Doubling up- my FF style draft for the Titans

Doubling up- my FF style draft for the Titans

I have been participating in fantasy football drafts and mock drafts for more than 20 years now. I probably do around 1000 mock drafts before every season. Sometimes I am serious, sometimes I am “playing around,” and sometimes a bit of both. By serious, I mean drafting a legitimate, highly likely player for that spot in the draft.

This is the season for NFL mock drafts. I try to do 50-100 each week leading up to the draft. I draft similarly as far as playing around and drafting serious.

One irritating method, that I have done for many years in FF, is what I call “double-up.” This is simply to pick a player of the same position drafted previously. In fantasy football, one would generally draft two running backs, three wide receivers, and a tight end before drafting backups. There may be a quarterback mixed in there, maybe not. Everyone is tracking the picks of the other teams. Once they see that you filled this imaginary quota, they don’t expect you to draft that position again, the very next round. They plan on this player or that player falling to them in the next round and (to some degree) are almost “banking” on you not drafting that position again.

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For years, there were two or three “best of the best” tight ends. They were selected either in rounds two through four or rounds three through five. If I drafted Tony Gonzalez in round two and Antonio Gates was sitting there in round four, I was all over that. Over the years, I got more daring or somesuch and would select the player during the next round.

I am writing a book on FF and don’t really want to carry on too much here about the “why” but, I need to shed some light on it. There are a whole lot of average tight ends in the NFL. There are not many elite ones. There are not many very good tight ends. You want one of roughly six tight ends on your roster. If the league is made up of twelve teams, then six are “set” at tight end and six teams have a bit of an issue. If you “double-up” then seven teams have an issue.

The obvious benefit to this in fantasy football is that you can trade one of the tight ends. During the draft, you will select whatever third or fourth round player falls to you in the draft. When a trade is involved, hopefully, you can strike up a trade with the owner a player you covet.

Sometimes people get grumpy about this drafting style and refuse to trade. Sometimes everyone in the league hates it and they all refuse to trade. That’s OK. Having two players that are the best at their position is never ever a problem in fantasy football.

Value

To be brief, let me describe value as this: If a player is rated as a first round prospect and he is available in the second round, that is some great value. If he is available in the third or fourth, that’s phenomenal value.

Worth

A player’s worth to the team is simply in how much he will play and for how many years. We don’t draft salaries in FF and the Titans are so far under the cap, the slotted salaries of the draft are hardly limiting. For now, we’re ignoring salaries.

The NFL draft is very different from a fantasy football draft and a dynasty fantasy football draft. Teams have holes to fill and a roster of 53 players. A fantasy roster is about 20 players. NFL teams are drafting human beings with human issues whereas in fantasy football we are pretty much drafting expected results-digits or stats. To spin it another way, no one in fantasy football cares if player Y has a personality that meshes with player X. No one in fantasy football cares if a lineman can block in a zone-blocking scheme or if an end is better suited for the 4-3 than the 3-4 defense. I could go on and on here; the differences are substantial.

Differences aside, doubling-up is totally working for me in mocks of NFL drafts. I have regularly drafted two of the top eight tight ends or two of the top seven cornerbacks or two of the top seven wide receivers or two of the top five defensive ends.

In this situation, “you can never have enough good players” would be a weak reasoning, so I’ll avoid that.

Coach Mike Mularkey prefers a two and three tight end set. If they draft two tight ends, the Titans could surely find enough work for them both. One could even push Phillip Supernaw to being the fourth option at tight end. I doubt Mularkey or offensive coordinator Terry Robiske would have any trouble scheming for three quality options at tight end- two rookies plus Delanie Walker. Tight ends play special teams and this has been their offseason focus.

Cornerbacks have been weak in Tennessee for a while now. They haven’t had a whole lot of luck drafting quality cornerbacks that “pan out.” The ones they draft “look good on paper,” but don’t often produce as well as expected. Drafting two would surely improve their odds here. This could surely be said for defensive ends and wide receivers also. I think these are thoughts losing teams have and won’t use this thinking.

Two cornerbacks could force Jason McCourty’s huge contract out the door. Two cornerbacks could offer Dick Lebeau some outstanding flexibility in how he deploys his corners. As of now, both Brice McCain and Logan Ryan can cover the slot well or shift outside. LeShaun Sims is mainly an outside cornerback. The division is loaded at wide receiver. The notion of being able to stop DeAndre Hopkins or TY Hilton or Allen Robinson is appealing by itself. This would catapult the Titans secondary from a weakness to a strength.

Quality 3-4 defensive ends are hard to find and also difficult to gauge. A 3-4 defensive lineman can have a great day and get almost no stats on the afternoon. His biggest priority is getting in the way and disrupting the flow of the opposing offense. We like to discuss forced fumbles, sacks, and tipped passes, but being disruptive is quality. According to some quick cursory glances through stats, it appears the defensive line is the most subbed position group on an NFL team. (Not on every team and I didn’t dig enough to finalize this, just roll with me here please) Why not sub with starter quality talent rather than backup level talent? Wouldn’t that be better for the Titans defense?

Wide Receiver is probably the simplest here. It’s quite possible that the Titans only have two receivers on their roster now that will make the 53. Tajae Sharpe and Rishard Matthews seem assured spots, that’s it. We have discussed that the Titans will not shift to some high powered run and shoot style offense. I’m not suggesting that. They could, however, use a couple wide receivers for normal depth and roster issues.

I’ll show you by linking to some other writer’s mocks- so not even utilizing any “manipulation” or anything where I am scheming somehow land these players…I’ll just show you by using other writers’ rankings.

I want whatever happens to transpire in the first round. The Titans have no second round picks. In the third round, they have two picks. This is where we’ll focus.

Instead of my rankings, we’ll use WalterFootball’s prospect rankings here. (WF)

So, all bias is totally gone right? No data of my own here?

Here is a link to Luke Easterling of UsaToday’s mock draft.

Four of WF’s top 8 tight ends are drafted in this third round. Obviously, this “double-up” works smoothly here.

Six of his top 30 wide receivers are drafted here. There aren’t 30 wide receivers drafted at this point. We’re looking at a stark difference of opinion here between two writers. Staying with this though, JuJu is rated fifth by WF, Hansen is 11th, Kupp 13th, and DeDe 15th. That’s not bad for JuJu, but the rest are worse than I expected. Hang on…being honest here, this is imperfect.

For Defensive Ends, we have the 7th rated Chris Wormley, 12th rated Jordan Willis, 17th rated Tarell Basham, and the 6th rated Smoot. How about the Titans adding the 6th and 7th rated DE? See there it is.

At cornerback, we have the 7th rated Jalen Tabor, 23rd rated Chidobe Awuzie, 14th rated Desmond King, 12th rated Sidney Jones (fell due to injury), and the 22nd rated Corn Elder. Elder and Awuzie also show a difference of opinion in their rankings, but regardless this will work. If the Titans added Tabor and Jones, that would work.

(Lance Zierlein of NFL.com has Awuzie going in the first to the Saints)

Let’s go with another mock draft. Draftwire’s here. This time CBSSports’ DraftScout rankings.

For tight ends, Draftwire has 6th ranked Jake Butt, 3rd ranked Evan Engram, and 7th ranked Jordan Leggett. Note there are still top 8 tight ends going in the fourth round in this mock draft. So, again, the Titans would be fine doubling up on tight ends.

For wide receivers, there is the 5th ranked Chris Godwin, 11th ranked Amara Darboh, 15th ranked Isaiah Ford, 25th ranked Travis Rudolph, and the 16th ranked Noah Brown. Godwin would be great for the Titans in the third, but the others are indicative of a stark contrast in rankings. There aren’t 24 wideouts before Rudolph in Draftwire’s mock. Note wide receivers, again, offer a large difference of opinion.

At defensive end, we have 14th ranked Dawuane Smoot and then some position issues. One site is listing a player as a defensive end while the other is listing them as a defensive tackle or outside linebacker. This happens. For example, Chris Wormley (previous DE above) is listed as the 5th ranked defensive tackle. I’ll have to skip the defensive ends listing, but they are similar players to above.

At cornerback is the 7th rated Kevin King, 11th rated Quincy Wilson, 12th rated Sidney Jones, Budda Baker(position issue again), 29th rated Brendan Langley, 16th rated Cameron Sutton, and 18th rated Howard Wilson. Note the 4th rated cornerback, Cordrea Tankersley, Draftwire has going in the fourth round. The Titans could get the 4th and 7th rated cornerbacks.

I can do this all day.

Why does this happen?

Draft sites, writers, scouts, and teams have a top 100 overall. In the third round, the 100 is ending. There are 107 picks, including compensatory, by the end of round three. This is strong year for tight ends and an excellent draft for cornerbacks; meaning there are more tight ends and cornerbacks than usually would be ranked in the top 100. As the 100 finishes up, drafters are inclined to stick to that list and grab a player in their top 100.

You just don’t do it

To not “double-up” because it’s formulaic to draft a different position with each pick is not a reason to not do it. It’s borderline naive thinking. If a team needs a player at that position, they should draft it, regardless of some traditional way of drafting.

I’ve been exchanging emails with many of you and many of you are doing mocks as well. Please give one of these a try and let me know how it’s going.

Some results to share up to the third round:

Jamal Adams, Mike Williams, Evan Engram, and Jordan Leggett.

Marshon Lattimore, OJ Howard, Raekwon McMillon, and Evan Engram.

Jamal Adams, Reuben Foster, Gareon Conley, and Teez Tabor.

Jonathan Allen, Jabril Peppers, Adam Shaheen, and Jake Butt.

Jonathan Allen, Reuben Foster, Curtis Samuel, and Cooper Kupp.

Marshon Lattimore, Zach Cunningham, Cooper Kupp, and Zay Jones.

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