A Football Life, Balt/Atl Engineers Evaluation

Evan Ash, No. 10 pick overall

Biggest Catches

Pierre Thomas, RB, NO (+26)

Darren McFadden, RB, OAK (+24)

Mike Evans, WR, TB (+18)

Biggest Reaches

Kansas City Chiefs, DEF (-71)

Joe Flacco, QB, BAL (-67)

Benny Cunningham, RB, STL (-28)

Projected Starting Lineup

QB Tom Brady, NE (No. 12 QB)

RB LeSean McCoy, PHI (No. 2 RB)

WR1 Jordy Nelson, GB (No. 9 WR)

WR2 Marques Colston, NO (No. 33 WR)

TE Julius Thomas, DEN (No. 2 TE)

FLEX Rob Gronkowski, TE, NE (No. 27 FLEX)

DEF Kansas City Chiefs (No. 9 DEF)

K Dan Bailey, DAL (No. 7 K)

Remember, it’s all about drafting the best value for your draft pick. This starting lineup is pretty solid at first glance, but Evan missed out on a lot of value. Only one of his starters is on the biggest reaches list, but there were two honorable mentions that are on his starting lineup. Tom Brady was a -25 overall reach (-5 positional) and Marques Colston was a -20 overall reach (-5 positional). That means that both of them were taken roughly two rounds early and with at least five better options available at their position at the time Evan drafted them.

The Kansas City Chiefs went with four better defenses available, including the Bengals and Rams. Joe Flacco was a self-admitted homer pick, which I can respect. But Evan could have easily landed him in the 15th round, maybe even the 16th, instead of the 11th where he took Flacco.

Benny Cunningham is a classic boom or bust pick. In my opinion, if anybody is going to take carries away from Zac Stacy it’ll be Tre Mason. But Benny could progress rapidly and prove to be valuable later in the season. This would’ve been a better mid-season waiver wire pickup, but if he really explodes in the middle of the season, Evan will be glad he didn’t take the chance of someone else grabbing him off waivers first.

And hey, didn’t I say that anybody can be high value depending on where they are drafted? Darren McFadden of all people was one of Evan’s best value picks because he snagged him in the 12th round. Pierre Thomas is a legitimate candidate to start at Flex during Gronk’s and Thomas’s bye weeks and he was an 8th round pick.

The Balt/Atl Engineers’ value-based draft grade is -89 for the starters and -43 for the bench. The overall team value is a -132.

This ranks Evan’s starting unit 7th in the AFL. His overall team value puts him at 10th.

Last year, Evan made some great early round picks but didn’t do well drafting depth. Those first five picks carried him to a great regular season record and a division title. He lost in the higher-scoring semifinal matchup. This year’s draft didn’t bring the same level of success in the early rounds, but some decent depth could help keep Evan in the running for a repeat as division champ.

Bonus

In order to include something without my biased rankings at its core, I’ve included the average bottom line of the evaluations by the four official evaluators at FootballGuys.com.

• With great in-season management, we think you have about a 70 percent chance of making the playoffs.
• With good in-season management, we think you have about a 54 percent chance of making the playoffs.
• With average in-season management, we think you have about a 36 percent chance of making the playoffs.

You can read the entire evaluation of this team at FootballGuys.com.