Hire Me Grantland Holds A Fantasy Draft: Who Is Doug Martin?, #FantasyBabies, Tim Tebow Inevitably Gets Drafted

The Hire Me Grantland staff picked their fantasy teams on Tuesday. Whose do you like? And who the fuck is Doug Martin?

On Tuesday (a full 24 hours before the NFL season!) the HMGL staff, plus the Editor in Chief’s dad, gathered for its first annual fantasy draft.

Below are the results, chat-room gems and analysis of the best and worst picks of each round:

Chat Room Gems:

Justin (Truf): [After Rodgers pick] Game, set, match, bitches.

Neal (Punny): Who is Doug Martin?

Justin’s Take:

Best Pick: Drew Brees. Passing TD’s are worth six points in this league, which means Brees will pump out points just like Brady and Rodgers. Except Brees was the seventh overall pick. Great value.

Worst Pick: Chris Johnson. Sure, D-Mac is an injury risk injury certainty, and Matt Forte is recovering from surgery, but Chris Johnson just plain sucked last season.

My Pick: Aaron Rodgers. It was a shitty year to have the first overall pick, but hard to argue against the consensus best quarterback in a QB-centric league.

Gems:

Ford (ADoubleDwayneBowe): VICK????

Mike (FlaccoForHeisman): I hate myself. Going all or nothing.

Ford’s take: 

Best Pick: Larry Fitzgerald at No. 19? How? Who made this pick, Daniel Ocean?

Worst Pick: Michael Vick will be a fantasy monster (for three of the six games he’s healthy)!

My Pick: It was a tough call between Fitzgerald and Matthew Stafford, but I went with the sixth 5,000-yard passer in history over Kevin Kolb’s No. 1 target.

Gems: 

Ford (DwayneBowe): Steven Jackson quickly becomes my least favorite pick of all time.

Badders (Suh): Jackson is a silent assassin, though. Gets his yards, snags a TD, breaks a leg about every season. You know, there’s something to say for consistency.

Mike’s take: 

Best pick: Greg Jennings. He went to Western Michigan, one of the few schools my beloved Michigan Wolverines beat down every few years, raising my expectations to National-Championship levels. Then I’m heartbroken by cheaters from down south. I hate Nick Saban.

Gems: 

Ford (DwayneBowe): There was our first egregious homer pick, as my dad picks Garcon in the fifth …

Dash (Henne): I feel like the more drafts you do, the worse your teams get.

Badder’s Take: 

Best Pick: Doug Martin. Three words: Doug. Effing. Martin. AKA the Jeremy Lin of this draft.

Neal (Punny): Let’s get real, none of the last 10 RB’s are worth a cent.

Neal (Punny): … Except Doug Martin.

Ford (DwayneBowe): Decker is a good speculative pick.

Dash (Henne): If he can catch a pass from Tebow, he can dodge a ball.

Ford’s take:

Best pick: This was an unusually solid round. But Frank Gore is about as solid as you can get in Round Six, especially at RB.

Worst pick: Too high for Aaron Hernandez. With Vernon Davis and others still on the board, I can’t justify drafting a No. 2 tight end.

My pick: Dwayne Bowe is not only underrated, but has been the namesake of my team for two years. Love him in Round Six.

Gems:

Justin (Truf): When Finley and Rodgers hook up, they’ll make me sweet fantasy babies.

Ford (Dwayne): #FantasyBabies

Dash’s Take: 

Best Pick: Think my pick, DeSean Jackson, will end up being the best here (unless he decides not to try again this year).  Other than that, I like the value of Tony Romo.  Compare these two stat lines from last year:

Player A: 4177 yards, 29 TDs, 12 INTs

Player B: 4184 yards, 31 TDs, 10 INTs

Player A is Matt Ryan, who went two rounds earlier than Tony Romo.  Maybe Ryan was just a shitty pick, but it doesn’t explain why people are so down on Romo.

Worst Pick: Torrey Smith was a bit of a reach (and knowing Ford, I’m pretty sure he yelled “Go Terps!” to himself after the pick).Smith showed flashes of brilliance last year — including a three-touchdown game against the Rams in Week Three.  But take that game away, and he was the No. 52-ranked WR in fantasy.

Badders (Suh): If Flacco’s team was a real team, there definitely would be some sort of murder at a strip club.

Ford (Punny): I highlighted Peyton by accident, started at it for 75 seconds, then assumed it was a sign.

Justin’s Take: 

Best Pick: Peyton Manning. Guess who’s back, back again? Peyton’s back, tell a friend. White rap lyrics aside, the four-time MVP has shown for years that his physical talents are secondary to his cerebral ones. Worst-case scenario Ford wasted an eighth-rounder. Much more likely, he scored a top-5 QB in the 8th round.

Worst Pick: Chicago DEF. This team ranked 14th in scoring last year and has four games against the Packers and Lions (wow it’s weird to be singing Detroit’s praises). Good fantasy defenses pop up out of the blue every year. Why roll the dice in the eighth round?

My Pick: BenJarvus Green-Ellis. Finally arisen from the RB graveyard in New England, the Law Firm will have a chance to be the feature back in an offense on the rise. A 1,000 yard back this late would be a steal.

Gems:

Ford (DwayneBowe): Pretty sure the “Michael Bush Handcuff” is the sexual position of the month in Cosmo.

Neal (Punny): Matt Schaub: Third-best Matt, but arguably the best Schaub in the league at the position.

Badders (Suh): Can’t believe Ocho is still on the board.

Gems: 

Ford (DwayneBowe): Who the fuck is Jacquizz Rodgers?

Dash (Henne): I feel like Jacquizz’s ranking is boosted a little by his name.

Ford (DwayneBowe): Isn’t the “jacquizzinator” what Onterrio Smith used to piss at the airport?

Badders’ Take: 

Best Pick: Michael Bush. Matt Forte is bound to get injured through the course of the season after his knee surgery. By snagging Bush here, Punny deprives Double DwayneBowe of his safety net.

Worst Pick: Randy Moss. If there were to be a worst pick in round-12, the round of “ehhhh maybe this guy will break out?” sentiments, Moss wins the tight race. Round 12 was the round of good-bad picks and bad-bad picks. I don’t like Boldin because he has a game manager throwing to him. I don’t like Holmes because he has Sanchez/Tebow! throwing to him. Of the bad-bad picks, Moss tops the list.

My decision: I needed a QB that could handle the job in case Philip Rivers’ season starts to go south. Andy Dalton, with AJ Green as his main weapon, fills that need. Am I sold on the sophomore ginger sensation? Not entirely, but of the ones left on the board he seemed the best one.

Gems: 

Jones (Bollers): Benson is Emmitt Smith compared to the RB’s left on the board.

Ford (DwayneBowe): Blaine Gabbert is maybe the third-best quarterback out of the 10 of us.

Neal (Punny): I have two sleepers that are going to make you shit your pants.

Ford’s take: 

Best pick: I love the Cedric Benson pick here. He may well be the starting running back for the NFC Champions, yet he went behind guys like Toby Gerhart and Beanie Wells.

Worst pick/My pick: Santana Moss. I blacked out here and talked myself into thinking Moss would probably end up the No. 2 receiver on the Redskins, which, even if it was true, means he is completely worthless in fantasy. Moss probably got taken in a total of three drafts across Yahoo!, ESPN and Sportsline.

Gems:

Jones (Bollers): If the Rays hold on, the Orioles are going to be in first place in 40 minutes.

Justin (Truf): I feel like Randy Quaid in Major League 2: ”They’ll blow it in the playoffs.”

Jones (Bollers): How can you root against the Orioles? That’s like booing at the Special Olympics.

Dash’s Take: 

Best Pick: I like Russell Wilson this late in the draft. In his first preseason start, he led his team to a 44-14 win with two TDs, 185 passing yards, and 58 rushing yards.  If Cam Newton can have a rookie reason that catapults him into the second round of fantasy drafts, why can’t Wilson?

Worst Pick:  I don’t really get why you would take the Cincinnati DST.  They finished 12th last year in overall points and are only owned in 25 percent of all Yahoo! leagues. Really though, we all blew it in this round, somehow missing the great Tim Tebow was still on the board.