Should you draft your favorite KC Chiefs in fantasy football?

Patrick Mahomes Not A First Round Fantasy Pick?

If the NFL was actually redrafting all the teams in a fantasy football type draft, Patrick Mahomes would be an absolute lock to be the first overall pick. However, fantasy football isn’t real football. In most leagues there are ten or twelve teams and they start just one quarterback, but at least two running backs and two receivers and possibly more depending on how they use their flex spots. That means that even in a twelve team league if you are the last team to draft a quarterback you might still get someone like Ryan Tannehill or Matthew Stafford. However, if you wait equally long to draft your last starting running back you may get someone like David Johnson or Kenyan Drake (both of whom’s average draft position are within two picks of Matt Stafford right now).

The point here is that the drop off in production from Patrick Mahomes to Matthew Stafford (who is now in Sean McVay’s high powered offense) is going to be significantly less than the drop off in production from Christian McCaffrey to Kenyan Drake, who isn’t even projected to be his team’s starting running back. That is why it is generally not smart to be the guy that jumps on Mahomes in the first round, regardless of how awesome he is in real life.

I will point out that if your league starts two quarterbacks or has what is called a “Super Flex” position where you can put a second quarterback into your starting lineup if you choose, that changes things significantly. In that situation quarterbacks become significantly more valuable and feel free to pull the trigger on Patrick Mahomes as early as the first overall pick. That’s because the number of starting quarterbacks just doubled and that is going to increase the demand and make the drop off from the best starting quarterback in your league to the worst twice as severe as when each team only starts one quarterback.

Another thing to watch with your league is the scoring system for quarterbacks. Most leagues use a 1 point per 25 yards passing and 4 points per passing touchdown system, but if your league is using 1 point per 20 yards passing and 6 points per passing touchdown then that could make Mahomes more valuable. The reason for that is running quarterbacks can give Mahomes a run for his money in standard scoring leagues because the scoring system allows for their running stats to close the gap between them and Mahomes’ passing numbers. A 5000 yard passing and 40 passing touchdown season would be worth 360 points in a standard scoring league, but in a league where it is 1 point per 20 yards passing and 6 points per passing touchdown that same season would be worth 490 points. So in those leagues Mahomes would become way more valuable than guys like Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray who keep pace in traditional leagues because of their rushing stats.

That having been said, even in those leagues you may not want to target Mahomes in the first round because you are still only starting 10/12 quarterbacks (depending on the league) and they are all going to have their passing stats boosted. So it doesn’t drastically change the depth of options available when compared to other positions.

So how early can you take Patrick Mahomes if you are in a standard league and don’t want to put yourself at a disadvantage? Some experts would tell you not to draft him at all, but the earliest I would personally consider it is at the end of the second round if you landed one of the top running backs to start the draft and there are still good wide receiver options available to target at the start of the third round. For example, if I started the draft with Christian McCaffrey or Dalvin Cook and then could get Patrick Mahomes and a receiver like Justin Jefferson or Michael Thomas at the start of round three, that would be a great core to build around.

The problem is that if you are playing in a league with a bunch of friends that are also Chiefs fans, Patrick Mahomes isn’t making it to the end of the second round. So I’ll be going into my fantasy drafts this year just assuming that I won’t land Mahomes and will have to settle for just cheering for him with the Chiefs. Then again, if you’re playing in a hyper competitive league where everyone wants to wait on quarterback to load up at other positions, there does come a point where he may be too tempting to pass up.

Next up, let’s look at Tyreek Hill.