2008 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Expert Edition

I had the second pick in Mock Draft Central's 5th 2008 Expert Fantasy Football Mock Draft.  It was a 4 pt per TD, 3 WR, no Flex set-up that was standard beyond those settings.  With the second pick, I took Adrian Peterson of Minnesota.

I debated Brian Westbrook of Philadelphia but decided against him mostly because the format was not PPR (points per reception).  However, I cannot deny the influence Ryan Howard had on my thinking.

When Howard was still blocked by Jim Thome going into the 2005 season, he was passed over by five other teams in my NL-Only baseball league's minor league draft despite hitting 46 HRs the previous year.  He was the best talent available, but over-thinking caused him to drop to 6th overall after such non-ROY, non-MVP winning players such as...well all of them.

I couldn't forget that when the choice was Adrian Peterson or another RB.  Go with the crazy skills.

Next, I waited for the draft to come back and intended to take RB Maurice Jones-Drew (or someone close to him) and a top flight WR.  And here is where everything went awry.

The other experts began taking WRs due to the 3 WR format.  Grab the 90+ reception guys because the NFL has changed!  I am still stunned.  Green Bay Packers' RB Ryan Grant was selected 22rd!  Right before him MJD went.  My choices were second tier WRs, second tier RBs or 1st tier QBs like Peyton Manning, Tony Romo and Drew Brees.

With the 23rd pick, I had to take Peyton Manning whose 30+ TDs would be the equivalent of 20+ rushing or receiving TDs.  With a point every 20 passing yards, I figured no other player available would score as much.  Coming back, I took Atlanta Falcons RB Michael Turner over WR Steve Smith because I knew RBs would be even slimmer than WRs when the draft came back to me.

Now I was stuck.  I had to grab WRs when the draft returned to me at #47 and #49 overall.  I knew the pickings for safe 1,000 yard/8 TD WRs would be thin, so I leapt to take TE Antonio Gates at #47 and followed him with New York Jets WR Jerricho Cotchery.  Can a team in a 3WR/no PPR format whose top WR is Jerricho Cotchery win?  I'm not so sure.

The rest of the draft was spent taking best-available WRs (Nate Burleson and Kevin Walter) along with handcuffs for my RBs (Chester Taylor and Jerrious Norwood) plus some high risk/high reward players (RB Chris Johnson of Tennessee, RB Kenny Watson of Cincinnati and WR DeSean jackson of Philadelphia.)  My Defense is the New York Giants and kicking will be Rob Bironas of Tennessee.

What do you think? To me, the draft pivoted on my decision with my 2nd and 3rd pick. Agree?