2024 season post mortem (july mock) if there is interest

[Ray_T 783]

now is the time when we all need to evaluate what went well and what did not in terms of our drafting

if there is an interest, I could do a post mortem of the July Mock.  usually part of my post mortem is looking at my draft and analyzing what I did well, and what I didnt.   then looking at the team who won and analyzing what they did well and what they didnt (presumably they did almost everything well because they won of course)

This I think is an important thing for every team to do so that we can improve our own performance in future years.

I could go through this with my draft in the july mock.  the draft is still available online so others can chime in on things I could have missed as well.   if there are any of you who are new to fantasy football, going through this process with your own team/league is the best way to learn and become better at fantasy.

the most important thing you need to do is be honest with yourself about your picks.  if they performed terribly for any reason other than injury dont tell yourself that it was bad luck. if your players dont perform you need to give a critical look into why you liked those players and try to do better.

If there is interest and if time permits, I'll also look at late round picks that turned out for some people.

[Mike FF Today 748]

I'd be interested in this Ray, if you have the time. Looking at your first two picks, it seems you had the right approach this season! 

[polecatt 485]

Sure...

I'll have to look back and see how I did in the mock this past summer

[polecatt 485]

I just looked back, my lord my draft was awful!

[Vikings4ever 568]

Average draft for me. Bad luck in Olave's concussions, but QB absolutely focked me in both FFT mocks.

[Ray_T 783]

4 hours ago, Mike FF Today said:

I'd be interested in this Ray, if you have the time. Looking at your first two picks, it seems you had the right approach this season! 

I did not win, nor was this the strategy I wanted to play.   my path was mostly decided for me by the previous draftees and I zigged when the rest of the league zagged.   As luck would have it, it turned out for me reasonably well in some respects, but reasonably poorly in others......   but I will get into that when I do my analysis.   Likely to do it properly I'll do it in multiple parts.   I'm a bit swamped at work right now but I am expecting work to slow down over the next week (two at most) so I'll get going on this when time permits. with luck I'll have part 1 done by the end of the weekend.

[Ray_T 783]

ok,   This is part 1 of the post mortem analysis of the July mock.    The first thing I'm going to say is this may have been one of the most interesting Mocks I've been a part of.   in watching the results over the course of the year, there were actually a very large number of lead changes that happened and I think each of the top 4 or 5 teams had the lead in this draft at one point in the season or another.      and the difference between the top 3-5 teams largely was good health and I would like to congratulate everyone for having a good draft.

in this part, I'm only looking at the team that won (Hawkeye) and looking at what they did right.  

The first thing I noticed when looking at his draft: 

1) his team remained mostly healthy all year long

2) not many of the early picks were spectacular.   they were solid, mostly safe picks that performed close to their expected value

3) he did not miss on any of the early picks (other than for injury). 

4)  Late in the draft, he took a lot of high upside players who ended up breaking out.    What won this draft for Hawkeye was the fact that he had drafted two QB who both finished in the top 5.   and he drafted 3 WR who finished in the top 16. and 2 starting calibre WR very late in this draft.   I'd honestly be surprised if anyone had a better draft at WR or QB.   His RB's were mediocre, but given how good he drafted at WR and QB he didnt need anything more than this.   As with last years draft, the person who drafted two top QB in this draft ended up winning the draft.

Here is the team drafted by Hawkeye

1.06  #6 overall   Amon Ra St Brown     3rd WR off the board      #3 Ranked WR at end of year.   

comment:    Solid pick.   He went off the board.  I dont think many had Amon Ra St Brown Ranked this high.  I know I sure didnt.    but he nailed the pick.  I gotta give him an A on this one 

2.07  #19 overall   Kyren Williams    9th RB off the board  #6 Ranked RB at end of the year.

Comment:  solid pick.    This is around the spot where I expected he would be drafted, and he slightly outperformed his draft spot.    Gotta give him an A for this one too.

3.06  #30 overall  Travis Kelce.   First TE off the board.   #10 ranked TE at end of the year.   I'd have to give this one a C. 

Comment:  Not a complete miss, but when you take the first TE off the board you expect he should be top 3 at his position.   I'll admit, I didnt think he should be taken as the first TE off the board, but I also didnt think hed finish outside of the top 4 or 5 TE.   so the result of this one is mixed.   Normally I'd give a D for this but given that nobody in the fantasy world expected him to finish outside of the top 5 TE I'll upgrade this to a C-.   

4.07 #43 overall  Josh Allen- 3rd QB off the board  4th ranked QB at the end of the year

Comment:  A.  Well done.   I always say if you take a QB early, you need to nail the pick.    and that is exactly what happened here.  Only reason this wasnt an A is because there were more than one QB on the board at the time this pick was made

5.06  #54 overall:  Christian Kirk  28th WR off the board-   did not finish in the top 50

Comment:  this pick was a miss due to injury.   he played 8 games, and got 379 total yards receiving.   pro rated over a full season he likely would have been a WR3  so I'll give a C-.  He got a half season out of him and noting that while healthy, he performed at the level he was drafted at.

6.07 #67overall: Tee Higgins    32nd WR off the board   #16 ranked fantasy WR at the end of the year.

comment:  I gotta give him an A+ on this one and scold all the other fantasy owners (myself included) for passing on this guy prior to this point.     a Great pick.   Drafted as a low end WR3 based on rank and delivered high end WR2 production.

7.06  #78 overall  David Montgomery  28th RB off the board  finished #18 overall in only 14 games played due to injury

comment:  I gotta give an A- for this.   Based purely  on production hes a B but he performed like a low end RB1 or high end RB2 while healthy.   so basically he got a RB2 for the price of a RB3.   Well done!

8.07 #91 overall  Austin Ekeler- 34th RB off the board  finished #36 overall

comment:   average.   C+/B-    He drafted a guy who was expected to be a RB3 and an RB3 is what he got.  Nothing exciting but a decent pick.
9.06     #102 overall       Ladd McConkey    44th WR off the board    10th ranked fantasy WR

comment:  A+.    it doesnt get much better than this.  drafting a guy expected to rank as a WR4 who gives you WR1 numbers.    this could be the draft winning pick here.   

10.07 #115 overall Xavier Worthy 48th WR off the board which means he was drafted as a WR4/5 and he was the 33rd ranked fantasy WR.   

Comment:  another very good pick.   I'll give him an A.   anytime you get a starting calibre player at this point in the draft, thats a win.

 

after this I'm only speaking to outstanding picks.  nothing taken after this point in the draft is expected to yield a fantasy relevant player (other than on Defense or possibly TE)

key picks after this point:

12.07 #139 overall:  Baker Mayfield.   #22 QB off the board   #3 fantasy QB-   Grade A+

14.07 #163 overall:  Cade Otten  #19 TE off the board, #13 ranked Fantasy TE    Grade B+

 

Congrats to Hawkeye who drafted a very solid team top to bottom  if there was one actual weak area I'd say it was the team Defense (Baltimore) who finished #12 overall and was the #2 defense taken off the board.   All things considered, I actually drafted Baltimore in some of my drafts this year and I thought they would  have a good year.    so while this was a miss I feel like it was expected at the time to be a good pick.

In my next post I will go through my draft process and give a critique of my own draft.

 

 

[ICEMAN 58]

Here is my analysis for what went right and wrong with my draft for the July Mock. Obviously, it's a completely different mindset than the June Mock (since that is not PPR). I really appreciate the fact that all of the drafters in both Mocks take these seriously and aren't trying to "see what everyone does if I take a QB in the first round." Unfortunately, this year, it did not matter what I did in the July Mock league. There were just too many injuries to overcome my crappy drafting.

Round 1

Cee Dee Lamb - Not a complete miss, but he did have only half the amount of TD's from the previous year and overall had a 35% drop in total PPR points. Nice start. Yeesh!

Round 2

Rahaad White - The receiving stats weren't too bad, but he lost half of his 2023 rushing attempts to Bucky Irving. I knew that Irving could be a potential threat to White's production, but I thought that White would hold him off.

Round 3

Isiah Pacheco - Missed 10 weeks due to injury and was a shell of his former self upon return in week 13. He never really recovered.

Round 4

Stefon Diggs - He started out OK. Nothing great. He got injured in week 8 and we never saw him again.

Round 5 

Aaron Jones - Great value in the 5th round for a running back. He ended up only 8 PPR points away from being a top 10 RB.

Round 6

Zach Moss - He only played in 8 games before getting injured and sent to IR, but he was completely outproduced by Chase Brown even during those 8 games. This one was a combo bad pick/injured.

Round 7 

Joe Burrow - I drafted him in every league that I was in this year and was thankful for it. In 2 leagues, I even had Jayden Daniels as my backup!

I'm not going to bother going through the rest of my draft, as there was nobody notable (outside of 3 more players that missed a lot of time due to injuries). Long shots and backups. Not a good year for ICEMAN in the July Mock this year. I'll look to do a better job next year.

ICEMAN

 

 

 

[Ray_T 783]

4 hours ago, ICEMAN said:

I'm not going to bother going through the rest of my draft, as there was nobody notable (outside of 3 more players that missed a lot of time due to injuries). Long shots and backups. Not a good year for ICEMAN in the July Mock this year. I'll look to do a better job next year.

agreed.  your team was hit hard by injury this year.

its hard to win when your players are not on the field.    Ceedee was on the field but his starting QB was not.    and that affected his numbers too.  Pacheco was a notable early season injury too.  that one hurt me in other leagues but not this one.

it also feels like the injuries affected the WR position more than the RB position this year (with one or two notable exceptions like Pacheco) and so in a WR heavy draft format, there were people who were eliminated from the contest early due to these injuries.

its not like your guys had a long history of injury either.  I'd suggest most of this is bad luck on your part.   my best suggestion: dont buy any lotto tickets until this turns around lol