From now until the end of August, fantasy football draft boards and rankings will fall into place. Rookie minicamps have already begun, and Organized Team Activities will ensue later in May. Mandatory minicamps are then on the docket for June and are followed by training camps in July. Finally, on August 4th, the NFL Hall of Fame game between the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins kicks off the preseason. From there on it becomes a mad dash to solidify the preseason rankings that will follow each analyst around for the duration of the 2013 NFL Season. While the top of draft boards may not change much over this time because it is filled with known commodities, the middle and later rounds will be in constant reconstruction. I decided to take my first stab at sketching out all of those rounds with a 2013 fantasy football mock draft.

I drafted according to non-PPR, standard scoring and represented each of the twelve teams myself, allowing only thirty-seconds to make each selection. And so, without further ado, I give to you the results:

(Click The Image To Enlarge)

If you want to secure yourself a RB1, which I recommend doing, then you have to act early and that is why Calvin Johnson was the only non-running back taken in Round 1. Before the news of Rob Gronkowski’s infection troubles, I would have taken him as early as the end of the first and detailed the reasons in a previous article. If the infection becomes a thing of the past at some point before the regular season begins, Gronkowski will then move back into first round consideration.

Team 10 was forced to go with Reggie Bush in the Round 2, which wasn’t a terrible selection, but was a small reach and reflects the problems of taking a non-RB in Round 1. Jimmy Graham is a prime Value Based Drafting candidate, which is why he was selected 16th overall. Before the 2013 NFL Draft, the depth at running back was scant and a larger contingent of running backs would have been pushed up into the second round - that is no longer the case, so the elite wide receivers and elite quarterbacks started getting scooped up in the middle of Round 2. Teams that drafted in the early half of Round 1 were able to grab their RB2s in Round 3 before the drop-off which provided them with a strong advantage.

The second tier of quarterbacks found themselves off the board in Round 3 before the remaining WR1s. Through the first four rounds, 10 of 12 teams had secured two running backs - the remaining teams took their RB2s immediately in Round 5. There were a total of 24 running backs selected within the first 48 picks. The last teams to take a quarterback did so in the Round 7, with the selections of Tony Romo and Robert Griffin III. Those teams were also the first to secure QB2s with Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning in Round 10. The Seattle Seahawks DST and San Francisco 49ers DST went back to back in Round 10. I won’t be shy about reaching for those two DSTs after I fill my other starting positions because they will provide an advantage over my opponent on most weeks. Stephen Gostkowski was drafted in Round 14 as the first kicker; once again, all the team’s needs were filled and Gostkowski is the type of kicker you can roster throughout the entire season and play with confidence. You may also notice that I made sure to reach for a lot of handcuffs after I drafted the lead running back earlier.

Overall, I do think all of the teams are competitive. I plan to write at least one more One-Man Mock Draft and expect the first six rounds to be similar. The second half of the draft will probably experience a lot a movement specifically with the running backs and wide receivers that are jockeying for position on the depth chart. If you have any questions regarding this 2013 fantasy football mock draft, I’d be happy to answer them.