We did the Mock Auction for the magazine the other night. I did just OK. I messed up a couple of things – caught driving the price up a few times, and froze up and didn’t bid on a few guys. My team’s OK.
I’m not a big fan of the format; I don’t like the $200 cap. With $200, it allows too much sniping throughout the auction. With a $100 cap, it’s easier to get a feel for what a $1 player is. You can open the bidding on the 6th-best kicker halfway through the auction and be confident you’re going to get him. With the $200 auction, it moves. For a lot of the draft, you start the bidding on $1 on a player, and somebody will grab him for $2. Then, late in the draft, you start getting more control over being able to start and end bidding on guys.
It’s hard to explain. The $200 cap is OK, but the $100 version has a little bit more of a draft feel to it at time. The bidding and problem solving is cleaner, I think.
Anyway, I think I messed up on the end-game strategy on this thing. Two of my last purchases were DeAngelo Williams for $2. I didn’t want him. I just figured that the guy who started the bidding for $1 probably had LeVeon Bell and would bid $3 – it’s that $200 cap thing again. And I purchased Justin Hunter for a buck because I had Kendall Wright and figured those guys might kind of go together in this best-ball format.
But in hindsight, I think I should have gone with James White instead. White, remarkably, wasn’t even selected, but I think he could be pretty good. I believe he’ll fill the Shane Vereen role in that offense. And he might be a little more than that.
LeGarrette Blount and Jonas Gray, in my opinion, are pretty marginal backs. Blount is the starter, but when the Steelers cut him last year, no other team even wanted him.
Blount is a big, physical dude, but he hasn’t been a good goal-line or short-yardage runner. In the last two years, he’s been called on 17 times when his offense has needed 1 yard for a touchdown or to keep a drive alive. Blount was good on only 9 of those players, making him the 4th-worst short-yardage runner among the 35 with at least 15 attempts.
White, I think, should have ended up on a roster in that league.
| AND-ONE RUSHING SINCE 2013 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | Player | Good | Att | Pct |
| 1. | Andy Dalton | 20 | 23 | 87.0% |
| 2. | Cam Newton | 23 | 27 | 85.2% |
| 3. | Jed Collins | 13 | 16 | 81.3% |
| 4. | Joe Flacco | 16 | 20 | 80.0% |
| 5. | Ryan Mathews | 16 | 20 | 80.0% |
| 6. | Adrian Peterson | 15 | 19 | 78.9% |
| 7. | Joique Bell | 18 | 23 | 78.3% |
| 8. | Chris Ivory | 21 | 27 | 77.8% |
| 9. | LeSean McCoy | 27 | 35 | 77.1% |
| 10. | Shonn Greene | 12 | 16 | 75.0% |
| 11. | DeMarco Murray | 31 | 42 | 73.8% |
| 12. | Matt Asiata | 14 | 19 | 73.7% |
| 13. | Trent Richardson | 18 | 25 | 72.0% |
| 14. | Jamaal Charles | 22 | 31 | 71.0% |
| 15. | Matt Forte | 22 | 31 | 71.0% |
| 16. | Eddie Lacy | 20 | 29 | 69.0% |
| 17. | Lamar Miller | 13 | 19 | 68.4% |
| 18. | LeVeon Bell | 23 | 34 | 67.6% |
| 19. | Frank Gore | 20 | 30 | 66.7% |
| 20. | Zac Stacy | 10 | 15 | 66.7% |
| 21. | Fred Jackson | 21 | 32 | 65.6% |
| 22. | Rashad Jennings | 15 | 23 | 65.2% |
| 23. | Willis McGahee | 11 | 17 | 64.7% |
| 24. | Arian Foster | 15 | 24 | 62.5% |
| 25. | Maurice Jones-Drew | 13 | 21 | 61.9% |
| 26. | Steven Jackson | 19 | 31 | 61.3% |
| 27. | Marshawn Lynch | 18 | 30 | 60.0% |
| 28. | Alfred Morris | 12 | 20 | 60.0% |
| 29. | Stevan Ridley | 12 | 20 | 60.0% |
| 30. | BenJarvus Green-Ellis | 11 | 19 | 57.9% |
| 31. | Mike Tolbert | 11 | 19 | 57.9% |
| 32. | LeGarrette Blount | 9 | 17 | 52.9% |
| 33. | Bernard Pierce | 7 | 15 | 46.7% |
| 34. | Ben Tate | 8 | 18 | 44.4% |
| 35. | Mark Ingram | 7 | 18 | 38.9% |
—Ian Allan