We’ve all been there. It’s draft day, and you’re up in three picks. You have your guy. He’s highlighted, underlined and circled on your draft board. You can already see him helping your team to the league championship.
One pick goes by, and then another. Your guy is still there. Just one pick left. As you start to rise up out your chair to head over to the draft board, he gets picked.
D’oh!
Panic sets in. Everyone is looking at you. Who do you pick? Quick, make a decision. You frantically scroll through a top-300 list and then rapidly glance at some positional rankings hoping a name, some name, any name sticks out. Then one does. You casually put his sticker on the board, acting like nothing happened, and walk nonchalantly back over to your seat.
As soon as you sit down, you see it: The obvious pick you overlooked in your desperate search. It was right there in front of you, and you’re already starting to kick yourself. It gets in your head and doesn’t go away. You keep thinking about this mistake for the next several rounds. And you know what? You make more mistakes because of this one slipup. To borrow a term from poker, you’re on tilt.
Of course, this is an absolutely worst-case scenario, but even small mistakes on draft day have a ripple effect that can potentially impact your entire draft.
To avoid these mishaps, you want to go into draft day prepared and with a solid draft board in place. I already discussed the thought process behind producing a draft board. Today, I’m going to give you my actual 2016 draft board. You can use this to help build your own board and make sure the nightmare situation above doesn’t happen to you this year.
Rounds 1-5
It’s easy to sit here and tell you that you should draft Antonio Brown or Julio Jones, but that isn’t going to do you any good if you end up with a pick at the tail end of a snake draft. Instead, I recommend coming into a draft with a strong set of overall rankings.
In a 12-team league, I recommend covering five rounds of the draft, which equates to roughly 60 players. To get you started, here are my top 60 players:
Top 60 Overall | ||||||||||
Rk | Player | Pos | Tm | Bye | Rk | Player | Pos | Tm | Bye | |
1 | Antonio Brown | WR | PIT | 8 | 31 | Jonathan C. Stewart | RB | CAR | 7 | |
2 | Odell Beckham Jr. | WR | NYG | 8 | 32 | Greg Olsen | TE | CAR | 7 | |
3 | David A. Johnson | RB | ARZ | 9 | 33 | Brandin Cooks | WR | NO | 5 | |
4 | Julio Jones | WR | ATL | 11 | 34 | Keenan Allen | WR | SD | 11 | |
5 | Todd Gurley | RB | LA | 8 | 35 | Jarvis Landry | WR | MIA | 8 | |
6 | Adrian L. Peterson | RB | MIN | 6 | 36 | C.J. Anderson | RB | DEN | 11 | |
7 | Ezekiel Elliott | RB | DAL | 7 | 37 | Golden Tate | WR | DET | 10 | |
8 | DeAndre Hopkins | WR | HST | 9 | 38 | T.Y. Hilton | WR | IND | 10 | |
9 | Jamaal Charles | RB | KC | 5 | 39 | Latavius Murray | RB | OAK | 10 | |
10 | LeSean McCoy | RB | BUF | 10 | 40 | Melvin Gordon | RB | SD | 11 | |
11 | Lamar Miller | RB | HST | 9 | 41 | Eric Decker | WR | NYJ | 11 | |
12 | Devonta Freeman | RB | ATL | 11 | 42 | Cam Newton | QB | CAR | 7 | |
13 | Rob Gronkowski | TE | NE | 9 | 43 | Julian Edelman | WR | NE | 9 | |
14 | Dez Bryant | WR | DAL | 7 | 44 | Ryan Mathews | RB | PHI | 4 | |
15 | A.J. Green | WR | CIN | 9 | 45 | Matt Jones | RB | WAS | 9 | |
16 | Mark Ingram | RB | NO | 5 | 46 | Jeremy Maclin | WR | KC | 5 | |
17 | Doug Martin | RB | TB | 6 | 47 | Demaryius Thomas | WR | DEN | 11 | |
18 | Le'Veon Bell | RB | PIT | 8 | 48 | Larry Fitzgerald | WR | ARZ | 9 | |
19 | Brandon Marshall | WR | NYJ | 11 | 49 | Kelvin Benjamin | WR | CAR | 7 | |
20 | Carlos Hyde | RB | SF | 8 | 50 | Dion Lewis | RB | NE | 9 | |
21 | Allen Robinson | WR | JAX | 5 | 51 | Donte Moncrief | WR | IND | 10 | |
22 | Alshon Jeffery | WR | CHI | 9 | 52 | DeMarco Murray | RB | TEN | 13 | |
23 | Thomas Rawls | RB | SEA | 5 | 53 | Coby Fleener | TE | NO | 5 | |
24 | Matt Forte | RB | NYJ | 11 | 54 | Giovani Bernard | RB | CIN | 9 | |
25 | Eddie Lacy | RB | GB | 4 | 55 | Frank Gore | RB | IND | 10 | |
26 | Jordan Reed | TE | WAS | 9 | 56 | Jeremy Langford | RB | CHI | 9 | |
27 | Jordy Nelson | WR | GB | 4 | 57 | Randall Cobb | WR | GB | 4 | |
28 | Mike Evans | WR | TB | 6 | 58 | Aaron Rodgers | QB | GB | 4 | |
29 | Sammy Watkins | WR | BUF | 10 | 59 | Russell Wilson | QB | SEA | 5 | |
30 | Amari Cooper | WR | OAK | 10 | 60 | Rashad Jennings | RB | NYG | 8 |
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