TAKE 3: with Chris B.: A Monthly Article Series Delivering 3 Takes on Any Fantasy Football Topic
ISSUE: WUN
Topic: 4th And Frames Redraft Mock and Rookie Impact
No cheesy boy band references puns here this week. It’s early June, and you know what that means at 4th And Frames: prime redraft mock season. We’re diving into the real deal, assessing how much this incoming rookie class is already shaking up the value of our twenty-six-year-old veterans. Spoiler alert: they shouldn’t move the needle much until training camps start and we see depth charts and roles.
We filmed it live, so if you want to catch the analysis from the participants or hear just how much I dislike Zack Moss, head over to the Fantasy In Frames YouTube channel and check out the 1QB Mock Draft video. While you’re there, we’d appreciate your support, so please subscribe to the channel. Also, make sure to subscribe to the Fantasy In Frames podcast wherever you listen to podcasts!
Let’s meet our drafters, a mix of Fantasy In Frames family members and some invaluable subscribers and followers. Big shoutout to them, though I have to say, as great as the Sleeper App is, it’s a bit dog water when it comes to performing in mock drafts.
Drafters:
1. Drew
2. Gator_J
3. Believeland 1989
4. Yours Truly
5. Marvleles
6. Jimabe7946
7. NateMarcum
8. Rhett
9. Brocall44
10. Joehammy
11. Ghostdini
12. JorgeBEdwards
The draft outline was simple as a team’s lineups consisted of:
1QB/2RB/3WR/1TE/2FLEX/K/DST/2 Bench spots
We kept the scoring straightforward: full PPR, no tight end premium —just like the good old days before superflex, tiered scoring and points for first downs.
Take 1:
Wide receivers still reign supreme, as they should. Christian McCaffrey was the first off the board, but fifteen of the first twenty-four picks were wide receivers. CeeDee Lamb was the WR1, followed by Jefferson, Chase, Hill, St. Brown, and Nacua. The first rookie, Marvin Harrison Jr., went at 1.11. That’s a bit rich for me, especially with A.J. Brown still available. It’s just frivolous to take a rookie over “Swol Batman,” who’s coming off back-to-back seasons with 145+ targets and 1400+ receiving yards. We can only hope Harrison Jr. gets close to that in his first year.
I’m not saying Harrison can’t produce—it’s doable but not bankable. It’s redraft though the drafter could have taken Brown in the second but opted for Aiyuk instead. Head scratcher, right? The lesson here: let your league mates gamble on rookie wideouts with early draft capital and build your foundation with proven producers.
I felt the other rookie wide receivers were drafted properly, though maybe McConkey was a bit of a reach. Nabers went 3.3, Odunze 6.5, McConkey 7.4, Thomas Jr. 7.6, Worthy 8.2, Coleman 10.3, Mitchell 10.8, Corley 12.1, Pearsall 12.8, and surprisingly, first-rounder Xavier Legette at 13.5.
In conclusion, build your teams on solid foundations with proven talent and let your opponents take the risks. Rookie wide receivers later in your draft can provide good value.
Take 2:
Hero wide receiver, in my opinion, is the way to approach your drafts this year! You’re going to hear a lot about zeroRB this and heroRB that, but the position is the murkiest it’s ever been, and we don’t have that elite couple of rookies coming in who will save our zeroRB teams.
Two teams took five straight wide receivers. One of them has Najee Harris, the Everybody Hates Chris of running backs, and they rounded out their RB room with Jerome Ford and Blake Corum.
“Hope, not my favorite strategy” – Bob Harris.
There’s an old saying, I forgot how it goes exactly, but it sums up like this: you can be real or have a handful of shit, and that right there is a handful of shit.
When you leave your draft, your goal is to build a solid foundation that’ll set you up not to have to make any drastic moves during the season and ultimately play the waivers as both an offensive and defensive system. The other team ended up with Zamir White, barf, Zack Moss, the ick of running backs, and Chuba Hubbard. I’ve seen more appealing rooms at the Red Roof Inn in Canton, Ohio.
Quite frankly, you have a better shot at drafting a team’s respective wide receiver one in the middle rounds than you do finding any kind of great value at the running back position. There isn’t much of a rookie impact this season to push down the solid-producing running back veterans. George Pickens, Terry McLaurin, Calvin Ridley, Diontae Johnson, Hollywood Brown, Cortland Sutton, and Christian Watson all went in the 6th round or later. I’d much rather build my elite running backs around solid floor-producing wide receiver ones on their respective teams over taking Zamir White, Zach Moss, or Chuba Hubbard.
Take 3:
Trevor Lawrence. You’re going to hear a lot of noise about how Lawrence is a bum, but fade the noise. In 1QB leagues right now you can build a solid base, push the QB back until the later rounds, and walk out with a QB that has back-to-back 4000-yard passing seasons, three seasons of 60+ rush attempts, three seasons of 560+ pass attempts, 4th in total pass attempts over the last three seasons, and a wide receiver room that just drafted one of the best deep threats in the class. Invest in a guy that did away with the sophomore slump narrative, invest in a guy that is going to be asked to do a lot this season.
In this draft, he was taken in the 13th round as someone’s QB2. If Trevor Lawrence hits the thirty-plus touchdown threshold, he has the possibility of ending the year as a top-7 quarterback, and with the amount that the Jags toss the rock, I am comfortable waiting and taking Lawrence over Jordan Love, Brock Purdy, Jayden Daniels, and Tua. Draft Trevor Lawrence as your QB1 this season. He’ll have more boom than bust weeks and at the very least be propped up by his rushing floor.
Conclusion:
To tie this up, the rookie class, at least in 1QB drafts, isn’t as beefy as we’d hoped. Outside of the top two wide receivers, everyone else pretty much fell to where they almost should be drafted. The approach this year is to get back to our roots and hammer running backs early, only because of how murky the position is. It feels like the dead zone hits in mid-round 4 with no real certainty in the backfields beyond the solid core of elite guys. Be diligent but also remain ready to adapt to what the board gives you.