Why the 3rd overall pick in fantasy drafts may be the most daunting
In the Yahoo Fantasy Football Forecast, Yahoo Fantasy's Andy Behrens and NFL.com's Cynthia Frelund discuss the difficulty of selecting third in fantasy football drafts. Subscribe to the Yahoo Fantasy Football Forecast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts
Video Transcript
ANDY BEHRENS: Let's dive into another question here. This-- oh, man. This one is interesting because it relates to draft slots. This year, I don't see the usual value in drafting. Third, do you agree?
And I'll-- I'll preface this by saying that historically, you know, people know that I appear in all these stinking draft slot videos that pop up seconds before you're getting ready to actually have your draft. And I tell you a little bit about the history of the draft slot or the recent history of the draft slot.
CYNTHIA FRELUND: I like though. Yeah.
ANDY BEHRENS: There-- but they also point out the draft. They're sort of fundamentally unfair, right? And historically, you definitely want to have a top six pick. And it is a bit more of a dice roll.
Like we find more first round busts and second round busts. At the end of round one, that makes a lot of sense. And early in round two, those-- those guys are generally not as bankable as the guys that you find at the top of the draft.
And the other piece is the guy that you can take at 12 is very comparable to the player who's going to fall to like 25. And I mean, just think about it with Christian McCaffrey this year. There's nobody else like Christian McCaffrey.
Like the guys-- the guys that are available at the very top of your draft are unique. And they are like tier of one sort of players. It doesn't mean they can't get hurt and in the draft slot can't bust. But generally speaking, if you want to get one of those top five, top six draft slots.
Now, third is an interesting spot this year because it's the first one that seems to really require a choice. I think everybody has Christian McCaffrey at the top of draft boards and almost everybody has Dalvin Cook.
Number 2. I guess we could have some arguments about depending on your format where Dalvin Cook should go. But number 3 is really the first choice. And some people just don't like having the first real choice to make in a draft.
This to me is pretty wide open. I can make a case for Kamara. I can make a case for Zeke. I can make the case for Derrick Henry. I can try to make the best case for Derrick Henry.
I don't know. How do you feel about the third pick? Who do you think should go there?
CYNTHIA FRELUND: Well, look, I would probably say in this runs counter to. A lot of people in terms of analytics or whatever. But I think Derrick Henry is-- he's not-- he's my number 3 in part because I actually think the addition of Julio Jones with AJ Brown creates fewer stacked boxes for this guy.
And you know what happens when Derrick Henry Ruggs with a full head of steam? Like have bad things to your defense basically. So I think that it's about situational football at this point.
I-- I don't cook even makes me like other than outside of Christian McCaffrey, I feel like you probably go down in second. And I don't know. Kamara scares me. I think he's going to get a lot of use. But this offense is scary.
I love Sean Payton. And I think he's a really beautiful mastermind of a coach, right? But when it comes to what's going to happen, I think defenses will have a little bit more figured out.
I mean, think about the defenses they go against they're very familiar with Alvin Kamara. I don't know if this scares me. I think it's going to be good. But it's not going to be like what we usually expect from him at least in the beginning of the season without Michael Thomas.
And then I don't know. Like I could even say. Like I think you're right. Third is it's kind of a conundrum.
Because you're not taking second. I think maybe Zeke. Although I don't know.
I'm a little bit more bearishian. I'm a berishian on the Cowboys. Because I think if you don't have Dak, if that's not going to be good, I think you're going see the thing.
We're like maybe for like three weeks or four weeks, you get good offense. And then I don't know. I've never seen like a knee injury that lingers this long. That turns out to be like more fantasy points later.
You could have like a good strong September. But it could fall off after that. And this is a good very good line. But like I might even like--
And this is going to sound crazy probably. But I might even look at like a Nick Chubb in that situation because I'm going to overvalue the o-line and then try the next round to get someone to compliment that.
Because I think they're just so yards after contact. If you get-- here's my like my way of thinking about yards after contact. If you're starting contact behind the line of scrimmage, that stinks. It's just a horrible situation.
So you could have a really sick yards after contact number. But if that contact coming three yards behind the line of scrimmage, just going to be bad news. Bad news bears all around, right?
But if you're like-- if you're yards after contact are hard earned two yards on that play, then you're running faster. Just velocity like a train, right? You're running faster and you're going to get to move further.
So at the end of the day, for me, I'm going to go with something that I feel more certain of. And I do love the Cowboys o-line. But it scares me a little bit with that. That often scared. I don't know.
And the Cowboys defense is so young. I don't know if they're to be in a situation where they could be able to run like they did that ball control year, where Zeke just crushed on every first down.