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 2022 NFL season, we will use the 2022 Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator (powered by FantasyPros) to complete fantasy football mock drafts.
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.
Half-PPR Mock Draft: 12 Teams, 2nd Pick
1.02 - Christian McCaffrey, RB, Carolina Panthers
McCaffrey has played just 10 games over the past two seasons combined. In those 10 games, he has averaged 115.9 scrimmage yards, 5.4 receptions and 0.8 touchdowns per game. Before that, CMC led the NFL in scrimmage yards (2,392), touchdowns (19) and touches (403) in 2019 and became the third player in NFL history to reach the 1,000-yard rushing and receiving milestones in the same season. If his health cooperates, he has as high of a ceiling and floor as any running back.
2.11 - Tyreek Hill, WR, Miami Dolphins
Tua Tagovailoa is a winner following Hill's trade to Miami, but that's not the case for Hill given the quarterback downgrade from Patrick Mahomes. Hill set a career high in receptions (111) last year and a non-rookie low in Y/R (11.2). In this mock draft, Hill is the WR9.
3.02 - Cam Akers, RB, Los Angeles Rams
Closing his rookie 2020 campaign with 94 touches for 436 yards from scrimmage over his final four games, Akers was poised to enter 2021 as the team's featured back before an Achilles injury forced him to miss nearly all of last season. Provided his health cooperates, Akers has tremendous upside as the lead back in one of the league's most potent offenses.
4.11 - Brandin Cooks, WR, Houston Texans
Cooks has eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark in back-to-back seasons and six of the past seven. In addition, he has finished as a top-20 fantasy receiver in six of the past seven seasons. As the team's clear go-to receiver, he'll be a reliable WR2 for fantasy managers in 2022.
5.02 - Chris Godwin, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Godwin missed the final three games of the season after tearing his ACL, but he still finished with 98 catches for 1,103 yards and five touchdowns in only 14 games. While it's not definitive that he'll be ready for Week 1, there has been some optimism that he could be on the field in Dallas for Week 1.
6.11 - Miles Sanders, RB, Philadelphia Eagles
Sanders has missed at least four games in back-to-back seasons, but he's averaged 5.4 yards per carry on the 301 rush attempts he's handled over that span. There is plenty of upside with Sanders at the end of Round 6.
7.02 - T.J. Hockenson, TE, Detroit Lions
Hockenson missed five games last season, but he set per-game career highs in receptions (5.1) and yards (48.6) as well as catch rate (72.6%). Given the additions to the receiving corps (D.J. Chark and Jameson Williams), it's likely that Jared Goff won't rely as heavily on Hockenson this year, but he was my top-ranked TE available at this point.
8.11 - Tom Brady, QB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Brady retired, then unretired, after leading the NFL in pass attempts (719), passing yards (5,316) and touchdowns (43) in his age-44 season. Not only did he throw for a career-high 5,316 yards in the NFL's first 17-game season, but his per-game average (312.7 yards) was the second best of his NFL career. Even though his rushing production is minimal in this era of dual-threat quarterbacks, his prolific passing stats propelled him to fantasy's QB3 in 2021 and he remains a viable QB1 at 45 years old (in August).
9.02 - Chase Claypool, WR, Pittsburgh Steelers
Claypool's targets, receptions and yards were nearly identical in his first two seasons. What wasn't nearly identical were the touchdowns. Claypool scored 11 times, counting two rushing scores, as a rookie, but only twice in 2021. Given his elite height, weight and speed profile, a regression to the mean in touchdown performance is likely.
10.11 - Jakobi Meyers, WR, New England Patriots
The good news is that Meyers finally scored a touchdown, actually two of them, to go along with 126 targets, 83 catches and 866 yards in 2021. Even with the Patriots trading for DeVante Parker, there's a decent chance that Meyers will lead the team in target share, receptions and yards, but the lack of scoring gives him little upside.
11.02 - Raheem Mostert, RB, Miami Dolphins
Mostert follows Mike McDaniel from San Francisco and has made the most of his opportunities, when healthy. The problem, of course, is that durability has often eluded him. Mostert missed almost all of 2021 with a knee injury and played just eight games in 2020. If he's able to stay healthy for (close to) a full season, he should outperform his ADP.
12.11 - Tyler Allgeier, RB, Atlanta Falcons
The draft pedigree (fifth round) doesn't scream featured back, but he has the frame (5'11", 224 pounds), power and vision to shoulder a heavy workload. A former linebacker (26 tackles in 2019 at BYU) as well, Allgeier was highly productive over the past two seasons with 2,731 rushing yards and 36 touchdowns over that stretch.
13.02 - Khalil Herbert, RB, Chicago Bears
Herbert showed what he could do during Montgomery's four-game absence, as the rookie totaled 78 carries for 344 yards and a touchdown with nine receptions for 44 yards. Herbert was fantasy's RB16 over that stretch. Outside of that four-game span, however, Herbert never exceeded four carries or five touches.
14.11 - 49ers DST, San Francisco 49ers
15.02 - Chuba Hubbard, RB, Carolina Panthers
CMC is elite when he's on the field, but he's missed the majority of the past two seasons. Hubbard provides some insurance in the event of another McCaffrey injury.
16.11 - Younghoe Koo, K, Atlanta Falcons
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