Fantasy Football Mock Draft: 10-Team Half-PPR

Members of the Yahoo Sports team recently conducted a 10-team, half-point-per-reception fantasy football mock draft. Scroll to the right of the graphic above to see the complete results of the draft. Team-by-team results are at the bottom of the article.

The first and most important thing you need to realize about a 10-team fantasy football draft is that you can get away with pretty much any strategy. Everything is on the table; nothing will backfire.

First-round tight end? Go for it. There’s no penalty.

Second-round quarterback? It’s frowned upon in certain circles, but the opportunity cost isn’t all that great.

ZeroRB? You are gonna absolutely love the backs available in the double-digit rounds.

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As a general rule, every manager in a 10-team league will be happy with their roster at the end of the draft. It’s an extremely forgiving league size — particularly if you’re playing in a Yahoo default format with only one starting QB and a single flex spot. It’s such a painless draft experience.

Earlier this week — hours before news broke that Saquon Barkley and Josh Jacobs hadn’t reached long-term deals with their teams — the Yahoo Fantasy extended family assembled for a 10-team mock draft using our default public half-PPR settings.

We encourage you to use our results as a rough guide in your own upcoming drafts.

Also, feel free to pick a favorite squad if that’s your thing, but just please know that I am personally undefeated in mocks dating back to the late-90s. I simply do not lose mocks, ever. I am basically the Edwin Moses of mock drafting.

If you want a few big-picture takeaways from this mid-July exercise, here are three things that leap off the screen (the first of which is something we’ve previously addressed) …

You can find great QB options deep in the draft

It’s not as if any of the three managers who selected quarterbacks in the third round — or the other three managers who took ’em in the fourth — were left feeling as if their rosters suffered as a consequence. Again, this is definitely a no-regrets format.

But you know who else isn’t sweating their QB choice? Scott Pianowski, the mock drafter who waited the longest at the position. He took Aaron Rodgers in Round 11, then Deshaun Watson a round later. Rodgers, of course, is only a year removed from winning an MVP. When we last saw Watson complete a full season, all he did was lead the NFL in passing yards and Y/A, finishing as a top-five fantasy quarterback.

You’ll also note that last season’s overall QB5, Geno Smith, was taken in Round 14 in our mock. America’s sleeper, Anthony Richardsonwaited until Round 12. Kirk Cousins and Jared Goff went undrafted coming off 4,400-yard, 29-TD seasons. Simply put, quarterback is a wildly deep position for fantasy purposes. It’s reasonable to draft it early — in this era, the best fantasy QBs have league-winning upside — but you can still wait a long time to address this spot and be satisfied with the result.

Rookie skepticism is your friend

Bijan Robinson in the second round was a heist. Jahmyr Gibbs in the fifth was pure thievery as well. These days, when NFL teams use premium draft picks on running backsthose guys are fed relentlessly.

The rookie receivers didn’t go off the board until the ninth and 10th rounds, despite the fact that first-year wideouts consistently finish inside the position’s top-25. As soon as Richardson is at the controls for Indianapolis, he’s going to be a fantasy force. I might very well be on an island with a rookie tight end Sam LaPorta, but he’s a serious talent with a day-one role in an ascending offense. (Were you aware that Detroit tight ends combined for a dozen TD receptions last season? Well, now you know.)

If this mock accurately represents the fantasy community’s mistrust of the 2023 rookie class, these players are collectively going to be among the best values ​​in our game.

It gets late early at wide receiver

A funny thing happens at receiver in fantasy drafts. One minute, we’re taking guys like Chris Godwin, Tyler Lockett and Mike Williams, and everyone is feeling great about their options. But within a round or two, suddenly the names scrolling by in draft chat are kinda terrifying: Rashod Bateman, Kadarius Toney, Treylon Burkset al.

It almost feels as if someone hacked the game and removed a wide receiver tier. This isn’t such a big deal if your league settings only require two starting WRs and one flex. But in a deeper format — let’s say, three starting receivers and 2-3 flexes — it’s important to recognize the limits of the player pool. It’s easy to talk yourself into someone like Bateman or Toney when they’re simply a bench flier, but it’s quite another matter to draft your way into a predicament in which you need those guys to produce.

Here are the team-by-team results of the mock draft in order of selection.

Collin Brennan, Yahoo Fantasy podcast producer

Trevor Lewis, Yahoo Fantasy social editor

Jason Klabacha, head of content for Yahoo Fantasy

Dan Harris, head of video for Yahoo Fantasy

Matt Harmon, Yahoo Fantasy analyst

Dan Titus, Yahoo Fantasy analyst

Dalton Del Don, Yahoo Fantasy analyst

Andy Behrens, Yahoo Fantasy analyst

Kathryn Buckles, director of social media at Yahoo Sports

Scott Pianowski, Yahoo Fantasy Analyst