Fantasy football: If your first pick falls at No. 8 or worse, then it gets tricky

In the first of a six-part draft preview series, Fantasy Insanity analyzes general strategy. Next week: Tight ends, kickers and defense/special teams.

Sound the trumpets. Strike up the band. Set off the fireworks. Kick off the parades. Fantasy football draft season is back!

Pfft, pfft, pfft. Sorry. Had some confetti in my mouth. Now, let’s put down the pom-poms and get right to it.

As always, the Madman’s plan is to collect as many top players as we can early, so we aren’t going to worry too much about position for the first several rounds.

Normally that approach means you never are really disappointed with your early picks. But there is one spot in the draft the Madman has already identified where we are unlikely to be truly satisfied. That is when we get pick No. 9 — or even No. 8 in those drafts whose members think like we do.

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We really like the first seven players in our rankings. So our worst-case scenario is landing the eighth pick then watching as Christian McCaffrey, CeeDee Lamb, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Tyreek Hill, Ja’Marr Chase, Bijan Robinson and Breece Hall are taken with the first seven, whatever the order.

Nevertheless, we are more afraid of pick No. 9, because someone is likely to select Justin Jefferson in those first seven picks.

Pfft, pfft, pfft. Those words taste terrible. No sane drafter is down on Jefferson, right? As the most talented of WRs, Jefferson is certainly good enough to make us eat those words later. But we’re saying them, nevertheless.

Look, it’s not like we wholly dislike Jefferson, but we do see a gap between him and our top seven. More specifically, between him and our sixth- and seventh-ranked players: Hall and Robinson.

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We expect a big bump in production this season from Robinson. He now has a legitimate QB in Kirk Cousins to make the offense harder to defend. Plus, with coach Arthur Smith gone, we expect he will no longer have to share so many touches with inferior talent (sorry, nothing personal Tyler Allgeier). And if you’ve seen what Robinson can do with the ball in his hands, a hefty increase in touches should deliver an explosion in fantasy production.

We’ve already seen such an explosion by Hall. It happened the final few weeks last season. Having spent much of the year working back up to full speed after a 2022 ACL injury as a rookie, he finished as the RB1 twice in the final five weeks, in the top 10 two other times, and scored more than 30 points better in PPR than any other RB in that span.

Did we mention he had a terrible offensive line, which presumably has been upgraded? Or that there is a high probability he gets to play with QB Aaron Rodgers for more than four plays, instead of a parade of spring-league-level fodder the Jets put under center last season? Yeah, we’re expecting Breece to feast.

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It isn’t last year’s season-ending chest injury that created the gap before we get to Jefferson. It’s the fact we don’t trust any of the QBs who could be getting him the ball. With Cousins gone, he either has journeyman Sam Darnold or rookie J.J. McCarthy under center. We know what Darnold is, and as a rule, the Madman doesn’t trust rookie QBs. (Sure, we got burned with C.J. Stroud last year, but almost every other year, that rule works in our favor.) This bumps Jefferson out of our top seven, and none of those on his heels had to juice to close the gap, either.

A.J. Brown went in the tank late last season, along with the entire Eagles team. His weekly ranking WR average the first nine weeks was 17.6. In the eight games after their bye, it was 55.4.

Puka Nacua, Garrett Wilson or Jahmyr Gibbs have ADPs in this range. We’re not as high on Gibbs as most — we don’t think David Montgomery is going to disappear.

Between Nacua and Wilson, Nacua is safer, but Wilson has a much higher upside. Picking from this group is not going to prompt us to pop the champagne or make it rain — pfft, pfft, pfft — confetti? No, they don’t deserve confetti. these picks are just … fine, but definitely not top nine.

There is a sliver of good news if you get stuck with No. 9 though. There is a chance Saquon Barley, Jonathan Taylor or Kyren Williams makes it back to you at pick No. 15. Maybe.

And if that happens, then break out the confetti.

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