It's been so awesome doing these mock drafts to benefit the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital as part of our Draft-A-Thon. We're raising money for an incredible cause while talking about Fantasy Football. Can it be any better?
In this 12-team, PPR mock draft we started to see what could become a trend over the next two weeks. CeeDee Lamb, who is holding out because of his contract, fell to No. 7 overall. For most of my drafts prior to this one, Lamb has been a consistent top-three overall selection.
Three running backs went in the first four picks here with Christian McCaffrey (first), Bijan Robinson (second), and Breece Hall (fourth), with Tyreek Hill the No. 3 overall pick. And Ja'Marr Chase and Amon-Ra St. Brown were the other receivers drafted ahead of Lamb.
At the time of publication, I still have Lamb as the No. 2 receiver behind Hill. I'm hopeful Lamb gets his deal done soon, otherwise he might start to slip in my rankings as well. Here, I drafted him at No. 7, and I was thrilled about it.
I took a Hero-RB approach with this team since I drafted Lamb, Garrett Wilson, and Drake London with my first three picks. Alvin Kamara was my first running back in Round 4, but then I selected George Kittle in Round 5, Chris Godwin in Round 6, and Joe Burrow in Round 7.
I love this start, and then I tackled running backs next with Tyjae Spears, Chase Brown, Ty Chandler, and Tank Bigsby with four of my final seven picks. I also added Marquise Brown, Curtis Samuel, and Demario Douglas as reserve receivers, and I'm excited about this roster.
Ken Townsel also took a Hero-RB approach from the No. 11 spot with A.J. Brown, Jahmyr Gibbs, Chris Olave, Trey McBride, Calvin Ridley, and Kyler Murray with his first six picks. His running back corps along with Gibbs ended up being Brian Robinson Jr., Jerome Ford, and Trey Benson, and he has reserve receivers in Keenan Allen, Tyler Lockett, Dontayvion Wicks, and Ja'Lynn Polk. And Justin Herbert is his No. 2 quarterback.
"The Hero-RB approach is my preferred strategy," Townsel said. "Hero-RB gives me the opportunity to swap out guys at RB2 and hit the waiver wire to find a solid option in the early portion of the season."
I asked Townsel if he was worried about Gibbs being his No. 1 running back since he's dealing with a hamstring injury.
"The hamstring injury makes me a bit cautious, but at his full potential, I think Gibbs can be a top-three running back this year," he said. "I was comfortable taking him after Kyren (Williams) went off the board, however, that did affect some of my decision-making in the later rounds. I drafted Brian Robinson Jr. instead of Johnathon Brooks to avoid going into the season with two hobbled backs."
Make sure you check out Ken's team, as well as everyone else in this mock draft. And thank you to everyone who donated -- and will continue to donate -- to St. Jude.
As a reference point for this mock draft, all touchdowns are worth six points, and we award one point for every 10 yards rushing and receiving and one point for every 25 yards passing. We also award one point for every reception. We feature a starting lineup of QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, TE, and FLEX (RB/WR/TE) with six reserves for a 14-round draft.
Our draft order is as follows:
1. Mike D'Alora
2. Dean Miller
3. Mitch Perkins
4. Noah Mindel
5. Rob Thomas
6. Eric Moskoff
7. Jamey Eisenberg
8. Eric Levy
9. Andrew Baumhor
10. Jason Noji
11. Ken Townsel
12. Todd Luther