Beyond our fantasy football content, be sure to check out our award-winning slate of Fantasy Football Tools as you prepare for your draft this season. From our free mock Draft Simulator – which allows you to mock draft against realistic opponents – to our Draft Assistant – which optimizes your picks with expert advice – we’ve got you covered this fantasy football draft season.

Of the top nine draft slots in a standard 12-team league, the sixth is probably the least desirable. If given the choice, deciding which pick to take should depend almost entirely on your tiered rankings. Most draft boards are similar at the top in terms of tiers.

This season, there are two tiers of players who are considered unquestioned first-round picks. How you rank those players is your prerogative. Here’s how I have it:

• Tier one – Ezekiel Elliott, Saquon Barkley, Alvin Kamara, Christian McCaffrey, and David Johnson.
• Tier two – Davante Adams, DeAndre Hopkins, Julio Jones, and Melvin Gordon.

Many drafters will probably have Johnson in tier two, which is certainly understandable. I believe that his combination of upside and floor bump him up to the upper echelon of fantasy assets. Gordon’s placement in tier two is obviously dependent on his contract situation. Those are the only nine players I have first-round grades on as of now. After that, my third tier is a giant blob (it’s a word, I checked) of 11 players, each of whom has a similar second-round grade.

In an ideal world, I would like to get a tier one player in the first round, a top-three tier player in round two, and a top-five tier player in round three. It undoubtedly depends on who is drafting, but I find that having a top-five pick in most drafts can be a huge advantage. The difference between the players going after the turn (12 and 13) and the middle of round three can often be minimal. In that regard, having three picks inside the top 30 can be huge.

I just babbled on for 250 words — now I’ll go back to why I abhor the sixth slot.

Regardless of whether you have Johnson in your top tier, there is a very good chance that all of my top-five running backs will be gone by the sixth pick. This will leave you at the beginning of a tier with four players of mostly equal value, a second-round pick that’s not much more valuable, and a worse third-round pick. Using the FantasyPros Draft Simulator — I’m allowed to shamelessly plug it because I was using it long before I started writing for the site — I have done numerous mocks from each slot. The drafts I consistently hate most are the ones from the sixth slot. Naturally, that is why I chose to write about a mock draft from that very pick.

Complete early fantasy football mock drafts with our free simulator

Round 1, Pick 6: Davante Adams (WR – GB)
My nightmare came true. The top five backs are gone, and I’m left with a choice of four players of similar value. I ruled out Gordon because of holdout concerns and passed on Julio Jones due to his lack of consistency and touchdown upside when compared to DeAndre Hopkins and Adams. Last year, Hopkins had five games where he failed to reach double-digit points in standard formats. This made my pick of Adams a relatively easy one, as he had just one such game in 2018. Adams’ consistency is remarkable considering that he has just as much upside as any receiver.

Round 2, Pick 19: Nick Chubb (RB – CLE)
As expected, only two of my top-20 players (Chubb and Dalvin Cook) remain. There is no question that Cook has top-five upside this year, but he has played fewer games in two seasons than Chubb did as a rookie. Chubb suffered a pretty significant knee injury in college, though it pales in comparison to Cook’s two torn labrums, ankle sprain, torn ACL, and Grade 1 hamstring strain subsequently followed by a Grade 2 hamstring strain. I feel safer taking the RB8 from Week 7 onward who averaged 19.6 touches a game to go with 5.2 yards per carry. I’m going with Chubb, and no, I’m not worried about Kareem Hunt.

Round 3, Pick 30: Leonard Fournette (RB – JAC)
My decision here came down to A.J. Green, Adam Thielen, Leonard Fournette, Marlon Mack, and Zach Ertz. Were this a PPR mock, I likely would have gone with Thielen or Ertz. I worry that Ertz’s ceiling is lower than it was last year due to an increase of viable weapons in Philly. Each of Fournette, Green and Mack have their fair share of injury concerns. I ultimately went with Fournette because of the guaranteed workload and revamped offensive line in Jacksonville.

Round 4, Pick 43: Phillip Lindsay (RB – DEN)
Since 2013, 12 rookie running backs have finished inside the top 15. Here’s how they followed it up in their second season: five top-five finishes, nine top-15, and all but one finished as the RB17 or better. Royce Freeman’s presence is a concern, but let’s not ignore the fact that he totaled nearly 150 touches last year and Lindsay still finished as the RB12. Denver was eighth in pass attempts and 21st in rush attempts in 2018. If the Broncos are able to flip the script, there should be more than enough work for both backs to succeed.

Round 5, Pick 54: Tyler Lockett (WR – SEA)
Doug Baldwin, who averaged 103 targets and 13.2 red zone looks over the last five seasons, retired. Lockett finished as the WR18 last year despite not even leading the Seahawks in targets. On average, number one receivers in Seattle have finished as the WR12 since 2015. Lockett is far from a traditional number one, but he’s the number one nonetheless. His talent has allowed him to get open on a league-leading 68% of his targets over the last three seasons. The touchdown celebrations are a nice bonus.

Round 6, Pick 67: Hunter Henry (TE – LAC)
In 175 games together, Philip Rivers targeted Antonio Gates an astonishing 184 times inside the 20. Henry saw 28 red-zone targets in the first 29 games of his career. The 24-year-old has the size and athleticism to be a big-time weapon for a team that has attempted an average of 578.4 passes over the last five seasons. With Gates and Tyrell Williams no longer with the Chargers, Henry is in a prime position to produce.

Round 7, Pick 78: Will Fuller (WR – HOU)
In the 11 games he has played with Deshaun Watson, Fuller has caught 45 passes to go along with 782 yards and 11 scores. That projects to a 16-game pace of 66/1138/16. Although injuries are obviously a huge concern with Fuller, a seventh-round price tag mitigates that risk quite a bit.

Round 8, Pick 91: Jerick McKinnon (RB – SF)
The 49ers gave McKinnon $30 million for a reason. They made him the seventh-highest-paid back in the league for a reason. He was drafted as a top-12 running back prior to his injury last year for a reason. The reason being that he’s talented and fits what they want to do offensively. There’s obvious bust potential here, but the upside is too great to pass up on McKinnon with the 91st pick.

Round 9, Pick 102: Geronimo Allison (WR – GB)
Through four games last year, Allison was on pace to post a line of 76 receptions for 1,156 yards and eight touchdowns. He has a great rapport with Aaron Rodgers, and moving to the slot should open some more opportunities. He could be this year’s Tyler Boyd. Handcuffs are not as popular at receiver, but Allison is the most likely candidate to replace Adams were he to get hurt.

Round 10, Pick 115: James Washington (WR – PIT)
Two-hundred and twenty targets from 2018 have vacated from Pittsburgh. Whether it’s JuJu Smith-Schuster, Vance McDonald, or Washington, I want a part of the Steelers’ offense. I barely missed out on Smith-Schuster in round two, so there was no way I was passing up on Washington in round 10.

Round 11, Pick 126: Carson Wentz (WB – PHI)
Unless I can get one of the top-tier guys in round six or seven, I generally ignore the quarterback position until double-digit rounds. I did not expect Wentz to last this long and was ecstatic when he did. Over the last two seasons, he has scored 17 or more fantasy points in 67 percent of his games, 20 or more in 50 percent, 24 or more 30 percent of the time, and fewer than 15 in just four of his 24 games (17%). He has league-winning upside in round 11.

Round 12, Pick 139: David Moore (WR – SEA)
If Lockett does not end up as Seattle’s number one, that honor would likely go to Moore. The 24-year-old produced nicely when Baldwin was limited or unavailable due to injuries, posting 445 yards and five scores on just 53 targets. He too should benefit from Baldwin’s absence.

Round 13, Pick 150: Jared Goff (QB – LAR)
In the seven games where Cooper Kupp was fully healthy last season, Goff averaged 23 points per game. He also averaged 24.8 points per game at home. His upside with Kupp combined with the fact that he’s a set-and-forget start at home makes him an ideal backup QB.

Round 14, Pick 163: Talking about a defense in fantasy gets you whatever this penalty is.

If you want to know why this mock has no kickers, it’s because kickers stink. Just ask Bears fans.

Try the only fantasy football tool that syncs with your draft

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | TuneIn | RSS

Elisha Twerski is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Elisha, check out his archive or follow him @ElishaTwerski.