We might be in that grey area of the fantasy football calendar, between the Super Bowl and the NFL Scouting Combine, and you might be tempted to think there’s nothing to talk about, but that just isn’t the case. We’re weeks away from free agency. Between that and the NFL Draft, the fantasy football landscape will be shaken up plenty. If you were drafting right now, some of the values you could get will look crazy in a few months. Diving into a fantasy football mock draft now helps you gain a sense of perspective for how others value players now and in the coming months. This is a mock draft for a 12-team standard league.
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Fantasy Football Mock Draft
1.12: James Cook (RB – BUF)/2.01: Ashton Jeanty (RB – LV)
The Draft Wizard tool randomly assigned us the 12th pick in the draft. In standard leagues that don’t reward pass-catchers as heavily as full PPR or half-PPR formats do, we want to lean into guaranteed touches and ideally plenty of touchdowns. We select James Cook with our first pick and Ashton Jeanty with the second.
Last year the main worry for Cook was that he was too touchdown-reliant. He got away from that with 600 more rushing yards, with 1,621 yards, while still scoring double-digit touchdowns and seeing similar receiving work. With Joe Brady taking over as head coach and Cook firmly under contract, it’s hard to imagine that changes too much.
Jeanty, meanwhile, surely sees an improvement in the situation around him. The Raiders’ offensive line was severely injured, and an obvious weakness that should be better this year. Even with that turmoil, Jeanty came close to 900 yards and finished seventh in receptions at the running back position, along with the third-most receiving touchdowns by a running back.
3.12: Davante Adams (WR – LAR)/4.01: Kenneth Walker III (RB – FA)
While running backs have more value in this format, we don’t want to get completely left behind at wide receiver, as the quality still tends to fall off significantly. Davante Adams is a fun selection here with his touchdown equity as an obvious pull.
Adams scored 14 times in 14 healthy games before being cautiously shut down ahead of the playoffs. His volume isn’t what it once was, but touchdowns carry a lot of weight in standard formats. This is a fine pick to make. We pair him with Kenneth Walker III.
After a white-hot playoff run, Walker will likely see his value jump somewhat, whether it’s on the back of a big contract in free agency or even a return to Seattle, where they’d be without Zach Charbonnet for much of the season, due to his ACL injury.
5.12: DeVonta Smith (WR – PHI)/6.01: Emeka Egbuka (WR – TB)
We double-tap wide receiver here with DeVonta Smith and Emeka Egbuka. Both picks are slightly speculative but with good reasoning. DeVonta Smith could become a true alpha if A.J. Brown continues to trend towards a trade away from the Eagles. Even if he doesn’t, Smith has more often than not been a good value selection in fantasy football, averaging 1,004 yards and 6.25 touchdowns per season.
Egbuka, meanwhile, had a fantastic first half of the season before hitting the proverbial rookie wall as the Buccaneers limped towards the finish line. Mike Evans is potentially moving on after 11 years in Tampa, opening up more potential plays for Egbuka. Second-year wide receivers have been strong bets plenty of times before now.
7.12: Harold Fannin Jr. (TE – CLE)/8.01 Braelon Allen (RB – NYJ)
At the end of the seventh round, we take Harold Fannin Jr. to lock in our TE1 and make another bet on a second-year player. Quarterback is still very much a concern in Cleveland, but Todd Monken is one of the better offensive play-callers in the league. He should help Fannin take the next leap, after a promising rookie season where he had 72 receptions for 731 yards and six touchdowns.
Running backs tend to dry up somewhat by this part of the draft, but there’s one glaring value in Braelon Allen, who surely needs to be drafted higher. Consensus opinion is that Breece Hall‘s time in New York is over, but for some reason, there is no hype around Allen, who has 410 yards on 110 career carries along with 21 career receptions. Allen was expected to be a bigger factor in the Jets’ offense this year, but he managed only four games before getting injured. That injury could be helping us scoop some value.
9.12: Kenneth Gainwell (RB – SEA)/10.01: DJ Moore (WR – FA)
In round nine, we select Kenneth Gainwell, who is coming off 114 rush attempts and 85 targets in an outlier season for the Steelers. The 85 targets are slightly less helpful here than in PPR formats, but this late in the draft, that level of touches isn’t to be sniffed at. It seems fair to say Gainwell’s value is tied to Aaron Rodgers returning to the Steelers, but this value is good enough that we can take the gamble.
In round 10, we add DJ Moore, who could be on his way out of Chicago in the coming weeks. Moore has earned at least 80 targets in every one of his eight years in the league and has been over 100 in six of them. Last season wasn’t a great year for him, but there’s every chance a wide receiver-hungry team could make better use of him in 2026.
Late-Round Picks
To round out the draft, we take our quarterback in Brock Purdy, followed by a late-round flier on Keaton Mitchell, who perhaps sees an expanded role with a change of coordinator.
With a lack of value in round 13, we turn to the Houston Texans’ D/ST and Brandon Aubrey to fill our defense and kicker slots before a final selection of Brenton Strange, giving us a nice piece to rotate with Harold Fannin.
Draft Wizard Insights
The Draft Wizard gave us a C grade (75/100), which feels slightly on the harsh side as we scooped up plenty of value along the way, and we have one of the best graded running back rooms.
The next few weeks should shake out some more value, making it easier to get a better picture of average draft position (ADP) in the coming months.
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