The Preseason Board

Start with the banner: Haroon is the defending champion. He won it on Christmas week while Zofrost's quarterback was busy fumbling three times, and the chat had crowned him "King Haroona" before the payout even cleared Zelle. He won it at 8-6, which means Asim's midseason prophecy — "the winner of this league sitting somewhere in the middle of the leaderboard right now" — came true to the letter. Champions get scrutiny. Here it is.

The roster is the most complete thing on this board. Ja'Marr Chase and Jaylen Waddle up top, a Breece Hall, Kyren Williams, and Bucky Irving backfield that goes three real names deep, Kittle at tight end. Eleven other managers would trade rooms with him at two positions minimum.

The question is quarterback, and it comes with a story. Haroon waited, wanted Bo Nix, and then watched Bazaan take Nix at 9.08 while already rostering Lamar Jackson. The 😑 he posted was the most honest analysis of the day. So the plan is Brock Purdy, the same Purdy whose touchdown "cemented" last year's title, in Haroon's own words. Loyalty is sweet. Purdy as the ceiling piece on a title defense is less sweet.

One more thing for the record: the man who asked "what's up with the Kelce disrespect" passed on Kelce in round 15 to draft a kicker. The champ contains multitudes.

Nabeel finished the draft, looked at his roster, and posted in the chat that he needs a WR2 and Mustafa should "be ready to make a trade." I appreciate a manager who does my job for me.

He's right, and it barely matters. Jonathan Taylor, Kenneth Walker, and TreVeyon Henderson is the best running back foundation in the league, and in a format where eight of twelve make the playoffs and every playoff round is one week, an elite floor with two bell-cows is how you end up still playing in late December. Nico Collins is a real WR1. Drake Maye at 6.09 was the best quarterback timing in the draft.

After Nico, the receiver room reads Carnell Tate, Alec Pierce, and hope. Loveland is a genuinely interesting rookie tight end bet. Rachaad White at 93, against a market price of 119, was the one pick I'd take back.

Second on the board, and in the league's worst bargaining position: everyone knows exactly what he needs, everyone knows he knows, and Mustafa reads this website.

Bilal's full post-draft statement to the group chat: "I plead the fifth." This is the same man who announced mid-season last year that the league had "almost paid for itself" and he was "in it for the sport now." The sport, apparently, is depth. It works, too: Bilal won the 2023 title at 7-7, the most Floor Monster championship imaginable — survive to the bracket, then win three one-week games.

The board fell right and he didn't fight it. Gibbs at 1.01, Josh Jacobs and Drake London at the turn, Tee Higgins and Mike Evans stacked behind them, and then Matthew Stafford at pick 168. The market had Stafford at 75, which makes him the best backup quarterback in the league, sitting politely behind Dak. The ADP math gave this draft an A and first place in all four weighted categories.

The desk ranks the roster third rather than first, because floor and depth are what this team is, and the two teams above it carry louder top ends. That's not an insult. In a league where one bad December week ends your season, the Floor Monster is built to be there every year.

The structural risk has a name: Josh Jacobs, the one uncertainty Bilal can't bench his way around. If Jacobs gives him a full season, this is the most complete non-champion roster in the league. If not, expect the fifth to be pled again.

A fun disagreement. The draft-grade math, which only speaks ADP, gave Bazaan a C+. The desk ranks him fourth. Kashir went further and called this one of the two best teams in the league. Everyone is looking at the same roster.

The case: Lamar Jackson, James Cook, A.J. Brown, Malik Nabers, D'Andre Swift. That is a nuclear weekly core, and in one-week playoff rounds a nuclear core is the entire point. Bazaan's own scouting philosophy, quote, "I draft on vibes, not social media," undersells that the vibes nailed five consecutive rounds. I'll even let him keep saying Lamar "fell," although pick 56 for a player priced at 55.9 is less a fall than a scheduled arrival.

The C+ lives in the back half. Chris Rodriguez 41 ahead of price, Jonah Coleman 39 ahead, and a second quarterback at 9.08 taken directly in front of the defending champion, who needed one. That pick's entire production this season may be Haroon's resentment, which, to be fair, is worth something.

Juwan Johnson at tight end is the soft spot on a team with title ambitions, and Ray Davis in round 13 remains the pick I respect most: his own James Cook insurance, announced with "I got my own cuffs." Fourth on the board. First in the gap between his best five picks and his last eleven.

RamBam sits fifth, and here is the number that keeps the whole thing interesting: the desk ranks this roster first in championship ceiling. Fifth-best today, most dangerous in December if the bets hit. That's either a plan or a cope, and there are fourteen weeks to find out which.

The draft was built like a venture portfolio. CeeDee Lamb is the blue chip. Jayden Daniels at 8.04, fifteen picks past market, is the quarterback edge in a 4-point-passing format where his legs do the scoring. Tyler Warren is a real bet on a weekly tight end advantage. Then five young receivers: Egbuka, Odunze, Golden, Worthy, Concepcion. Any of them could be a weekly starter by October. None is guaranteed by Thanksgiving. Two hit and this team is a problem. Zero hit and it's an expensive lesson about diversification.

The running back room is Chase Brown, Travis Etienne, and silence. Brooks is coming off two ACL surgeries on the same knee. One bad Sunday and the plan is Kaelon Black, and I am still not prepared to write the sentence where Kaelon Black is the plan.

For the historical record: this team went 2-12 in 2023 and finished third last season. The portfolio has a direction, if not yet a trophy. And Week 1 is at Mustafa's — the People's Champ hosting the guy who publishes his ranking. The schedule maker has a sense of humor.

Mustafa's draft weekend, in sequence: a projection tool put him last in playoff odds, Asim posted the screenshot, Kashir demanded to know why the machines hate this team, and the ADP math handed down a C- draft grade. Then the desk actually watched the roster and ranked it sixth. Somewhere between last and best there is a real team.

The depth is legitimate. Saquon and Omarion Hampton up front, a receiver room that runs five deep in DeVonta Smith, McConkey, DJ Moore, Marvin Harrison, and Godwin, plus Mahomes and Kyler at quarterback. The bench might be the best in the league, which is both the compliment and the problem: Kelce at pick 180 was the funniest value in the draft, acquired while the chat priced his wedding as a production risk, but Kelce and Likely can't both start, and Likely at 8.01 went 51 ahead of price for half a job.

Last season ended with Yaseen telling Mustafa he was "talking like he made playoffs." The man ran this league for years and has earned better heckling than that.

Sixth is respectable. The machines still owe him an apology. I don't yet think they'll owe him one in December, and I look forward to the chat explaining why I'm wrong.

Last season HNFNR finished dead last at 4-10. This draft is what a response looks like: the grade said A-, the desk says seventh, and both are honest, and the difference is a lesson in what a draft can and cannot buy.

What Arfan bought: the best three-position top end in the league. Burrow at 7.07, Smith-Njigba in the first, Brock Bowers in the third. Add Zay Flowers and Brian Thomas Jr. and the passing game is finished, cleanly, at fair prices. The construction score came back perfect. Jayden Reed at pick 138 and Michael Wilson at 114 were the two best late receiver values anyone found.

What he could not buy: a second running back. Henry at pick 18 was a gift the room let happen, and Henry carries an age curve. Behind him stand Rhamondre Stevenson and Tony Pollard, two men whose ceilings are best described as "employed." In a league that starts two backs plus a flex, seventh is what elite-everywhere-else looks like.

League historians will remember that Arfan once announced "I'm vetoing everyone" on principle. The desk admires the energy, and notes that you cannot veto a depth chart.

Housekeeping first: Ivan is a champion. He won this league in 2024, beating Kashir in the final, and then followed it with a 4-10 title defense that landed him eleventh. Both of those seasons live in this roster.

It's the widest bet near the top of this board. Christian McCaffrey and Jalen Hurts as the engine, Jeremiyah Love in the second round, Quinshon Judkins in the fourth. If McCaffrey stays upright and one rookie hits, this team beats anybody in a one-week playoff round. That's the pitch, and it's real.

And then there is the pick. MarShawn Lloyd, 6.07, pick 67, market price 157. Ninety picks early, the largest reach in the draft by a factor of two. Asim's theory, offered in the chat with a laughing emoji, is that Ivan "only drafts names he knows." I regret how well the evidence fits, including the part where ESPN's own rankings apparently love this team, because the last time everyone agreed Ivan was doing it wrong, he won the whole thing.

The final rounds nearly balanced the books: Jeudy and Ridley arrived a combined 97 picks past their price. Nearly.

Eighth, with a ceiling well above eighth and a floor that involves the word "attrition." If Lloyd somehow takes the Green Bay job, the apology will run in full, above the fold.

Kashir has played in two of the last three finals and lost both — to Bilal in 2023 and to Ivan in 2024. Last season he slid to tenth, and Asim's postmortem still named him someone "who could have won the whole thing." His response was to draft the best receiver duo in the league, Amon-Ra St. Brown and Justin Jefferson, assembled by pick 15, and then a kicker in round nine.

I keep coming back to it. Brandon Aubrey, 9.10, pick 106, priced at 134, with starting running backs and quarterbacks still on the board. He followed it with the Texans defense at 10.03. The agenda was special teams, and it was pursued with total conviction.

The rest is a superteam funding a shelter: Skattebo, Jaylen Warren, Corum, Braelon Allen, Bigsby, Blue, Pacheco. Seven running backs, no locked starting job among them. The stated plan for Corum, per the chat, is that "it's time," which is a hope wearing a plan's clothes. McBride makes it three elite pass-catchers, which is why ninth feels low here and honestly might be.

Kashir posted another site's low ranking of his team with the caption "I guess I don't know ball." The desk would never say that. The desk simply drafted its kicker in round eleven.

There are two Noor brothers in this league. One is the defending champion. The other squeaked into last year's final playoff spot, received a ceremonial "welcome to the 8th seed" from then-commissioner Kashir, and declared "honestly week one is my championship." Guess which one closed this year's draft with three straight Jets, on purpose.

The desk ranks Yaseen tenth with the fifth-best ceiling on the board, which is the most Gang Green combination possible. Achane and Jeanty is a genuinely exciting backfield. Yaseen celebrated Achane "falling" to him at 1.11, a fall the market measures at roughly one seat. The young receiver row of Garrett Wilson, McMillan, and Burden could all hit. His own risk assessment, verbatim: "my RBs have big bust potential just off of injury risk." The man knows. He typed "I have a sickness" mid-draft and kept drafting.

The quarterback is Trevor Lawrence, acquired in round 13 at 65 picks past market price, which is another way of saying the position was addressed with clearance inventory.

Asim called this the best team Yaseen has ever drafted, then added "definitely AI." Both can be true. "Always like my team," Yaseen says, annually. This is the rare year the math half-agrees.

The strange thing about Naafay's roster is that the bench might be better than the starting lineup. Bijan at 1.02 anchors everything. Pickens and Davante Adams start at receiver, while DK Metcalf, Jordan Addison, and Khalil Shakir sit behind them, all bought at real discounts. The back half of this draft, Addison at 118, Shakir at 143, Nailor at 191, was some of the sharpest shopping anyone did all afternoon.

The front half is where the chaos lives. Javonte Williams and Jadarian Price, the latter 26 picks ahead of market, hold the RB2 job between them. Kamara at 122 against a price of 158 is a bet against the market's obituary. Caleb Williams is the quarterback and Kyle Pitts is the tight end, two sentences that have ended in shrugs for multiple consecutive preseasons.

Eleventh on the board — and Naafay went 10-4 last season and still finished eighth once the bracket had its say, so he knows better than anyone that these numbers are an opening argument. This is the classic eleventh that is one good October waiver week from looking silly. The depth is real. The starting lineup just hasn't been introduced to it yet.

Naafay's main draft-week contribution to league discourse was proposing next year's draft happen in a cabin in Montenegro, which is also a fair description of this roster: a great idea, location still uncertain.

When Kashir opened last season's chat, he welcomed everyone back to "the best part of the year: where we get to see Asim's 'visions' and trades that could start a WW3." The visions are a league institution. Asim receives them, announces them, occasionally acts on them. The desk deals in rankings, not visions, and the ranking is twelfth — which Asim has earned the right to laugh at, because he has posted 11-3 in back-to-back regular seasons, the best record in the league both years, and owns zero titles. The visions keep producing Novembers. December remains unscheduled.

The split is stark. Josh Allen, Puka Nacua, Rashee Rice, Terry McLaurin is a legitimate top four, an elite quarterback and three real receivers, the kind of core that wins weeks on its own. Asim reviewed the Allen pick himself, live: it "might have jacked up my roster." The self-awareness kept coming. He announced that his wins will come from other people's running backs getting hurt, which is not a strategy so much as a séance, typed "GGs," and left to go smoke hookah with Bazaan.

The running back room is Tuten, Harvey, Gainwell, Spears, and Vidal. Five names, zero locked jobs, the clearest positional weakness in the league.

Respect the range, though: Jared Goff at pick 188 against a price of 100 was the best insurance pick of the draft, and the 3am waiver habit this roster was built to feed is a documented fact of league history. Twelfth today. Nobody is twelfth on waivers at 3am.