Rookie Dynasty Draft 1.0

One of my favorite parts of the modern day NFL is the dominating presence of fantasy football in all of its unique and creative forms. Fantasy football is what propelled me from a die hard Packer and Badger fan into a connoisseur of the game and the various leagues that it is played within. With that said, I still love the aspect of selecting and managing players as well as the thrill of weaving together a full team.

I came up with this idea based off a episode of NFLSE, draft a 22 man starting lineup while snaking picks against another team. They did theirs based off of current NFL players that are 25 years of age and younger by the opening kick off of week 1 for the upcoming NFL season. I thought this would be an awesome model to use with draft eligible players in this year's draft, so I called a buddy up who loved the idea and we set to it.

We set up a Google Sheet with slots for all positions and took turns making two picks at a time over the course of one day. We both kept true to LT/RT or Slot/Outside preferences for specific players and theirs games, but also did some projecting as to what positions we actually saw players lining up at the next level (G. Barton to guard, D. Robinson to 3-Tech, etc.).

At the end of the day, it became as much about strategy, positional value and positional depth as it did about player grades. The number one pick off the board was Joe Alt, followed by Marvin Harrision Jr. and Brock Bowers. A QB didn't even come off the board until well after the middle picks.

This exercise was an absolute blast and I would encourage any of you draft/fantasy lovers out there to give it a try with a friend or even a group of friends. The results of our draft are posted below. I look forward to doing a couple more of these leading up to the draft.

Newt Westen