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To quote Woody Allen, ‘my daughter is hot’.  Woah, wrong quote!  No, the quote I was gonna go with here was ’80 percent of life is just showing up’.  That’s where all the opportunities lie, really, and this one was no different.  I was minding my own beeswax on Sunday afternoon, writing in my fantasy football diaries.  Dear diary, I dreamt of C.J. Spiller in a pool full of pudding.  $200 dollars worth to be exact.  I don’t know the significance of this price tag nor why it was pudding but I awoke with a smile on my face and my shorts didn’t fit as well as they did the night before.  I had to lay very still as the excitement that had washed over me wouldn’t settle and I knew what I had to do to quench this raging…when all of the sudden I was interrupted.  BRRRR-ring BRRR-ring!  It was twitter (my twitter brrr-ring brrr-rings at me.  No not really.  Just go with it).  Twitter told me that Jody Smith (whom you can follow @JodySmith_ on twitter) was in need of another expert for their 2013 12 team PPR redraft-style Mock Draft.  Who was I to tell a good woman no?  Oops…just looked at the twitter account and see Jody grew out a sweet red beard for no shave November.  So decidedly, Jody is not a hot chick he’s a hot guy…or something.  So off I weaseled my way onto this mock and here’s what I cam up with:

Position Player Round
QB Drew Brees 4.02
WR Calvin Johnson 1.11
WR T.Y. Hilton 6.02
WR Danario Alexander 7.11
RB Maurice Jones-Drew 2.02
RB Chris Ivory 3.11
TE Fred Davis 12.02
Flex Ahmad Bradshaw 5.11
K Stephen Gostkowski 16.02
DEF Chargers D/ST 15.11
BENCH
QB Ryan Tannehill 13.11
RB Johnathan Franklin 9.11
RB Mark Ingram 8.02
RB Pierre Thomas 10.02
WR Alshon Jeffery 11.11
WR Jarius Wright 14.02

So a few quick notes before I analyze: this was an early draft but we weren’t able to do what everyone should do with an early draft: not draft the K and the DEF.  It’s July all, if you’re doing real live drafts right now and drafting those positions,  you’re wasting a roster spot.  Sit on a couple more RBs or an RB and WR in their stead before the season starts and then figure it out.  All that said, unless you’re in a Dynasty, you shouldn’t be drafting right now.  Too many injuries and too much information can pass between now and the start of the season so I’d slow your roll.  Ok, now that we’ve covered that part, let’s break it down.  Literally, I have a team that looks like it’ll break down at any moment.  Wasn’t fully my plan but Calvin Johnson falling to me at 1.11 was the tipping point.  After that – and I’m being truthful here – I wasn’t fully familiar with the draft site we were on and had only used it sparingly in the past.  Keep in mind, this was dropped on my plate an hour before the draft started.  All this to say, I didn’t realize you had to search by last name and took Maurice Jones-Drew because I didn’t realize Steven Jackson was 1) ranked so low I couldn’t see him with a quick scroll through the list and 2) that he was available.  As you already know, I’m big on S-Jax this year so was a little saddened when that happened but I did get another guy I’m high on for the year in the 3rd.  How high am I on him?  Well you can read my Chris Ivory Sleeper post to find out.  From there, taking Drew in the 4th…I seriously can’t help myself.  He’s on the same level as Aaron Rodgers for fantasy and as much as people talk about QB being deep – myself included – Drew’s history makes him well worth the price of a 4th round when you consider he went in the 1st in many drafts last year.  Now I could blather on and on about the rest of these guys but I’m gonna point out some key things.  Andre Brown went two picks before Ingram.  That’s who I wanted and Mark is who I got.  Sad emoticon for that but at least I got Pierre to balance it out.  And speaking of PT, you can see he’s going late.  There’s value there, especially if the news of him playing first team in the OTAs holds over into the season.  He might relegate Ingram to a short yardage back.  My Fred Davis pick was me seeing a lot of ‘meh’ at TE and looking for upside.  In a 12 teamer that only starts one, I don’t see a good reason to overdraft guys like Pettigrew or Bennett.  Once you start looking at the TE position from about the 9th best down, the lines start to blur together.  At worst, this team is built for finding this year’s Dennis Pitta or streaming at the position.  High Upside with zero risk: hard to accomplish but that’s how it happened.  Outside of that, Megatron afforded me to take a bit of risk at WR the rest of the way.  I feel confident that both DX and TY are WR2 types in 2013 but I don’t think others are sold on them yet.  I have a funny feeling both of them are gonna be on a lot of my teams in 2013.  My bench WRs are pretty much forgotten men in fantasy drafts this year as well.  I’d keep my eye on these guys for early in the year and I’ll be drafting them for depth in regular leagues as well.

And with that, there be the out of the blue mock draft I participated in.  It was fun and I give thanks to Gridiron Experts for inviting me to fill in for whoever Ladd is and if you’d like to check out their combo write up, you can take a look here.  And if you’re a twitter advocate, I strongly suggest you follow those involved.  Good times with good people there.