Thoughts on ESPNs Terrible Fantasy Mock Draft 2.0

I don’t know if anyone has checked out the ESPN 2011 Mock Fantasy Draft 2.0, but considering these people do this for a living it’s pretty pathetic.  Only about half the league is able to produce respectable teams.  Not to mention the fact that it’s a standard league and only 10 teams.

As I said, not everyone’s team is terrible (just half).

Christopher Harris

I feel like he was able to put together a very solid draft from top to bottom and according to my rankings appears to have the best team. Chris Johnson, Run DMC, & Jahvid Best form one of the 2 best RB trios in this league.  Beanie Wells is a low end RB2 that somehow falls to Harris in the 9^th round.  He also gets great value in all 3 of his WRs in Wallace, Holmes, & Collie.

Plus he’s able to pair an underrated Big Ben (many terrible secondaries on that sched.) with Wallace.

Eric Karabell & Jim McCormick

For the most part I like both of these teams and think they’re probably the 2^nd & 3^rd best squads.

Karabell has a great backfield with his first 3 picks in Mendenhall, Gore, & Forte.  I like his Schaub & Ryan strategy.  He probably winds up with a top 6 or 7 QB option every week.  Good luck picking which one though.  The group of Bowe, Lloyd, S. Rice, & Ochocinco lacks a star but he should be alright only having to choose 2.

My one concern with McCormick’s team is Hillis in the 3^rd round, but if he works out then a team of Peyton Manning, Ray Rice, Shonn Greene, Calvin Johnson, Jeremy Maclin, & Brandon Marshall looks very strong.

James Quintong

Not amazed by anything and nothings too terrible.  Tomlinson in the 10^th kind of seems like a wasted pick and he needs a stronger 3^rd RB than Addai in a 10 team league, but I guess he did okay.

Dave Hunter

The drafting’s starting to get a little iffy now. Benjarvus Green Ellis in the 5^th round and as the 22^nd RB is terrible.  If New England has such confidence in him then why did they draft 2 backs in the first 3 rounds?  And even though he got him late, I’m not at all a fan of his TE Chris Cooley.  He’s been limping around training camp and that offense is going to be so terrible.  Maybe you can start him in a PPR but no way in a standard league.  I wouldn’t have wasted a 9^th round pick on Spiller in a standard league either.  Otherwise I guess his team is alright.

Keith Lipscomb

And then our drafters take a full on turn for the worse.  After putting together a respectable core, Lipscomb begins his reach campaign.  The 8^th round is high for an aging WR in Plaxico Burress who hasn’t played in a couple seasons.  Then in the 10^th he takes Ronnie Brown who is nothing more than a McCoy handcuff, only Lipscomb doesn’t have McCoy.  His draft highlight comes in the 11th though where he becomes the first person to pick a defense, 2 full rounds higher than the next D selected.

Continued......

Tristan Crockcroft

Crockcroft grabs DeAngelo Williams in the 4^th round and then takes Jonathan Stewart in the 6^th round as his flex/3^rd RB.  No way that Carolina offense is good enough to warrant playing both backs so this put Crockcroft in a tough situation depending on the split.  The drop to his 4^th RB isn’t much better as he reaches for the clear #2 in Green Bay, James Starks in the 8^th rounds.  Then Crockcroft feels it necessary to take 2 tight ends with Zach Miller in the 9^th and Mercedes Lewis in the 13^th.  Taking 2 tight ends is like taking a defense in the 11^th round.  It’s something that professional fantasy writers should know not to do.

Nate Ravitz

No way I could take Vick as the 1^st QB in the 1^st round of a 10 team draft, but Nate Ravitz disagrees.  For his 2^nd round pick and top RB, he grabs Michael Turner, who has many people worried about the number high number of carries he’s got the last few years.  But again, I doubt Ravitz worries about trivial things like that.  Then, I’m sure he’s thrilled to get one of Vick’s targets, DeSean Jackson, for his #1 WR. The problem here is that Jackson had all of 47 receptions last year, and even in a standard league, I’m just not sure a guy with that low of a reception total can be your #1 WR.

A number of rounds later, Ravitz starts seeing visions of Mike Martz dancing in his head.  He grabs Johnny Knox in the 10^th which I think is all alright pick, but then follows it up with Roy Williams in the 11^th (back to back Bears WRs?).  With his 12^th pick he takes broken down and finished Marion Barber.

Brendan Roberts

If it wasn’t for good ole Stephania Bell this team would probably be the worst.  Like an amateur, Roberts decides to pull slot machine after slot machine at RB.  He ignores all Maurice Jones Drew warning signs and takes him 7^th overall.  Then for his 2^nd back he takes San Diego’s Ryan Matthews, who reported to camp out of shape and is losing GL, short yardage, and passing downs to Tolbert.  Because Roberts hadn’t quite gambled enough on his RBs yet, he took one more chance in the 5^th round on lazy bum Cedric Benson.  He did manage a nice find with Mark Ingram in the 7^th, but inexplicably followed it up with his worthless teammate Pierre Thomas the very next round.  Unfortunately for Roberts, he’ll have to start 3 of those RBs every week because his 2^nd & 3^rd WRs are Michael Crabtree (drafted 5 days after his foot injury) and Braylon Edwards (when he didn’t have a team).

Stephania Bell

I still have an open spot in one of my fantasy league and I’m thinking I’ll invite Stephania Bell.  It’s always nice to have a little bit of dead money in there.

I’ve always been a Steven Jackson fan but in a 10 team league you have to do better than that for your #1 running back.  After the Jackson pick, and already having Andre Johnson, a RB pick in the 3^rd round should’ve been a no brainer especially.  But, we should never assume anything.  Instead she takes a possible overrated Miles Austin and waits till the 4^th to gamble on injury prone Knowshon Moreno for her 2nd RB.  It’s okay though because she wasted an 11^th round pick on Willis McGahee to make sure she had that incredible Broncos RB situation on lockdown.  Josh Freeman as her starting QB isn’t a bad pick at all, but it’s appropriate that in a 10 team league her starting QB is the 11^th ranked QB in my rankings.

I really wanted to find something to give Stephania credit for.  The pick of Jermichael Finley looked like just that.  He appears to be fully healthy and is in line for a huge season.  Then I saw that she took Finley ahead of Gates so I give up.  ESPN! Please! Fire her now!

Like I said, all and all this mock draft is pretty sad.  ESPN should be ashamed these clueless fools represent them.