With stud running backs few and far between, a top pick gifts drafters a true star bell cow. Or Antonio Brown. He’s also ridiculously good.

While a top pick is far from an unfair advantage in snake drafts, anyone should relish the opportunity to start their squad with Todd Gurley or Le’Veon Bell. It won’t matter, of course, unless you also nail the ensuing rounds.

On Saturday, I conducted a mock draft using FantasyPros’s Draft Wizard to practice my early-pick strategy. I used half-PPR scoring and picked against the expert rankings and consensus ADP. The simulator happened to randomly spit out the first pick, so that’s where I decided to start. Picking at either turn is tricky, and the top choice isn’t a given. Here’s a round-by-round breakdown of the test run.

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1.1: Todd Gurley (RB – LAR)
I have no bone to pick with anyone who drafts Bell instead. I’m just more confident in Gurley playing 16 games and maintaining an elite red-zone presence, even if the 19 touchdowns are due for some regression. He was also money on a week-to-week basis, tallying more than 16 points (in half-PPR) in all but two contests. There’s no wrong answer between Gurley and Bell, but I slightly prefer the Rams superstar.

2.12: Stefon Diggs (WR – MIN)
This was a pure impulse pick. I was prepared to take Rob Gronkowski, whom I have ranked higher than Stefon Diggs. At the last moment, I switched to the Minnesota wideout. We saw his league-winning upside early in the season, when he scattered 391 yards and four touchdowns through four games. We also saw it later, when he found the end zone in the final three regular-season games before the Minneapolis Miracle. If he stays healthy, the 24-year-old should supplant Adam Thielen as Minnesota’s premier pass-catcher and maybe even vault into first-round consideration next summer.

3.1: Jerick McKinnon (RB – SF)
This is a risky pick in light of recent developments. Jerick McKinnon will miss the remainder of the preseason with a calf strain, meaning he’s not certain to suit up in Week 1. Some drafters were getting cold feet before the injury based on speculation of the new signing not serving a bell-cow row in San Francisco. I’m not too worried about the latter point, as I never expected him to handle 300 carries in the first place. Matt Breida will play a part, but it may simply be the Tevin Coleman role if McKinnon is healthy. Yet I’d have to give deeper thought to making this pick in a real league with actual stakes. Even without these red flags, I would have selected Gronkowski, Larry Fitzgerald, or Doug Baldwin in hindsight after seeing the running backs available at the Round 4/5 turn.

4.12: Lamar Miller (RB – HOU)
Miller is a boring pick I love making. Recovering from a torn Achilles, D’onta Foreman may not be ready for the start of the season. While he handled a larger role to conclude 2017, Alfred Blue is more of a safety valve than a long-term replacement to Miller, who showed up to camp leaner and faster. The steady top-20 RB has little competition and hopefully a full season to exploit seams opened by the threat of Deshaun Watson‘s legs.

5.1: Marvin Jones (WR – DET)
Eh, I don’t love this pick. I wish JuJu Smith-Schuster lasted one more turn. Demaryius Thomas or Golden Tate was my dream scenario. Had I taken a receiver over McKinnon, I would have taken Dion Lewis here. Instead, I felt some urgency to grab my second wideout, and I wasn’t crazy about the top available options (Alshon Jeffery, Chris Hogan, Corey Davis, Sammy Watkins) at this spot. I’m not eager to pay for Marvin Jones’s breakout year, especially since it came with just 61 catches. Kenny Golladay could trigger just enough touchdown and/or volume regression to make Jones more a boom-or-bust matchup option. He also averaged 18.0 YPC and generated Football Outsiders’ second-best DYAR behind Antonio Brown, so a doomsday decline is far from inevitable. I’ll need a high-volume WR3 at the next turn.

6.12: Emmanuel Sanders (WR – DEN)
Perfect. Limited to a dozen games, Emmanuel Sanders averaged 7.7 targets per contest. That put him on a 16-game pace for 122 targets, which actually would have represented his lowest output since 2013. He also snapped a three-year streak of 1,000-yard tallies while posting a career-worst 51.1 catch percentage. Exchanging the likes of Trevor Siemian and Paxton Lynch for Case Keenum-who posted the NFL’s second-highest completion percentage (67.6) behind Drew Brees-should make a major difference.Sanders is the perfect compiler to complement Jones.

7.1: Ronald Jones II (RB – TB)
I typically target Peyton Barber, Tampa Bay’s expected starting running back,  much later instead of chasing Ronald Jones II. Pick No. 73, however, is a fair price for the rookie, who averaged 6.1 yards per carry with 42 touchdowns in 40 games for USC. There are legitimate concerns about his pass-catching and ball-security skills, but he could make a demonstrative impact on the ground if given the opportunity. I would have considered grabbing a quarterback if Russell Wilson, Cam Newton, Brees, and Watson were not all taken in the sixth round.

8.12: Trey Burton (TE – CHI)
With popular breakout pick George Kittle suffering a shoulder injury, this especially seemed like my last opportunity to land a true starting tight end. (This surprisingly proved untrue.) Trey Burton, who scored three touchdowns in two games without Zach Ertz, has easy top-five TE upside filling the Travis Kelce role in Matt Nagy’s Bears offense. Expect plenty of targets from Burton, who has dazzled in the slot during preseason action. I couldn’t risk waiting another 22 picks for my must-have player, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s long gone by this time against human competition.

9.1: Nelson Agholor (WR – PHI)
Recovering from offseason rotator cuff surgery, Alshon Jeffery may not be ready for Week 1. While Nelson Agholor is dealing with a lower-body injury, he looks more likely to start the season. He keeps moving up my board, mostly because the fourth-year pro’s 65.3 catch rate blew Jeffery’s anemic 49.3 percentage out of the water. He averaged 51.0 receiving yards per game when Carson Wentz started and garnered one more red-zone look (18) than Jeffery and Zach Ertz each. This is a steal if Jeffery stays on the PUP list.

10.12: Matthew Stafford (QB – DET)
This is usually around the area where I’m eyeing Philip Rivers as a discounted starter. To my surprise, Matthew Stafford fell two rounds below his No. 96 consensus ADP. He has exceeded 4,250 passing yards in each of the last seven seasons, so the only case to make against the Detroit quarterback is cost. As the 11th quarterback off the board, three rounds after Ben Roethlisberger and two after Jimmy Garoppolo, it’s an easy choice to grab a top-10 QB in each of the last three seasons.

11.1: Giovani Bernard (RB – CIN)
Stop yawning. It’s contagious. The Bengals forgot about Giovani Bernard for two months, but he compiled 507 yards over Cincinnati’s final five games, two without Joe Mixon. The 26-year-old back is too good to shun again, so I’m banking on him maintaining some flex appeal as the second back.

12.12: Anthony Miller (WR – CHI)
Going from boring to trendy sleeper, Anthony Miller is reportedly cementing his role as Chicago’s starting slot receiver. This is aggressive considering his No. 162 consensus ADP, but you’ll occasionally need to reach for your guy when picking at the turn. He’s a smooth, lightning-quick route runner whose stock should keep rising throughout the preseason. If you can’t tell, I’m buying the Bears taking a Rams-like leap under Nagy.

13.1: Jordan Reed (TE – WAS)
I recently identified Jordan Reed as my “never again” player in a collaborative piece, but this is precisely why drafters should never say never. The oft-injured tight end typically goes around the Round 8/9 range where I took Burton instead. In this mock, he plummeted to pick No. 145. At that price, why not take a low-risk gamble on a healthy campaign? While normally I would have taken a second quarterback, I splurged for the second tight end because Reed was too good a value to pass up.

14.12: Chris Godwin (WR – TB)
Tampa Bay reportedly plans to start Chris Godwin alongside Mike Evans at wideout, with DeSean Jackson operating more from the slot. That could be huge news for the 22-year-old, who closed his rookie campaign in 209 yards and a touchdown in two games without Jackson. A well-rounded player with a high ceiling, he’s an ideal late-round flier to target in all formats.

15.1: Houston Texans D/ST
Houston could challenge Jacksonville as the premier fantasy defense if they J.J. Watt, Jadeveon Clowney, Whitney Mercilus, and Tyrann Mathieu all stay healthy. One caveat I didn’t consider until after the mock: They open the season at New England

16.12: Chris Boswell (K – PIT)
Every other team also took a kicker in the final round, so perhaps I should have gamed the system by taking Stephen Gostkowski instead of Godwin at the last turn. Oh well. Chris Boswell has converted 89.5 percent of his career field-goal attempts, including all four from 50 yards or greater last year. He’ll do just fine as the draft’s Mr. Irrelevant.

Final Roster

QB: Matthew Stafford
RB: Todd Gurley
RB: Jerick McKinnon
WR: Stefon Diggs
WR: Marvin Jones
WR: Emmanuel Sanders
TE: Trey Burton
FLEX: Lamar Miller
DST: Houston
K: Chris Boswell

Bench: Ronald Jones II, Nelson Agholor, Giovani Bernard, Anthony Miller, Jordan Reed, Chris Godwin

The Draft Wizard gave me a 94 out of 100, but I was always the type of student to obsess over the six missing points. If given a do-over, I’d probably swap McKinnon and Marvin Jones for Baldwin and Lewis.