Post-Draft Rookie Draft Walk through

Finalized Rookie Ranks, and a walk through of key tier breaks and trade ideas for your Dynasty Rookie Drafts

Hi Folks,

Welcome in to my favourite column of the year: the Rookie Draft Walk Through. If you were not subbed with me last year, here’s how it will go.

First off, I will post my Rookie Rankings 1-60. These are built for Superflex, TEP (0.5 point), though in this year’s class the only major changes for non-TEP ranks would be Brock Bowers from the top to the bottom of his tier and Ben Sinnott down one tier.

In the right tab of my rankings you will see a Target Exposure (TGT EXP) column. This is the position I would like to stake out in terms of portfolio. Assuming all your leagues are 12 teams, “1X” = 1/12 = 8.33%, “2X” = 16.67% etc…

For ease of clarity, I’m basing these target exposures based on the assumption you walk into your rookie drafts with an average of one pick per round, equally distributed between early, middle and late. My guess is that most of my readers are walking into drafts overweight picks, so feel free to adjust these exposures based on your ratio of picks vs. equilibrium. For instance, if you play in 50 leagues and have 70 firsts, even a player you’d typically target “1X” exposure to, you’re probably targeting at “1.4X".

Last year, I ensured that the total exposure of each round was calculated such that in each ADP tier, total target exposure = total exposure at a 1:1 picks ratio. This year, I decided to change that, mostly because of three spots in which I have a marked departure from the market at the top of the draft. That’s Malik Nabers, who for me is a tier ahead of the QBs and is being drafted behind Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye - my QB2 - who is currently at the 1.06 in ADP and often falls to QB4, and Brock Bowers - who I have at 1.06 - and is being drafted at 1.08, but may fall even later.

Because of that, I want to be trading down into position to take these three players - each of whom I consider to be blue chip prospects I have a high degree of conviction in - who are being unreasonably de-valued for landing spot concerns. However, I also want to be trading into the draft using other veteran pieces to draft these players when they’re available at their ADP, or up into the top 8 to get them.

For that reason, my combined 2.7X stance on Nabers, Maye and Bowers comes at the expense of other rookies in their tier (Daniels, Odunze, McCarthy), the next tier of rookies, and to some extent, the entire veteran landscape.

Right below this introduction (and the pay wall) are my first run of post-draft rankings, and target exposures. I will do an update to these next week, after getting some rookie drafts under my belt and gaining a better feel for the market than 24 hours worthy of rookie ADP without context can provide.

Over the rest of the article, I will essentially map out why I have set these target exposures and how I plan to achieve them. The goal of this column is to go beyond the rankings, and to provide context on how to manage your way through a rookie draft or a portfolio of drafts to not just take the players you want, but try to get them at the best prices, and in the right proportions.

Last note: this piece will be far more strategy than player evaluation. For deeper dives into the player evaluation aspect check out these columns already on the site.

Or - for my thoughts on each player’s landing spot on Night 1 and 2 of the NFL Draft, check out these:

With that all out of the way, let’s Dive in!