JSFL Today, however, says bullshit to that notion and its correspondents favor the Tirades and defending champion Invaiders. I wonder why?
DEL MAR (AP) -- With all but one (covid-recovering) owner in attendance, the JSFL celebrated the start of its 37th season with its annual Draft Day celebration at the fabulous Del Mar home of Commissioner Jeff Lambert.
Lambert, whose Packers are the winningest team in JSFL history, missed the playoffs last season but took advantage of a third-pick draft position to come out of his draft with the top-ranked team, according to web site host ESPN. The JSFL Today staff has other opinions on this subject, which will be discussed later.
The Packers management team decided to forgo pre-draft trade offers for Najee Harris (from Blayze Hanson's Saddles), Cooper Fucking Kupp and Austin Eckeler (from Vern Ahrendes' Invaiders) and instead protected versatile WR Deebo Samuel (who was ranked as the 11th player overall). He then took the second ranked WR, Ja'Marr Chase, with his first-round pick and so doing became the first team in JSFL history to start the draft with Vern Ahrendes is handed the Steve Brown
two WRs on its roster. Lambert's brother Memorial Trophy by Commissioner Jeff
John followed suit with the fourth pick and Lambert as Bob Garcia and Chuck Nelson
became the second team to do so when discuss draft strategy in the background.
the Rangers, who protected WR Justin
Jefferson, selected WR Davante Adams. While that strategy started out great for Jeff (he went on to post the top-ranked draft, albeit according to ESPN), it did not work out for John, who ended up ranked 10th.
Jeff followed up the Chase selection with RB James Conner, QB Josh Allen, RB JK Dobbins and TE Dalton Schultz. He grabbed RB Josh Jacobs and WR Marquise Brown before selecting the New Orleans defense and Cincy kicker Evan McPherson to solidify his starting lineup before moving on to his backups, which include WR Allen Lazard and RB Dameon Pierce.
Chuck Nelson's Gerbils, who finished last in 2021 and therefore earned the first pick, protected oft-injured RB Christian McCaffrey for the second-consecutive season (next year will be the first year of free agency... more about that later) saying "what are the odds he'll get hurt again?" Hmmm. Pretty good? Nelson took the aforementioned RB Ekeler with the first pick after the defending champion Invaiders were unable to move him (or Kupp) prior to the draft. The Gerbils, according to ESPN, did not take advantage of their draft position and had the second-worst draft, just ahead of the Rangers.
Bob Garcia's Band Aids, who were the only team to throw in the white towel on Draft Day and trade for a keeper, sent the Tirades 8th-round pick (acquired for James Conner last season) to the Saddles for the aforementioned Harris. He then shocked the patio by being the first team in recent memory to draft a TE (Mark Andrews) in the first round. The Band Aids finished as the sixth-ranked team despite having three consecutive picks in the 7th thanks to his fire sale in 2021. With those picks he took RBs Rashod Bateman and Clyde-Edwards Helaire and the Buffalo defense -- solid, right? Wow, the rest of his draft must have sucked... but blame ESPN, Bob, not JSFL Today.
Not to be outdone, the defending champ Invaiders also took a TE in the first round (Travis Kelce), which is also the first time that has ever happened. It was also the first time in nearly four decades Vern has drafted last, and he did not seem to let that bother him at all. The Invaiders protected Kupp (who was apparently blissfully unaware he had been dangled as trade bait) and after grabbing Kelce, followed up with RB Cam Akers, WR DJ Moore and RB David Montgomery before grabbing his back-to-back MVP quarterback Aaron Rogers and Broncos WR Jerry Jeudy, who will have a "real" QB for the first time since his days in Alabama. When all was said and done, the Invaiders finished with the second-best (remember, though, this is ESPN's ranking) draft of the day behind the Pack.
Matt Huey, who was still in recovery after contracting Covid-19 and was unable to attend in person, was able to participate remotely thanks to modern technology (don't ask John how this works) and drafted his Pillow Biters team through FaceTime sessions with progressively less and less-sober Matt Pringle, who was also drafting his Spread Beaters team. The Pillow Biters made the only other pre-draft deal getting RB Nick Chubb and a 4th-rounder from Pringle (do I note a trend here? Like the convenient Bob-and-Blayze trades?) for Derrick Henry. Huey then grabbed former Invaiders stalwart RB Alvin Kamara in the first, then WRs CeeDee Lamb and Michael Pittman Jr. After selecting TE Darren Waller in the 4th, his extra pick was QB Kyler Murray, but even that was apparently not enough for ESPN's analysis: his Pillow Biters had the 7th-best draft.
With Henry as his keeper, Pringle earned -- for a few days anyway -- the third-best draft ranking before ESPN's supercomputers were rebooted and realized the Tirades were really worthy of the third-best draft ranking and the Beaters were 4th. Like the Pillows, Pringle went RB-WR-WR in the first three rounds: D'Andre Swift, AJ Brown and Allen Robinson. He followed that with QB Jalen Hurts, WR Chris Godwin and RB Rhamondre Stevenson. At least three of those picks drew groans from the defending champion, who drafted next. God help us if no one before the 10th pick grabs one of the guys Vern wants.
The Tirades came out of the draft (well, the Tuesday after the draft anyway) mostly happy with the way things went. They have a third-ranked effort, according to ESPN, and it did not even take medication for Ron to realize that he should protect RB Dalvin Cook and then re-draft QB Patrick Mahomes (who was still available in the 4th, thanks guys). He selected WR Stefon Diggs in the first, RB Javonte Williams next and then WR Kyle Pitts before grabbing Mahomes. Next came WR Diontae Johnson, RB Miles Sanders and WR Michael Thomas. Not everything went the way the Tirades had hoped: three times Vern snagged guys (Jeudy, Brandon Aiyuk and Trey Lance) at the end of rounds when the Tirades should have pulled the trigger earlier, and Chuck grabbed Ju-Ju Schuster in the 9th when he was also in the Tirades sights.
Chris Zimnoch's Recliners drafted fifth and therefore should not be one bit surprised they had ESPN's fifth-ranked draft effort. He protected RB Joe Mixon and went the traditional route with his early picks: RB-WR-WR-TE by drafting Saquon Barkley, Tyreek Hill, Tee Higgins and George Kittle. He's got Lamar Jackson at QB with Tom Brady as a backup.
Blayze may have the most-dissed team after the draft. ESPN has the Saddles ranked 8th (coincidentally, Blayze drafted 8th) despite his starting RB tandem of Jonathan Taylor (keeper) and Aaron Jones (first-round pick). He will have Mike Evans, Brandin Cooks and DK Metcalf to play WR and has Kenneth Walker and Damien Harris as backup RBs. Justin Herbert and backup Tua Tagovailoa will be the QBs.
So back to Free Agency, which was voted in as a new rule before last season. You can only protect the same player two years in a row. Two teams are affected this year: The Gerbils with Christian McCaffrey and the Tirades with Dalvin Cook. If those players are not moved by the trade deadline (midnight PST on Friday, Dec. 2), they cannot be protected by those teams again in 2023. We incorrectly reported that Blayze was facing free agency with Jonathan Taylor, but he was apparently not protected in 2021, Nick Chubb was, and then Chubb traded to the Beaters for their first-round pick (Taylor). JSFL Today regrets the error, and the Tirades regret allowing Taylor back in the draft by not protecting him in 2021.
A new rule was voted in for the 2023: We'll add one roster spot (a WR, RB or TE) and add one Flex starter (which can a RB-WR-TE) to our traditional lineup of QB-RB-RB-WR-WR-TE-K-DEF.
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