taylor.jpg
Getty Images

Most Fantasy Football drafts tend to follow a relatively similar pattern, especially early on. Not everyone agrees on the exact order the top players should be going off the board in, but there's a pretty strong consensus, to the point where you rarely find yourself surprised by much.

The FLEX League draft I took part in Saturday with CBS Sports' Jamey Eisenberg and 10 other analysts from around the industry was one draft that featured some pretty surprising early results. And, it turned out to help Jamey more than anyone else, at least in my view.

The first surprise came with the No. 1 overall pick, as Eric Young took Christian McCaffrey instead of Jonathan Taylor – a pick I've been advocating for the entire offseason, so maybe we're going to see it a bit more often over the final month of drafts. That left me with Taylor as my pick at No. 2 overall, and things mostly continued the way you expect for the next few picks, with one exception; Cooper Kupp kept falling. Austin Ekeler, D'Andre Swift, and Dalvin Cook all went ahead of Kupp, but then so did Justin Jefferson, making him, not Kupp, the No. 1 WR in this particular draft. Jamey stopped Kupp's slide with the eighth overall pick, and even with concerns about Matthew Stafford's elbow making headlines in training camp recently, I still think Kupp is the top WR on the board and should be a top-three pick in PPR leagues. So, that worked out nicely for Jamey from the No. 8 pick.

And his good luck continued in the second round, as Najee Harris tumbled to the 17th overall pick – nearly a round later than his 6.84 ADP in NFC drafts, though over the past week, Harris' price has fallen to 8.41, so it might not be as outlandish as it seems. Still, I think Jamey made out quite nicely with those two players falling – coming off a championship in this league where he had Jonathan Taylor fall to the second round because of injuries to his quarterback and starting center around the time of the draft. He also took Kupp in the fourth round of that one, and he very well could end up with a similarly productive duo this time around. 

Here's how Jamey's full draft went: 

As you can see, Jamey waited on tight end and quarterback, ending up with intriguing breakout candidates in Kmet and Lance, plus a steady, borderline top-12 QB in Cousins in case Lance busts. That's a move you'll see a lot of this year, pairing upside with safety in that duo – Derek Carr is another late-round QB target to consider pairing with Lance or Justin Fields. 

I went the opposite direction, locking in more guaranteed high-end production with my tight end and quarterback. I took Mark Andrews with the second pick of the third round, only because Josh Allen was taken a pick before me – I'm a firm believer in taking an early QB this season, though if it's not Allen around the second/third-round turn, my preference is to wait a little longer for the next tier. And, as things often go in these industry leagues, I probably could've waited longer than I did – I went with Patrick Mahomes with the 11th pick of the fourth round, but Justin Herbert and Lamar Jackson weren't drafted until the next round. 

There's no guarantee any of those players would've come back to me if I passed in the fourth and fifth – Jalen Hurts and Kyler Murray were also drafted before my next pick in the sixth – but one thing I've been trying to remind myself of during my mock drafts this year is that, while I think the evidence suggests early-round QBs are worth the investment, most of the people who talk about Fantasy Football for a living still view waiting at QB to be the optimal approach. 

Here's how the rest of my draft went: 

That's a pretty standard Hero-RB-ish build, which is my preferred strategy at this point. Of course, taking a TE and QB early means I've got Allen Robinson as a somewhat weak WR2, with the hope that he breaks out in his new offense. Many Fantasy players prefer to not double-up on the QB/TE combo in the early rounds, and you can see the sacrifices you have to make in doing so by just looking at Jamey and I's teams next to each other. I'm unquestionably stronger at TE, and while Lance has incredible upside, Mahomes has already done it. However, he's got a stronger WR2 in Michael Pittman and RB2 in David Montgomery to make up for the gap there.

No matter what team build approach you choose, you're going to be making some kind of sacrifices. Jamey's start to the draft worked out just about perfectly, making it just a little easier to make the tradeoffs he did at QB and TE. There's a reason he won this league last year. 

To see the full results of our draft, you can find it at this link.