Patsfan86 wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 11:23 am
Hmmmm everyone disagreeing with me, interesting. Maybe these boards did predict this, i admittedly have not been hanging around as much as i used to previously. Maybe this has been the chatter on here. I Just got away from these boards during Covid because in the beginning they became to Coviddy and arguing about all of it, so i left and came on less and less. So unfortunately i navigated over to the cesspool that is fantasy Twitter and this is where im getting this opinion from. All i saw on there was "Gainwell is gonna be great, Watchout for Kylin Hill" etc etc. And i literally heard nothing about Eskridge or Atwell and extremely little about Toney. So this draft really took me by surprise after the first round
I've been catching up on Rotounderworld podcasts these last couple of weeks and the NFL draft was pretty much in tune with what was being voiced on that podcast already back in February-March. So I think podcasters and FF writers that had their finger on the pulse were quite on point with player draft ranges for this year.
But...the perception of this class changed pretty drastically over the past year. We knew last May that this RB class would have a few top guys but overall be pretty bad with no depth. However, the WR class seemed deeper and stronger on paper than what it currently looks to be. A year ago, Tamorrion, Seth Williams, Tylan Wallace, and Amon-Ra were all viewed as early day 2 picks. Sage Surratt looked like a day 2 player. Justyn Ross and Rashod Bateman were in the discussion for going in the top 10. Rondale Moore, Terrace Marshall, and Chris Olave were sometimes mocked in the mid/late 1st. All the way-too-early 2021 mocks I saw last offseason (Mel Kiper, Matt Miller etc) had 7-8 WRs going in the first round...........(!)
So what happened? Olave decided to return to school, Justyn Ross' career was almost ended by injury, Rondale Moore got injured again (sigh), some of the other top talents were questioned for their character, others didn't play the season, and on top of all that, so many players in this class disappointed at their pro day testing, either athletically or through their measurements. A bunch of these players suddenly lost 1-2 inches in height and 10-20 pounds. I'm not sure if that is related to covid, or if it was just a class where every college PR department was picking numbers out of their asses.
In last year's class, there were quite a few players that popped in their final college season. Aiyuk, Mims, CEH, Claypool...the draft class got stronger over the final season. In this year's class, there are basically none of those guys except for Javonte Williams, and instead, we lost some top players like Journey Brown and Justyn Ross. We have
some late risers in the WR group this year as well, but they all have red flags through their age, archetype, size, and/or athletic testing so they're generally not very attractive fantasy investments.
If what you heard about draft capital did not match the actual NFL draft you might have been listening to people that held on to old perceptions of these players and didn't catch up to the NFL talk in the 3-4 months leading up to the draft, and how this weird covid season and general weirdness impacted this class.
I'm seeing so much talk in the dynasty community about how the rookie 2nd round is so bad this year and I'd like to pump the brakes on that. Given how good this WR and TE class was being viewed a year ago, and how weird this season was, I'll be holding out hope that these talented players are still talented. I find that the NFL and the fantasy community can tend to have too much recency bias and devalue players that end their college careers on a low note. In the past, this has allowed me to come away with players like Allen Robinson, Juju, and Tyler Boyd in the late 1st or early 2nd of rookie drafts that were college and devy superstars but peaked early in their college careers and got a little bit lost in the shuffle. If this class was being viewed as a historic WR class less than a year ago, I have a hard time believing that it suddenly turned into an average class. I'm willing to bet that there are some players drafted in round 3+ that will become major fantasy assets.