A running back walked past two seats at the same table in five picks. MarShawn Lloyd went at 84 with a projection of 175 and a VOR of +21; the two picks this desk covers, at 79 and 83, returned 155 and 131. The board called it a reach because the board's market rank was written before the news that made him a starter.
Segment two of the Desk Draft Special, as broadcast. Booger McFartland files from the cherry-picker, as is his practice.
Transcribed from the Desk Draft Special, segment two of six. The panel are house bylines — parodies of a type of broadcaster, not of any person. Every number is read off the league's finished board; the podcast quotations are from transcripts held in this repo, dated in the text.
RICH EYESORE: Every draft has one pick that decides it. Schnifter.
ADAM SCHNIFTER: BREAKING, and I mean this one. The NFL put Josh Jacobs on the commissioner's exempt list the week before this draft. The Fantasy Footballers covered it August 31st. Their words on MarShawn Lloyd, quote, "far and away the back to roster there." One of them has him, quote, "about running back twenty-four"; the show's written range is RB24 to RB30, quote, "with plenty of variability based on Jacob's availability."
IAN CRAPOPORT: BDGE was on him two weeks before the news, on the 17th, and called it handcuff territory — quote, "consensus ADP of the RB fifty-six." But also, if Jacobs missed time, quote, "a top ten ranked fantasy running back on any weekly basis right out of the gate." That was the conditional. Then the condition happened. I filed that. Nobody read it.
MEL KIPPER SNACK: THE BOARD SAYS REACH! Rashaud Express took Lloyd at 84! Market rank 88! That is a REACH, Rich!
BOOGER McFARTLAND: Mel, the market rank isn't stale — the analysts rewrote Lloyd's row on August 30th, the day the news broke. Market rank is ADP, and ADP is an average of what rooms have actually done. Rooms move slower than analysts do. The projection beside it, 175 points and a VOR of +21, is a forecast, and it had already moved. One number on that line is a price and one is a forecast, and the tool showed both without saying which was which. So Rashaud Express took the back who starts for as long as Jacobs is unavailable — and the show that priced him said outright it could not date the absence.
BOOGER McFARTLAND: And the part from the front, which is the part I actually care about: beat writers in Green Bay were saying they didn't understand how Jacobs fit that offense — not his play style — while Lloyd had been excelling in camp in exactly that role. A scheme fit outlasts a suspension.
Here's the part that stings for our two seats. I AM GROOT picked at 83. He took KC Concepcion — 131 points, VOR -28. Shut up Lige picked at 79. He took Michael Wilson, 155, a fourth receiver on a one-running-back roster. Lloyd was on the board for both of them. The pre-draft brief for Groot named Lloyd at 83. In bold. Twice.
RICH EYESORE: Both seats passed on the same player.
BOOGER McFARTLAND: Four picks apart.
SKIP BRAINLESS: Nobody wants to talk about the real steal. Rashaud Express, pick 98, Josh Jacobs. Market rank thirteen. The board says VALUE. That's the pick of the draft.
BOOGER McFARTLAND: Skip. 38 projected points. Status: N-A. VOR -116. And here's the league fact. This league's reserve slots take IR and COVID only. Not Out, not Suspended, not N-A. The Ballers said the same thing on the 31st, quote, "you can't IR him." So that's a bench spot, one of six, holding a player who is not allowed to play. The value flag is the market's number. The football number is zero.
SKIP BRAINLESS: It's a stash.
BOOGER McFARTLAND: It's a chair.
The pick is worth a segment because it is the cleanest example this draft produced of a general problem: a board carries prices and forecasts side by side, and they do not update at the same speed.
The analysts rewrote Lloyd's row on August 30th, the day the exempt-list transaction changed who carried the ball in Green Bay. His projection moved with them — 175 points, +21 over replacement. His market rank of 88 did not, because market rank is ADP: an average of what drafting rooms have already done, which lags the people whose job is to react. One number on that line was a price and one was a forecast, and the tool showed both without saying which was which.
The two seats at this table each had the current number in front of them, in a written brief, naming the player. Neither acted on it. That is not a tooling failure; it is what happens when a plan's tier gets cleared and there is no written instruction for now what.