Draft Results from the IG Experts League

Last night I had my 2nd draft of the year. This time as part of the 12-Team Superflex Instagram Experts League. The league has some of the biggest and savviest accounts on Instagram. I had a ton of a fun and was very happy with the results.

If you want to see how it went down, The Fantasy Football Show aka Smitty live-streamed the entire draft on YouTube. He did a great job analyzing the draft in realtime while he was drafting. I don't know that I would have been able to do that. He was pretty critical of at least three of my picks, which I'll coach him up on a little later. 😂

Like I always do, I had a plan to wait on quarterback. Now, being that this is SuperFlex, I couldn't wait as long as I would normally wait. A few hours before the draft I actually traded my 1.07 pick with Smitty to move back to the 1.12 spot. The reason I did this was two part:

1. I didn't think the talent that was sitting at the 1.07 was all that much different than what I could get at the 1.12. 
2. I wanted to have back to back picks so that when the time came for me to select a QB, I could quickly take them back to back, which is what I did.

By trading back, I essentially gave up Dalvin Cook to get Derrick Henry, which in my mind was a no-brainer move. I like Cook, but I don't think he's much of an upgrade from Henry especially when you consider some of the uncertainty surrounding him. I followed that up with Miles Sanders on the very next pick. I sort of took that strategy throughout the draft. At the 3/4 turn I took Allen Robinson and Amari Cooper. At the 5/6 turn, Zach Ertz and Mark Andrews. Then again at the 7/8 turn with Jared Goff and Gardner Minshew....and that's when Smitty's heckling began. He obviously hasn't done as much deep diving as me, so I'm going to enlighten him.

Smitty seemed to think I got stuck with Goff and Gardner, when in fact they were two of my late round targets. Let's start with Goff.

In 2019 we saw Goff finish as the QB13, one spot behind Smitty's QB1 Tom Brady. He finished 3rd in passing yards with 4,638. This was the 2nd year in a row he finished inside the Top 4 in that category. The difference between 2018 and 2019 was simple. His touchdown rate plummeted. In 2017 and 2018 he finished with a touchdown rate of 5.7% and 5.8%. That number fell to an abysmal 3.5% in 2019. Had he just met his 3-year average under McVay of a 5% touchdown rate, then we are looking at a touchdown pass total closer to 31 vs the 22 he threw in 2019. That would have been good for the QB6 last year. 🤷🏻‍♂️

As for Minshew, I like him for different reasons. I like his rushing upside. Last season he finished 6th in rushing attempts and 5th in rushing yards. And he did that in just 14 games. The fluky stat about his season is that he had ZERO rushing touchdowns, which is very rare for that many attempts. The Jaguars actually had a historically strange season where they passed for 24 touchdowns while only rushing for three. 88% of their touchdowns came via the pass. Leonard Fournette owners know this too well. That's obviously not a very sticky stat. Had Minshew played a full 16 games, he would have rushed approximately 76 times. Over the past 5 years, QB's with that many attempts have averaged 5.17 rushing touchdowns per season. Now, I'm not saying Minshew will necessarily rush for that many, as I do think the Jags offense will struggle to score touchdowns, but I think 3 is very reasonable. Had he scored that many in 2019, he would have finished as the QB13.....in just 14 games. We also have to consider the fact that Minshew got thrown into the starting lineup as a rookie when Nick Foles went down in the first half of week 1. Considering the circumstances, could Minshew have done any better? He threw for 21 touchdowns (1-more than ROY Kyler Murray) and just 6 interceptions (6 less than Murray). This being his 2nd season, it's easy to see Minshew being able to improve on his numbers from last season. The Jags defense is terrible, which will lead to a ton of pass attempts from Minshew to go along with his already high rushing floor.

By waiting the the extra two rounds, I was able to get Ertz and Andrews, which would not have happened had I drafted two 41+ year old QBs like Smitty did. 😜

Lastly, Jamison Crowder. He is another player I am targeting in drafts. In the 13 games played with Sam Darnold he was rock solid. In fact, his 16-game pace with Darnold would have seen him finish as the WR17 in 2019. The Jets have lost Robby Anderson, while bringing in Breshad Perriman and rookie Denzel Mims, who both will have very little time to build chemistry with Darnold given the circumstances brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Crowder will be Darnold's most trusted receiving option and I expect a solid season from the reliable slot receiver.

At the end of the day, I'm pumped about my squad. I get it that my starting QBs are not that exciting, but I don't need them to be. I just need them to be close in scoring to some of the mid-range quarterbacks for it to pay off, and I think they will......so suck it Smitty, lol. Just kidding pal. At least FantasyPros likes my squad.