2024 Champions League Draft Recap

Hello Everyone and welcome to the 8th year of the Relegation Fantasy Football Association. We are back for another year as we have 11 people trying to dethrone the commissioner as the reigning champ. I suggest to do it this year otherwise these recaps will be painful to read with me being back to back champ. 

LJ Fresh - 1st Pick (Champions League - No Playoffs)

LJFresh kicks off the draft and goes heavy with RB. Jonathan Taylor, James Cook, and Kenneth Walker make for a strong trio in the first 5 rounds. This does leave QB2 fairly weak with Geno Smith.Some late QBs with Darnold and Russ round out the team. I don’t think LJ Fresh will ever be excited to put in that second QB. He did well to grab Engram in the 8th round. If he finishes as a top 3 TE again, that is great value. The WRs end up a little on the weak side too. Puca leads the room and Higgins could be WR1 in Cincinnati if Chase decides to hold out. Then some rookies in McConkey and Coleman would need to step up and fill some big weeks. It feels like a solid team that doesn’t have a ton of excitement. I think they will be just on the outside of the playoffs

TheJessica88 - 2nd Pick (Minor Leagues)

After starting 3 QB, RB, TE, this team needed some WRs. They went on to bring 7 total WRs. That left only 3 RBs. N. Chubb or Trey Benson will need to fill the RB2 spot. Neither seem particularly likely to take on a large week 1 workload. Benson could eventually take over. Will Levis could put up a monster year. Travis Kelce and Cooper Kupp could return to dominant form. But I would only bet on one of those happening, not all 4 at once. I think this team needed a few more RB fliers and a little less WR depth. 

Anto00861 - 3rd Pick (Champions League - Playoffs)

A really solid draft out of the third spot. Herbert in the 3rd feels a little high. I don’t see Herbert scoring that much better than some of the 5th and 6th round picks like Cousins or Stafford. But he should be solid. Davonte Adams, Rashaad White, and Kincaid should have solid seasons and Tank Dell plus Calvin Ridley offer a lot of potential in the 7th and 8th rounds. Derek Carr should be a serviceable QB3 and there is some upside in Watson, Warren, and Legette later. I like the balance of the team and Anto seemed to find value through the draft.

Commissioner - 4th Pick (Champions League - Playoffs)

An almost perfect draft. La Porta was the one place where I would have done something different. I think it was a bit too high. But the rest of the draft more than makes up this small detour. After taking solid picks in AJ Brown, Lamar, LaPorta, Kyren, and Waddle, the rest of the draft is dripping with upside. Jonothan Brooks is going to be a beast at the end of the year. JSN is going to break out. Drake Maye is going to turn some heads. Dobbins is going to be running on a bionic leg, and even the last round pick of Laube will be seeing a major share of the LV snaps. It might be a bit of a slow start, but the end of the season is when champions are crowned, again. 

Adonis77 - 5th Pick (Minor Leagues)

This is the team that hasn’t ever put it all together, but there is huge potential. Garrett Wilson should be good, but he hasn’t finished above WR21. Achane had 5 huge games last year, but we need more than 5 games out of a 4th round pick. Cousins and PItts could be a powerful stack but Kirk is missing an achilles and PItts has 6 TDs in 3 years. Xavier Worthy has all the speed in the world and Zeke could return to form. This is just another team that seems like a couple of these will hit and a couple won’t. Thats just not going to cut it in the Champions League.

Pierson07- 6th Pick (Minor Leagues)

This RB room is rough. Jacobs, Montgomery, Ford, and Dowdle. Jacobs seems to be slowing down and doesn’t have a ton of burst. Montgomery is second fiddle to Gibbs. Ford didn’t wow last year with the lead gig. Dowdle is the one ray of hope that he beats out an aging Zeke. But this team is going to struggle to fill those RB spots. Then the other positions don’t offer a ton of excitement. Purdy and Rodgers aren’t what you would expect to get from such a poor RB room. The hope is maybe Jake Ferguson being traded for a RB. But this team is heading back to the Minors. 

JWEngelhardt - 7th Pick (Champions League - Playoffs)

We all know the meme of a guy walking next to a girl and he is turning around looking at another girl walking by. That was me with this team walking by. I like Kyler’s mobility and being a little later in the 1st round allowed this team to pick up Bijan coming back. T Law may have been a bit high. There are probably plenty of QBs that were picked up later with similar production for the year. Lots of WRs and RBs in the middle rounds round out the starting lineup while offering upside. Devonta and PIckens at WR. Mixon Javonte, and Tajae as RB. But then you finally talk to the girl and you realize she has a weird voice sort of like taking Taysom HIll as your TE. Maybe it works for you, maybe it doesn’t. Still looks better than a lot of the teams. 

RUN-DMZ - 8th Pick (Minor Leagues)

This team waited a bit taking QBs going in the 2nd, 6th, and 8th rounds. Jordan Love is fine. But I don’t think Deshaun Watson will ever be a top half QB again. I don’t see how someone gets their confidence back when there are people in the stands and probably in the locker room that don’t like this guy. And if you don’t have that confidence, you are going to hesitate. And thats a problem. Then Danny Dimes is the last QB which is pretty meh for an early 3rd QB. Maybe he has learned how to run all the way into the endzone. The rest of the team is up and down. Clearly strong WRs up top. But Zamir White at RB2 and Goedert as TE1 both feel like problems.   

kkbarnfield18 - 9th Pick (Champions League - No Playoffs)

I really like this team, but they have to buck historical trends to really be a contender. Caleb Williams seems to have a ton of talent and great WRs around him, but historically rookie QBs don’t outperform ADP. Even Caleb’s teammate here, CJ Stroud, was only 11th last year in PPR points and he was amazing. Bowers and Odunze are also on this team. They're both great but this team needs some historically great seasons for rookies from the pair. But then getting Minshew, Ray Davis, Doubs, and Curtis Samuel late gives some hope that someone pops. I just don’t know if all of the rookies will hit, so I am keeping this team out of the playoffs. 

The1andOpie- 10th Pick (Minor Leagues)

A fun draft strategy here going 2 QBs, 2 RBs, and then 2 WRs to start the draft. I could see it working but I just don’t love the picks. I lean more towards the Derrick Henry being cooked camp. And James Connor, Brian Robinson, and Devin Singletary all fall into the same genre as Derrick Henry. Older RBs with a good situation but low upside. The round 9 Rashee Rice might be great value. And a round 14 Friermuth seems like another potential big win. It's tough to put this team in the minors but I think the RBs are going to crumble through the season. I just hope I face them in the 2nd half of the season. 

DisgustingActBy - 11th Pick (Champions League - Playoffs)

A nice zero RB build from the former champ. The first RB taken was with the 7.11. Burrow and Goff were taken early with JJ, Nabers, and Nico. Mark Andrews leads the TE room and taking Njoku in the 9th probably upset a lot of late TE drafters. Then RBs were selected in rounds 7, 8, and 11-15. I think its a great year to do a strategy like this as there are a lot of potentially good RBs in the late rounds. I don’t think he chose the best RBs though. Mostert is going to have big games, but I think his touches will start to dwindle. I do like Najee. But Charbonnet, Ty Chandler, Jalen Wright, Kalil Herbert, and Marshawn Lloyd just aren’t the ones I want to be drafting to fill out the strategy. Maybe a couple of injuries hit and this works. But I think the team gets into the playoffs, just not a championship. 

Lefty 2104 - 12th Pick (Minor Leagues)

Lefty starts with 2 WRs and then picks up Jaden Daniels in the 3rd. This gave the team a big lack of RB Strength. Although I actually like still getting Etienne as a RB1, the remaining 3 RBs are Rhamondre, Gus Edwards, and Chubba Hubbard. Zero excitement there. And I could see Gus and Chubba losing their starting jobs by the end of the season. Lefty will have to be aggressive on the waiver wire trying to pick up the backups still out there. Sure the QBs and WRs will keep this team on a decent floor, but they will be running with parachute on trying to deal with these RBs.