The hypothetical, MFFL “start-up” mock draft

What would it look like if the MFFL terminated the contracts of every player in the league and held a “start-up” draft to fill all 20-man Active Rosters?

What would the rosters look like? Would there be a restoration of competitive balance? How would owners rank and draft the players? How would they walk the fine line between selecting win-now players and potential future stars?

Six owners recently held a mock draft to simulate such a hypothetical scenario. The rules were very simple: everything about the league is the same as it is now. Same scoring rules, same roster and lineup rules, same rules for signing players to 1-to-3 year contracts. The only thing different is that the rosters were wiped clean and the league used a draft instead of an auction to fill them back up again. And the salaries, presumably, would be determined by draft slot for salary cap purposes.

Each owner was responsible for selecting two teams: his own, and one other team in the league. And each owner took a post-draft survey to explain how he felt things went.

You can view the results of the draft here

Below is a brief recap, for each team, from the owner who selected it. You can read the more in-depth survey here.

Pick 1: Egypt Pharaohs — Daniel

“My strategy was based on my opinion of the best player available. I made this determination based on a combination of the player’s talent level, my team’s positional needs, the player’s age, and of course a tinge of personal bias. I think overall it went well. It feels like a decently balanced overall team with healthy depth at WR and RB. The biggest area of concern is TE. There’s only a handful of good TEs in fantasy, and we ended up with Mike Gesicki as our starter. Gesicki has shown flashes of success and is probably just on the outside of the “good TE” label. We were able to back him up with sophomore Adam Trautman, who is more of a dart throw, but with the departure of Jared Cook and a new QB at the helm, he has the potential to break out this season which could spell good things for the future. Other than TE, QB could be a little bit of concern as well. Aaron Rodgers is a stud as the starter, but even though I’m confident he plays for the Packers this season, there is still a small percentage chance he is on a different team or not playing at all. Which would place Derek Carr as the starter and only Taysom Hill to back him up. Hill was picked on the off chance he gets the starting job he could have a lot of upside, but if that weren’t to happen and Rodgers didn’t play, Egypt’s QBs would be in trouble.”

Pick 2: San Juan Scorpions — Lou

“After receiving position 2 in the draft, my strategy was to obtain elite running backs and hope to get numerous WR2s. I believe I was successful.”

Pick 3: Turkey Jerky — Gregg

“3 was a good spot to pick from. Drafted a quality RB early, then the turnaround from rounds 2-3 was still plentiful.”

Pick 4: Ecuador Ewoks — Ryan

“My strategy was to select the best available talent in any given round and see how the draft board fell as we went along to see what needs I wanted to fill. I was surprised at how many teams were shying away from veteran talent in the name of unproven younger players. In a traditional dynasty league, this might be a good strategy. But in this MFFL replication, the window I’m looking for is guys who will be good for the next 1-3 years. I think I found enough guys to fill those roles.”

Pick 5: Christmas Island Crabs — Shane

“I try to not be bogged down by any one strategy and instead let the draft come to me. I do tend to want to grab young workhorse running backs early, and after that, I just want to fill out my team. I also knew I was willing to wait a little bit for a stud tight end and quarterback, but I didn’t want to miss grabbing good players at those two positions. Especially tight end, I did not want to be stuck with a really risky tight end as my tight end 1.”

Pick 6: Nagasaki Kamikazes — TW

“My strategy was to go ‘Zero-RB’ approach. With the lineup requirements and scoring system, I’d look to stack at WR and find a couple of RBs that could have potential to be at least an RB2. It turned out pretty well as I grabbed 6 WRs who can put up WR1 numbers any week. My miss was guessing I could get a top-4 TE in round 3. I should have started the TE run and let a top WR fall back at round 3 when a few others chased to grab a TE. Overall, I feel my team looks competitive on paper. That, of course, is the Nagasaki story, lol, and we’ll have to see how it plays out as usual.”

Pick 7: Bangkok Blitz — Daniel

“I used the exact same strategy as I did with drafting Egypt’s team: my opinion of the best player available. I think overall it went very well. This feels like even more of a balanced overall team with healthy depth at WR and RB and not as big of concerns as the other team I drafted.”

Pick 8: Wake Island Wookiees — Lou

“After receiving position 8 in the draft, I knew I wouldn’t get any elite RBs, so I drafted a top-2 WR, a top-10 WR, #1 QB, and 2 top-10 TEs. I had to settle for three top-30 RBs. I think the lineup is strong, but I have too many rookies.”

Pick 9: Ukraine Grainers — Gregg

“Targeted younger players, but also wanted a mixture of good veterans, because we are working off a 3-year max contract.”

Pick 10: Switzerland Squirrels — Shane

“I am really flexible at Pick 10. I was hoping that a running back with workhorse potential would drop to me, but I was willing to take a stud WR in the first round. After that, I wanted to just take value and try to guess what the two teams between my picks would do every round.”

Pick 11: Russia Renegades — Ryan

“As always, I’m most concerned with finding value with each pick. I didn’t have a particular positional strategy, other than to take as many running backs and wide receivers as possible. Normally, I don’t take a quarterback before the mid-to-late rounds, but following the “value” strategy, I saw Dak Prescott available in Round 6 and I believe highly in him and his surrounding weapons. Overall, I was surprised by how many owners took players from their current MFFL teams. Apparently, many are pleased with what they have. I’m not overly thrilled with my team, but I like my depth plus the blend of youth and experience.”

Pick 12: Jamaica Jerks — TW

“My approach was to be able to adjust to runs and anticipate the changing flow. I wanted to jump on at players in pairs by trying to anticipate how many of each position would go in each round. I like drafting at either end of the board for this approach. I try to avoid runs and target combos of the same position unless a specific position is running low or it appears it will run before my next selection. So grabbing RB/RB, or WR/WR at the bookend was the approach unless I needed to secure an alternate position I felt wouldn’t have value 22 picks later.”

Read the full survey here.