Friday, June 21, 2019

Fantasy Football Mock Draft 2019: 12 Teams, 4th Pick

The best way to become good at something is to practice. So, what should you do if you want to draft a better fantasy football team?

Practice, of course!

Leading up to the start of the 2019 NFL season, Kevin Hanson will use the 2019 Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator (powered by FantasyPros) to complete fantasy football mock drafts.



- MORE: Check out Kevin Hanson's way-too-early 2020 NFL Mock Draft.


We will use a variety of scoring formats -- PPR, half-PPR, standard scoring and even 2-QB leagues, league sizes and draft slots. The goal is to give you a good representation of the team that you may be able to construct given your league settings and the rationale of why we made the picks we did.

>> Our mocks will be tracked here: Fantasy Football Mock Drafts.

That said, nothing beats practicing yourself so (check out the simulator) and complete a mock in a matter of minutes.

2019 Mock Draft: 12 Teams, 4thPick

Without further ado, here are the picks of our 12-team 2019 fantasy football mock draft using standard scoring:

1.04 - Christian McCaffrey, RB, Carolina Panthers
The iron man of NFL running backs, McCaffrey almost never comes off the field and the do-it-all back would have eclipsed the 2,000-YFS mark if he played his normal allotment of snaps in Week 17. Breaking Matt Forte's single-season record for receptions by a running back, Run CMC totalled 1,965 yards from scrimmage, 107 catches and 13 total touchdowns.

2.09 - Mike Evans, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Along with Randy Moss and A.J. Green, Evans is one of three NFL players to begin his career with five consecutive 1,000-yard seasons. In addition, Evans set career highs in yards (1,524), yards per reception (17.7) and yards per target (11.0) last season. Evans was the eighth receiver off the board in this mock.

3.04 - Leonard Fournette, RB, Jacksonville Jaguars
Durability (11 missed games in two seasons) and inefficiency (career 3.7 YPC) are negatives, but there are a lot of reaseons to be excited about drafting Fournette in Round 3. A true workhorse, Fournette has averaged nearly 20 carries per game (19.09), expectations for improved quarterback play and a healthier offensive line. And he could be more involved in the passing game as well.

4.09 - Stefon Diggs, WR, Minnesota Vikings
Diggs set career highs last season in receptions (102), yards (1,021) and touchdowns (nine) as he finished as a WR1 (top-12 fantasy wide receiver). If this were a real draft, I'd be thrilled to start with Evans/Diggs as my WR1/2 to go along with McCaffrey and Fournette.

5.04 - O.J. Howard, TE, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Injury has cut each of his first two seasons short, but Howard has averaged exactly 16.6 yards per reception in both of those seasons. Extrapolating last year's production over 16 games, Howard would have posted a 54/904/8 stat line. Howard is the clear-cut next-best option after the top three in my early 2019 fantasy projections as he's projected for more than 20 fantasy points more than the TE5 (Hunter Henry). As Jameis Winston says, the "moon" is the limit for the third-year tight end.

6.09 - Robby Anderson, WR, New York Jets
Anderson's numbers were down year-over-year, but he finished strong when Sam Darnold returned from a foot injury. Over the final four games of the season, Anderson had 23 catches for 336 yards and three touchdowns. During that span, Anderson was the WR5. Assuming improvement and more consistency from Darnold, Anderson is one of my favorite targets as a third receiver.

7.04 - James White, RB, New England Patriots
Obviously much better in PPR formats, White is an underrated option in standard-scoring formats like this mock draft. White shattered previous career highs with 181 touches, 87 receptions, 1,176 scrimmage yards and 12 total touchdowns. Only 10 running backs scored more fantasy points in standard-scoring leagues than White last season.

8.09 - Sterling Shepard, WR, New York Giants
It's possible that newcomer Golden Tate outproduces Shepard in the Odell Beckham-less receiving corps, but I like Shepard as my WR4.

9.04 - Royce Freeman, RB, Denver Broncos
Overdrafted compared to his lofty ADP (mid-third round in 2018), Freeman carried the ball 130 times for 521 yards and five touchdowns and added 14 catches for 72 yards. At a more reasonable draft-day cost, Freeman should see a year-over-year boost in workload and has some upside as the RB4 for this team.

10.09 - Austin Ekeler, RB, Los Angeles Chargers
Once again, Ekeler averaged more than five yards per carry and 10 yards per reception. But as he nearly doubled his workload (74 to 145 touches), Melvin Gordon's complementary back finished as the RB27 in 2018. Even if he doesn't make any starts, he has stand-alone value even if MG3 stays healthy.

11.04 - Carlos Hyde, RB, Kansas City Chiefs
Hyde began the season as Cleveland's workhorse -- only Todd Gurley (129) and Ezekiel Elliott (117) had more carries through the first six weeks of the season than Hyde (114). Inefficient (3.35 YPC) on his massive workload, the Browns traded him to Jacksonville and he was even less efficient there (3.26 YPC). If Hyde is able to take over the lead-back role from Damien Williams, who has never had more than 50 regular-season carries, Hyde could be the difference-maker.

12.09 - Jameis Winston, QB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Starting only nine games last season, Winston set career highs in completion percentage (64.6), yards per attempt (7.9) and TD% (5.0), but he also set a career high in INT% (3.7). The QB13 in this mock, Winston needs to cut down on turnovers, but Tampa's passing offense should rank near the top of the league once again.

13.04 - Kalen Ballage, RB, Miami Dolphins
The fourth-round rookie got 28 of his 36 carries in the final three games of the season with Frank Gore sidelined. Although his workload will certainly expand in 2019, he'll form a timeshare with Kenyan Drake and likely get the smaller share of that split, but there is certainly upside at his 13th-round cost.

14.09 - Baltimore Ravens D/ST

15.04 - Dak Prescott, QB, Dallas Cowboys
The next time that Prescott finishes outside the top-12 fantasy quarterbacks will be his first. Through his first three NFL seasons, Prescott has finished as fantasy's QB6, QB11 and QB10, respectively. In the team's run-first offense, Prescott threw it 526 times in 2018 for 3,885 yards, both of which were career highs, and the presence of Amari Cooper gives Prescott a legitimate weapon in the passing game. Consistent with 22 or 23 passing touchdowns each season, Prescott has rushed for exactly six scores each season and 944 rushing yards over his three seasons. I'd be comfortable with Dak as my every-week starter, but I can play the matchups with my Jameis-Dak tandem.

- View Full Mock Draft Results

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