strategy.  Darnell Mooney was the only flier he hit, but when you nail the QB, WR and RB, slots, you’re going to be pretty set.  This team shot out of the gates and was 7-1 after eight weeks, only to lose four of the last six and fumbling the bag due to some bumbling general managing down the stretch.  This team was destined to win the title and the only real threat came from inside the house.

As one of the founding members of the Puka Nacua Peninsula, $37 is outstanding in any other universe where he doesn’t get hurt in Week 1.  Unfortunately, combining that with Travis Etienne never rushing for 70+ yards, it’s not surprising that this team finished last.  As the sole female GM, she also pulled a bizzaro Rosa Parks and set the women’s fantasy movement back a decade.  Although, I could just be bitter that she knocked me out of the playoff picture, but I digress.  After peeling back a couple layers, this team just ran out of runway.  It was second in points against and scored 160+ points in three of the final four weeks.  Jerry Jeudy and Chase Brown for a total of $5 could have swung this whole league if a couple other things break right.  Fantasy is all about peaking late, but this GM took that to the extreme.

How can you tell if a GM is a Bills fan? They paid $22 for Dalton Kincaid.  Kincaid aside, this is actually my dream fantasy approach to Superflex.  Ignore the top and mid-tiered QBs, get stacked everywhere else and just fill your bench with QB castoffs.  The only problem is that this strategy relies on a lot of luck and Jacoby Brissett playing so long was really a gut-punch to this team and Drake Maye.  Last year, you could have easily gotten Baker Mayfield and/or Brock Purdy this way.  If he had just paid $16 for Kincaid and took Bo Nix or Sam Darnold from the bargain bin, this team could have made some noise.  Revisionist history is a game for losers and crybabies though.  I don’t remember the bidding war for Malik Nabers, but that ended up being a great final bid and I love the idea of a lottery stack with Jones/Nabers and Wilson/Pickens.  Fantasy football is half luck, half war of attrition and you need to be lucky and durable in order to survive.  Dalton Kincaid for $22 means you already shot yourself in the foot.

They say those that can’t do, teach.  Well, those that can do, definitely shouldn’t play fantasy football.  Regardless of the format this was a bad draft, but for a Superflex league, this might have been the worst draft in a generation.  The good part is fantasy football isn’t a linear sprint, it’s a marathon over lava and as long as you commit to the grind, you can eventually turn a paperclip into a house.  That’s just what this GM did as he turned trading into an art form and kept trading up until he finally had what resembled a competent and competitive fantasy team.  This is why there are multiple awards in the real NFL for essentially the same thing because while by no means was this GM the MVP, he finished 11th, he was however the Yahoo GM of the year. There was no one better for keeping the league on its toes and for trying every move in the book to improve his team while also adding a couple of new chapters.  Although I don’t think Javonte Williams’ own family would have spent $19 on him.

Bijan Robinson got traded so many times that it became a joke and then not a joke as he was the RB4, but then it became a joke again.  I think George Kittle was the only player to survive the trading purge, but since the final form of this team had Bucky Irving and Josh Jacobs, it was probably a win overall.  This team didn’t have much capital to trade with as it didn’t hit any late picks while also wasting $16 on Zamir White.  We’ve seen how top-end talent can carry the day, but not getting any value late really takes the roof off the ceiling of a fantasy team.  Tua and Rodgers were great when they were great, but that was few and far between and with no backup QB, one concussion to Tua proved insurmountable.  It’s a tale of two seasons though as this GM started 0-5 and was halfway to getting relegated, but won eight of his last nine and was a legit threat to run the table.

All hail the reigning champ as this GM peaked at the perfect time and rode the Buccs all the way to the finish line.  If only he was a Titans’ fan.  There were no real threats in the playoffs as this team scored 153/190/204 to steamroll anyone in his path.  Is it better to be lucky than good?  Paying up for Barkley was clearly the driving engine of this team, but snagging Baker Mayfield for $5 might be the best pick in the entire draft as he was the QB4.  When you pair Baker with Barkley and then add in Brian Thomas Jr. for another $5, it almost doesn’t matter what the rest of your team looks like.  Top-end talent keeps you in the game, but it’s those late fliers that put you over the top.  That’s why this team was able to casually throw money away on Rachaad White and Stefon Diggs.  Jordan Addison was another huge steal, but he also traded him away before he popped.  The team that won the league in a Superflex auction spent only $5 on QBs and didn’t draft a backup.  Sometimes I feel like the more we learn, the less we know.  A great draft plugs a lot of holes and this team was able to thrive and later dominate behind one great QB, one transcendent RB and some elite WR production.  People love to get the elite stacks like Burrow and Chase, but it’s the under the radar ones like Baker and Evans that hide in plain sight.

This was my team and I will be as objective as humanely possible about this.  I got screwed.  I scored the 5th most points, but had the MOST points scored against me.  I got two of the best QBs in the league at unbelievable prices and the best young TE in the game.  It was not meant to be.  My first three picks all suffered major injuries and only Nico Collins was able to return.  I went QB heavy, got three stud WRs and then threw darts at RB.  It was all working despite the injury chaos and then Ekeler and Dobbins both went on the IR late in the season.  I’m not sure I would change anything except praying to different gods and maybe offering them a sacrifice before the draft.  Okay I lied, I would change everything.  Rookie WRs were the difference makers this season and I should have stockpiled on those and considering QBs were undervalued, I wish I had just drafted six of them and held the entire league hostage.  God, I’m still so bitter.

This is the kind of team I would have drafted and for what it’s worth, Yahoo had this team going 13-1 after the draft.  Pacheco got hurt and had a lost season, same with Dak and while Higgins was third in WR FPPG, he only played 12 games.  The potential fliers also got hurt as Moss and Hollywood never got going.  The only real win here is Cook, but he wasn’t great enough to cover up for all the injuries.  This team just ran out of gas and there’s no real explanation, but the one lesson we have learned is that you can’t go to war in a Superflex league with only two QBs.  They are too valuable and the injury risk is too high to take such a gamble.  Also, TE is the position you should be punting.  We saw GMs spend on Kelce, Kincaid, LaPorta and even Kyle Pitts went for $14.  Just stream TE and spend all that TE money on another QB.

This was the worst team in the league and it only scored 1676 points, but when you spend $73 on CMC, that is inevitable.  There was a massive disconnect in this league on how the format should have affected prices.  Lamar Jackson was the best player in the league and he only went for $39, which almost half of what CMC went for.  To compound matters, Cooper Kupp also got hurt and never really got on track after having 20+ targets in Week 1.  It’s too bad because the Daniels/McLaurin stack was a top-five stack, but this team never had a chance.

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