All 192 picks. Twelve teams. Twelve grades. No mercy, no hard feelings.
Every grade below was worked out from the actual draft board, all 192 picks of it, pulled straight from Sleeper. Two of this league's settings decide more than anything else, and both are unusual enough to put on the table first, before you read your grade and start typing.
Ordered by grade, which means the top of this list is going to be unbearable about it and the bottom of this list already knows what it did.
This is the best roster in the draft and it is not especially close. Jaxon Smith-Njigba at 1.09, Ashton Jeanty at 2.16, Nico Collins at 3.33, Brock Bowers at 4.40. Four rounds, four players with top-five upside at their positions. One kicker, one defense, two quarterbacks, not a single wasted pick anywhere on the board, and Travis Kelce sitting on the bench at 14.160 as a free lottery ticket.
The comedy arrives at 10.112, where Heath drafted Patrick Mahomes to be the backup for Jared Goff. Patrick Mahomes. In the tenth round. Thirty-one picks after he took Goff. He now owns the greatest bench quarterback this league will ever see, and the only path to getting him into the starting lineup runs directly through his own starter getting hurt. Heath is going to spend the entire season quietly negotiating with himself about this. There is nothing here to fix, which is genuinely the most irritating part.
Jonathan Taylor at 1.10 and Saquon Barkley at 2.15, back to back at the turn. In a league where a catch scores nothing and a hundred rushing yards pays a five point bonus, those are arguably the two cleanest scoring fits on the entire board, taken consecutively, by the same person. Then Malik Nabers, Tee Higgins, Justin Herbert and Davante Adams. Six rounds without one wasted pick: one kicker, one defense, five backs, five receivers, two tight ends.
The only blemish on the whole thing is Cameron Dicker at 8.87, a kicker taken several rounds before anybody else in the room was thinking about kickers. She grades out as a co-number-one in this review, and she opens the season against the commissioner, which is either the funniest scheduling outcome available or evidence that Sleeper has a sense of humor. Week 1: Cheez Whiz versus Fightin' Amish. Bring a chair.
Nobody wants to hear this, so let us get it over with quickly: Vivian built one of the two cleanest rosters in this draft. Two quarterbacks, five running backs, five receivers, two tight ends, one kicker, one defense. Sixteen picks, sixteen players she could plausibly need, zero spots thrown away. Jahmyr Gibbs at 1.03. A.J. Brown at 2.22. Jalen Hurts at 5.51, in a format that pays six a throw and lets Hurts add rushing scores on top of it. That is a professional draft, executed by somebody who looked at the settings first.
The one thing standing between her and a straight A is pick 75, Kyle Pitts, which is the fantasy football equivalent of texting an ex. Every single season somebody is completely certain that this is the year. It is the seventh round, so the damage is survivable and the rest of the roster carries it easily. Everything else here is excellent and I am as annoyed about that as the rest of you.
Before the draft, Brian was the one who asked whether the seven bench spots were position-locked. The answer went up on this website. He then went out and built the most sensible bench in the league, which means the man asked a smart question and then actually did the homework, behavior widely considered unsporting at a family fantasy draft.
Puka Nacua, Kenneth Walker, Drake London, Breece Hall, DeVonta Smith. Five rounds, five starters, zero reaches. One kicker, taken in the fourteenth round. One defense. Six running backs. There are no holes in this roster and, far more damning, there are no jokes in it either, which is its own kind of failure at a Chuckwagon Gang event. The only real quibble is waiting until 6.66 for Trevor Lawrence in a format where throwing a touchdown pays six. Sam is the listed co-manager. Sam should be asking for considerably more credit than he is currently receiving.
Ja'Marr Chase at 1.08 is the best value in the first round. Four managers passed on him. One of them was the commissioner, who took Chase's quarterback instead.
George then drafted seven wide receivers and zero tight ends, which reads like the same mistake somebody further down this page made, right up until you do the arithmetic. George has seven receivers to fill three receiver-or-tight-end slots plus a flex. The other guy has five and no tight end at all. One of these is a plan and the other is an oversight wearing a plan's jacket. George also took his kicker in the thirteenth round and his defense with the eighth-to-last pick of the entire draft, finishing with exactly one of each and not one unusable player on his roster. Jayden Daniels at 7.80 in this scoring format is the pick people point at in December.
Josh Allen at 1.01 in a league that pays six points a passing touchdown is correct, defensible, and the most boring right answer available. Then Justin Jefferson fell all the way to 2.24 and landed in his lap, which is less a decision than a gift somebody left on a porch. Two picks, two of the best players alive. Through two rounds this is an A-plus roster and Mason is insufferable about it.
Then round eight arrives and he takes a kicker. Round ten, a second quarterback. Round fifteen, a second kicker. And with pick 192, the final selection of the entire draft, a third quarterback, joining Josh Allen and C.J. Stroud on a team that starts exactly one. Mason finished with three quarterbacks, two kickers, three tight ends and three running backs, which is the fewest backs of anybody in the league. He has more quarterbacks than running backs. The team is named after a professional golfer, which may in fact explain the entire roster.
Asher named his team "I love Jeremiah Smith" and then did not draft Jeremiah Smith. Sixteen rounds. One hundred and ninety-two players came off the board. The one name on the front of the jersey did not make the roster. This is the most committed act of unrequited love in league history and we are only one season in.
The team underneath the heartbreak is good. Bijan Robinson at 1.05 and Amon-Ra St. Brown at 2.20 is a serious opening, followed by one kicker, one defense, no wasted picks and six receivers deep. After the top two, though, that receiver room is the most speculative in the draft: a stack of young guys who are either about to be famous or about to be on a practice squad, with very little in between. High ceiling, low floor, and a team name that will age either beautifully or horribly with no middle option available to it.
Christian McCaffrey at 1.12 and Derrick Henry at 2.13: a backfield with more Pro Bowls than anybody else in this league and more birthdays than anybody else in this league. When it works, it is the best pair here. Jim also took his defense at 156 and his kicker at 180, which makes him comfortably the most disciplined finisher in the room. Fifteen of his sixteen picks are players who can actually appear in a starting lineup, which is a better ratio than most of the people above him managed.
Which brings us to the one that is missing. Jim drafted exactly one quarterback, in a league that awards six points per passing touchdown, and that quarterback is Matthew Stafford. No backup. Every other manager in this league carries at least two. If Stafford tweaks something in a Wednesday walkthrough, Jim either starts nobody at quarterback or bids his FAAB budget against eleven people who all know exactly why he is bidding. He looked at seven unrestricted bench spots and decided the risk was imaginary. The handle is ScottishCurse. He knows. He did it anyway.
James Cook, Drake Maye, Josh Jacobs, Travis Etienne, Garrett Wilson, Terry McLaurin. Six rounds, six legitimate starters, no complaints available. Genuinely one of the better front halves of this entire draft, and for a while it looked like it was going to finish near the top of this page.
Then Colton drafted four tight ends. Oronde Gadsden, Hunter Henry, Kenyon Sadiq and Eli Stowers. Four of them. There is no Sunday on the calendar where all four are in the lineup at once, and he also has four receivers competing for those same slots. He took a kicker at pick 91 in the eighth round, then a second kicker in the fifteenth, presumably in case the first one is taken hostage. Final count: three running backs, four tight ends. That is the precise inverse of a functioning fantasy roster, and past a certain point I have to assume it is a bit.
Best team name in the league, not close, no further discussion required. Lamar Jackson at 1.02 is exactly right for this format and there is nothing to say about it except well done.
And then at pick 26, in the third round, Ryan drafted a backup quarterback. Not the twelfth round. The third. Caleb Williams went straight to the bench behind Lamar Jackson, where he will sit all season in a league with one quarterback slot. Josh Jacobs came off the board four picks later. Javonte Williams, George Pickens and Jeremiyah Love all went within the next four after that. Ryan then took a third quarterback in the twelfth round and a second kicker at pick 191, meaning five of his sixteen selections were spent on players who physically cannot enter his lineup. The redemption, and it is a real one: George Kittle at 13.146 is grand larceny and the best late pick anybody made all night. Ryan owns exactly one tight end and it is George Kittle. That takes nerve, and it very nearly covers for the rest.
The commissioner. The man who wrote the rules, built a Playbook explaining the rules, and published the website hosting the rules. Let us review his application of them.
Pick 1.04 went to Joe Burrow, the third quarterback off the board. Still on the board at that exact moment: Bijan Robinson, James Cook, Puka Nacua, and Ja'Marr Chase, who went four picks later. Fine. Six-point passing touchdowns. It is a real argument and he is entitled to make it. What follows is harder to defend. Shawn drafted zero tight ends. None, in sixteen rounds, in a league with three receiver-or-tight-end slots. He then drafted two kickers and two defenses, which is four roster spots handed to positions where he starts exactly one of each. His last four picks of the night were a receiver, a running back, a second defense, and a second kicker.
This is the man who wrote the note on this very website explaining that the bench carries no position requirements, any seven players you like. He appears to have read that as a dare. Credit where it is genuinely due: DK Metcalf at 6.69 is a sharp fit for a format with no points for catches and a bonus for hundred-yard games. One good sentence. He should enjoy it.
CeeDee Lamb at 1.11. De'Von Achane at 2.14. Trey McBride at 3.35. Three rounds, three excellent picks, and a team that looked like it was about to run away with this entire thing.
Then, with pick 38, in the fourth round, Brook Lockard drafted a kicker.
The next five players selected were Tee Higgins, Brock Bowers, Luther Burden, Breece Hall and Travis Etienne. Brandon Aubrey was the 38th player taken in this draft. The sixteenth and final kicker taken in this draft went at pick 191, one hundred and fifty-three selections later. And it does not stop there. Brook finished with four tight ends and only three receivers, so his receiver-or-tight-end slots will be filled by tight ends out of pure necessity rather than choice. And in a league paying six points a passing touchdown, his two quarterbacks are Jaxson Dart and Malik Willis. There is a live scenario where Brandon Aubrey leads this team in scoring, and honestly, that is the ending this draft deserves.