Welcome to The Learning Curve. I don’t have all the answers…and that’s kind of the point.
You’ve done the mocks. You know your draft position. You’ve watched the same players fall into the same general areas over and over.
Maybe your simulator even gave you an A. You’re ready. At least you think you are.
Then the real draft starts. Someone takes “your guy” earlier than expected. A quarterback goes sooner than you planned. Running backs start flying off the board, and suddenly you’re staring at your rankings wondering what happened to the draft you practiced.
Sound familiar? It does to me.
I used to do mock drafts religiously. FantasyPros would give me a grade afterward, and somehow I turned that into its own competition.
An A or B? Nice. I’m ready. But give me a C and suddenly I took it personally.
Excuse me? Clearly, we need to run this thing again.
And I would. Over and over. I’d change picks and try different combinations until that grade improved. I spent enough time doing mocks that my wife probably questioned some of her life choices.
But I was preparing…Or so I thought.
The Mock Wasn’t the Problem
Some fantasy players I respect, including people right here at Dr. Roto, use mocks regularly and get a lot of value from them. I get it.
The difference, at least for me, was what I was looking for.
More experienced players and analysts may enter a mock knowing exactly what they want to test or observe: ADP, player groupings, roster construction, different strategies, or how certain decisions affect the board.
I wasn’t doing that.
I was trying to get an A.
And once I got enough of them, I convinced myself I was ready for the real thing.
That’s where my problem started.
Mocks did help me understand ADP and roughly where players might be drafted. What they couldn’t perfectly recreate was my league.
Different people. Different strategies. Different opinions of value. And absolutely no obligation to follow the draft I had rehearsed twenty times.
At some point, I stopped preparing for my draft and started getting really good at the mock.
So, Should You Mock?
That’s up to you.
I’m not here to tell anyone mock drafts are useless. If they help you learn the draft room, understand ADP, test something, or simply feel more comfortable, there’s value in that.
I just wish I had asked myself one question before mock number…whatever ridiculous number I was on:
What am I actually trying to learn from this one?
Today, I’m less interested in predicting exactly how my draft will unfold. I’d rather prepare for what happens when it doesn’t.
There’s a lot more to that process, but that’s another Learning Curve for another day.
And if you’re staring at a C and refusing to go to bed until FantasyPros gives you an A?
I get it. I’ve been there. Just remember…the people in your real draft never got a copy of the script.
Trust your process. Have some fun. And remember, we’re all somewhere on the curve.
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