After writing about Ashton Jeanty’s upside and having that kicking around in my head, there’s another player I keep coming back to. There’s a particular draft decision I made last year that keeps rearing its ugly head. It pertains to Jeanty’s teammate Brock Bowers, and it’s an extension of what I wrote about with regards to not playing scared.
In my longest-running league, a 16-team behemoth that has been going for over 20 years, I hit an early pivot point in the draft. It was round five or six, still early but with enough picks made to have a decent idea of what the team looked like. I like swinging for elite tight ends and I got carried away and took false prophet Dalton Kincaid early, figuring I had locked in Josh Allen’s top weapon. Whoops.
I get to a point where the prospect of adding Bowers is too good to pass up. But do I really need a second tight end this early? Especially when both are pretty big swings and the opportunity cost of passing on receivers and running backs is high. Bowers was a tantalizing prospect, the next Travis Kelce or Rob Gronkowski who will dominate the position for the next half-decade. The moment for the pick came and I balked, instead going with a boring pick that I thought would give me reliable production out of the RB2 spot.
Sometimes boring picks are also the smart picks. So, I took my medicine and drafted Najee Harris.
Most of the time, however, boring picks are just boring picks.
I spent most of the season watching Harris struggle to hit double-digit points each week while Bowers quickly ascended the tight end hierarchy. It’s common to see people talk about the opportunity cost of draft picks, specifically early quarterback and tight end picks. What I haven’t seen mentioned as often is the opportunity cost of taking players who barely deliver replacement value to your lineups and the subsequent moves you feel forced to make.
In this league I’m referring to, my team was strong everywhere except, and you know where this is going, at tight end. Kincaid belly flopped and my alternatives were waiver wire Hail Marys. Anyone that I could talk myself into scoring a touchdown that week was in play. Harris was relegated to bye-week fill-in status by mid-season as Bucky Irving emerged, so my boring medicinal pick was tucked away on the bench most weeks.
Meanwhile, I had to strike a trade deadline at the local pitch-and-putt course to shore up my team’s glaring weakness. I was fortunate to have enough depth to trade for George Kittle. But the cost was heavy. I gave up the next two years of Brian Thomas Jr. in exchange for a likely Kittle rental.
It paid off and I won the league. I know what you’re thinking. No, despite BTJ killing it in the fantasy playoffs I would’ve lost the title game if I had kept BTJ and had to roll with Kincaid’s 2-24 stat line in the fantasy championship week.
Everyone’s fantasy football CVs are littered with near misses and if I had done X instead of Y, I would’ve won, etc. The takeaway for me is a lesson that I’m constantly relearning: The hits on your roster are more important than the misses.
Most teams in your leagues will have multiple Harris-grade picks on their rosters, the players that inspire no fear when you see them in your opponent’s lineup. That’s what I failed to see in the Harris/Bowers crossroads. That won’t be the last time I find myself in that situation and, unfortunately, it won’t be the last time I make the wrong choice. The lesson, as always, is that fantasy is supposed to be fun and it’s way more fun to swing for the fences as opposed to bunting just to get on base.
