JB’s RCL League Draft Recap

RCL Season is approaching!  We’re stoked this year for another big RCL season, and we’re still looking for more leagues and more commishes, so as Sky would say “clickity-click this linkity-link” and start up a new RCL league!  As I mentioned on yesterday’s Podcast post, I’m going to give the top scorer every week a shout out and the team they toppled a slurry of French-ish epithets screamed as if atop a castle.

Last Tuesday, we had our first RCL draft in my JB’s Random Commenter League, and I gotta say, Razzball readers are pretty effing smart.  It was like drafting with 11 other mes.  12 JB’s would be 79 feet of fantasy gigantism.  Horrifying.  But I did come away really happy with my team.  As we talked about in our chat, I don’t really have any draft strategies this season, because there’s just so much sleeper/overrated value at different times that I’m going to come away with wildly different teams based on my draft spot.  None of the guys on my team were particular targets, except my love for Cam Newton this year, who I think has a monster season.  But I’m getting ahead of myself…

With the RCL Leagues standardized at 12-teams and PPR, I thought it would be a smart idea to have the JB’s RCL League draft first to give future RCL leagues an idea of how the draft results panned out.  Here’s how my team rounded into form:

Pick 1 (7): Jamaal Charles – Like I said in the open, I had no real strategy here, just knew I was getting a RB.  This news of the foot injury I think helped Charles fall to me, who in a PPR I think needs to be a top-5 pick.  All diagnoses point to Charles’ foot injury being a mere strain, and with the season still almost a month away, I’m confident he’ll be out there week 1 barring another injury.  I understand the love for C.J. Spiller but was shocked he went at 3 and surprised Trent Richardson went a pick earlier as well.  I don’t dislike either of them, but I think Charles has the most upside of the three.

Pick 2 (18): Jimmy Graham – As I mentioned on yesterday’s podcast, if I don’t end up with Graham I’m not picking a TE until the last rounds.  Lucky for me I fell into the former, and I was eying Graham as soon as we turned into Round 2.  There’s just no TE even close to Graham, and with the league 12-team and a PPR, he’s going to be a huge asset in my trouncings.

Pick 3 (31): Stevan Ridley – I’m not particularly big on Ridley, but he’s looked great in preseason (yes, I know, it’s preseason) and the Patriots are going to be a run heavy offense.  I know the PPR format deflates his numbers a tad, but the RB pool was getting very thin and Ridley fell a good bit to me in the middle third round of a 12-teamer.  And no, I wasn’t about to reach for David Wilson.

Pick 4 (42): Cam Newton – I love Newton this year, and he’s my #2 QB in both 4 and 6-pt Passing TD formats.  The fact RCL Leagues are 4-points per Passing TD has me loving Cam even more, with the added value of a rushing QB scoring on the ground.  The run on QBs was extraordinarily slow, Aaron Rodgers didn’t even go until the end of the 3rd Round!

Pick 5 (55): Ryan Mathews – Listen, I’m not a big Mathews fan in the least, but at this point in a PPR draft, it’s really hard to pass him up.  The Chargers have no one to really cut into his workload behind him, with Ronnie Brown still limping his way onto the field and Danny Woodhead maybe getting some hybrid touches.  Mathews still has the upside, will get the workload as long as he can stay healthy, and he’s worth the gamble in my flex.

Pick 6 (66): Steve Smith – Finally a WR!  And with the 666 Pick as well!  As a Panthers homer, I love Smith here who still has WR1 (just barely, but I’m not scared he leads my WR corps) ability and with Cam having the big year I’m projecting, I’m glad I waited on WR.  I had a few positive comments with this approach in the draft’s chat, I wasn’t really intending to go this route, but I really wanted three starting RBs in my line-up from the get go.

Pick 7 (79): Tavon Austin – I think it’s easy to say “remember how good Danny Amendola was in PPR leagues last year?  Austin is going to fill that role and be a beast!”  And you know what?  I’m easy!  Love Austin this year, especially in PPR.

Pick 8 (90): Miles Austin – This pick surprised me. First of all, I get to have both Austins, which is Au-some!  And you know what?  As soon as waivers clear, I’m picking up Austin Collie just for the hell of it.  But back to Miles, who at 90th in a PPR and my 3rd WR is immense value.  He had a pretty solid year last year despite being somewhat of a bust, and there’s still upside there opposite Dez Bryant who is going to get more coverage than a Royal Baby.  And with Anquan Boldin, Golden Tate, and Chris Givens (who I like this year as a sleeper, but it was just way too early) going the three immediate picks before me, I’d much rather have Austin over those guys.  Love him as my last positional starter.

Pick 9 (103): Justin Blackmon – As I said in the chat, I gotta have a JB on my team!  No one can deny there’s upside here, and it’s not like I have to trust him as a starter anytime soon.

Pick 10 (114): Fred Jackson – One of the most overlooked assets this year, especially in PPR leagues.  Dude had 34 catches last year in 10 games, 39 in 10 the year before, and yes the injury risk is still there… But he’s going to get plenty of touches keeping Spiller fresh, and still a 6-8 point scorer in most games when I need someone in there.  And if anything happens to Spiller, Jackson would be a huge commodity.

Pick 11 (127): Andre Roberts – Meh.  There’s upside and he had a really solid stretch last year with characters from Guess Who? throwing him the ball.  “Is my QB bald, yes or no?”  Well Palmer still has some ginger in there, and maybe Roberts can turn out into a really solid WR.  I wanted either Kendall Wright or Andre Dobson here and both went 2 of the last 3 picks prior, but looking at it now, I’m happy I landed Roberts.

Pick 12 (138): Daniel Thomas – I don’t really like him, but everyone talks about how terrible he is, and I dunno, maybe something happens to Lamar Miller or Thomas gets more of a share of the workload than people think, solid depth grab here.

The rest of my picks were just filler.  And Laurent Robinson who was kinda a “quick click” to wrap it up, is getting dropped for Collie.  Here’s how my roster looks in it’s entirety:

Love it.  And I don’t care about kickers or defense, but I will say the Colts are going to be my last round pick in almost all leagues with them against the Raiders in week 1.  Then it’s stream city.  What say you Razzball Nation to my RCL team?