A look back at how ten rosters got built, before any of them get a chance to prove us wrong. The draft is done, eleven trades and waiver moves are in the books, and six drafted players have already been cut loose. Nobody here is quite the team they thought they drafted — which is the fun part. Here's where everyone actually stands.
Teams
10
Picks made
150
Already cut
6
Trades
2
Playoffs
Wk 15 · 6 teams
The Draft, Reviewed
150 picks · 15 rounds · snake
What ten managers actually did when it counted, now that there's been a week to think about it.
D1
Round One Went Receiver
Five of the first ten picks were wideouts — Chase, Nacua, Smith-Njigba, St. Brown and Lamb — against four running backs and exactly one quarterback. That's a room that had read the same articles as everyone else, and mostly they were right to.
The outlier is OldeRowanRiot taking Josh Allen at seven, the only quarterback off the board before pick 22. It's the boldest thing anyone did all night. It also means the Riot spent a top-ten pick on the one position where the drop-off to the next guy is smallest, which is why they now sit tenth in projection. Worth it if Allen wins them four games by himself. We'll see.
Winnie won the lottery and took Gibbs at 1.01, which required no courage whatsoever and was completely correct.
D2
Then Everybody Remembered Running Backs Exist
Round two was eight running backs in ten picks. Taylor, Barkley, Achane, Chase Brown, Hampton, Jeanty, Henry, Walker — a clean, panicked, entirely predictable run, and the two managers who didn't join in (Smallwood took A.J. Brown, Trevor took Justin Jefferson) came away with the two best receivers of the round.
The run had a cost. Because everyone spent round two on backs, Brock Bowers lasted until pick 31, where Smallwood took the best tight end in the league at a discount that shouldn't have existed. In a ten-team league where seven rosters are starting a committee tight end, that's the quietest win of the whole draft.
D3
Six Picks Didn't Survive The Week
Six of the 150 players drafted are no longer on anybody's roster, and four of them were jfinau's: James Conner in the eighth, then Kyler Murray, Tua and C.J. Stroud — three quarterbacks, all cut inside eight days. The other two are Fawley's Josh Jacobs and Trevor's Kenny Gainwell.
In fairness to jfinau, cutting three quarterbacks is only reckless if the replacement is worse, and they turned that churn into Travis Kelce. It's a strategy. It's not a calm strategy, but it's a strategy.
Kickers went in rounds 9 through 15, defenses in 10 through 15, and everyone waited exactly as long as they should have. Genuinely, well done everyone. That's the most disciplined part of this draft.
Power Ranking
Sorted by projection · 1 is best
Ranked on projected points, which is why the order differs from the odds table further down. Average pick held is the mean draft position of everyone currently rostered — lower means more capital still in the building.
01
trevorh84
Projected143.7
Playoff odds82.9%
Avg pick held76.3
Moves made2
Holds the least draft capital in the league — an average pick of 76.3, dead last — and projects first anyway. That's a well-sorted roster rather than an expensive one, which is the good kind of first place. The one soft spot is real though: six running backs, one tight end, and a single quarterback with nobody behind him. Drake Maye is doing a lot of load-bearing this season.
02
Unauthorized Use of No. 5
Projected143.1
Playoff odds80.8%
Avg pick held75.5
Moves made0
Drafted St. Brown and Achane, went home, and hasn't opened the app since. Zero transactions and 0.6 points off the top — sometimes the roster you drafted is just good. The bench is two rookie wideouts and a backup quarterback who won't matter until December, which is exactly what a bench is for. Quietly the most sensible team here.
03
winniehartley
Projected139.9
Playoff odds70.8%
Avg pick held75.2
Moves made0
Won the 1.01, took Gibbs, and built a Hurts–Eagles stack that doubles down every week in both directions. Five running backs is two more than a lineup can use, so there's a trade sitting right there: Walker, Irving and Mason are all competing for one flex spot, and somebody else in this league is thin at the position. Worth a message before the surplus loses value.
04
NoseyNabers
Projected139.8
Playoff odds69.5%
Avg pick held75.4
Moves made0
Nacua, Collins and Hampton is a genuine top four, and this is a bye-week team the moment the lineup gets a second look. The draft went well and the attention since has not: George Kittle came out of it as a backup to Colston Loveland, and TreVeyon Henderson is still rostered as a starter despite being ruled Out. Best roster-to-attention ratio in the league.
05
H00dedWizard
Projected138.1
Playoff odds65.0%
Avg pick held75.7
Moves made0
Six wideouts, and the three best aren't all starting. Mahomes, Higgins and Evans on one bench is the most expensive collection of spare parts anyone has assembled — which is really a depth problem in disguise: stacked at exactly one position, thin everywhere else. Trading a receiver for a running back is the obvious move and it's still available.
06
She’sTheMann
Projected137.3
Playoff odds61.0%
Avg pick held71.9
Moves made1
Second-most draft capital retained, and the only manager who took a kicker and a defense before round ten — a tidy, deliberate draft that the projection slightly undersells. Bijan at 1.03 and Jeanty at 2.08 is the best backfield in the league; the drop after them is steep, down to a fifteenth-round Stefon Diggs in the flex. Top-heavy wins weeks. The question is whether it wins Decembers.
07
Team Fawley
Projected137.2
Playoff odds63.2%
Avg pick held75.0
Moves made2
Trading Kelce didn't just cost a starter, it emptied the position — Fawley now rosters exactly one tight end, Sam LaPorta, and he's Questionable. Every other team carries two. Chase, Hall and LaPorta all being Questionable at once is genuinely rotten luck rather than bad management, but the tight end situation needs a waiver claim this week.
08
Smallwood Retrievers
Projected135.7
Playoff odds54.4%
Avg pick held75.8
Moves made0
Fifteen drafted, fifteen kept, lineup optimal, zero moves. Brock Bowers at pick 31 was the steal of the draft and it's anchoring a perfectly reasonable team that nobody is actively improving. Standing still works right up until it doesn't — but of all the ways to be eighth in projection, having the best tight end and no mistakes is the most recoverable.
09
jfinau
Projected132.3
Playoff odds39.6%
Avg pick held62.5
Moves made5
Carries the most draft capital in the league by a distance — average pick 62.5, thirteen spots clear of second — and has spent the preseason rearranging it at speed. Four starters are undrafted free agents. The Kelce trade was the best single move anyone made all preseason, and it's surrounded by moves that partly undid it. There's a good team in here; it just needs to sit still for a week.
10
OldeRowanRiot
Projected122.8
Playoff odds12.7%
Avg pick held76.0
Moves made1
Thirteen projected points behind ninth, which is a bigger gap than anywhere else in the table. Josh Allen at 1.07 was a genuinely bold pick and he's the reason this team has a puncher's chance most weeks. The model says 48.2% to finish last — but it's Week 1, it's a projection, and one good waiver run changes the shape of this entirely. Somebody has to be tenth in September.
The Blotter
9 swaps · Aug 31 – Sept 8
Every move since the draft. Free agency is open — no waivers, no budget, first click wins. Green is a player arriving, red a player leaving; in a trade both sides are arrivals, so both are neutral.
Cleared review Sept 7. Warren is benched, Brooks is Questionable and starting.
Sept 8 · 13:16
jfinau
+ AJ Barner · − Kyler Murray
Part two.
Sept 8 · 13:19
jfinau
+ Tyler Allgeier · − C.J. Stroud
Three minutes later. Part three. Bo Nix stands alone.
Playoff Odds
50,000 seasons · sorted by playoff odds
Every team's optimal projected lineup as its weekly mean, 27-point standard deviation, played across the real 14-week schedule. Top six make it. Percentages sum to 600 and 100 respectively, which is how you know the model is playing fair.
Reach playoffs Win the title
Playoff odds by team, best first
Team
Proj
Exp W
Odds
Playoff
Title
Finish last
trevorh84
143.7
8.1
82.9%
19.4%
1.7%
Unauthorized Use of No. 5
143.1
8.0
80.8%
18.3%
2.1%
winniehartley
139.9
7.5
70.8%
12.2%
3.8%
NoseyNabers
139.8
7.4
69.5%
11.9%
4.0%
H00dedWizard
138.1
7.2
65.0%
9.8%
5.5%
Team Fawley
137.2
7.2
63.2%
9.0%
5.7%
She’sTheMann
137.3
7.0
61.0%
8.5%
6.4%
Smallwood Retrievers
135.7
6.7
54.4%
6.7%
8.2%
jfinau
132.3
6.2
39.6%
3.8%
14.5%
OldeRowanRiot
122.8
4.7
12.7%
0.5%
48.2%
Two things fall out. OldeRowanRiot has ground to make up — 12.7% to reach the playoffs against 48.2% to finish last, the widest gap in the table. And jfinau's five moves have bought 39.6%, ninth in a ten-team league, which is a reminder that activity and improvement aren't the same thing. Everyone between 54% and 83% should probably relax: that whole spread is about one hamstring wide, and it's Week 1.
The Picks
Filed 09 Sept 2026 · immovable
The one thing here that looks forward instead of back. Five predictions, timestamped before kickoff so they can be wrong in public — and next Tuesday's sheet opens by scoring them.
G1
winniehartley over Team Fawley, by 2.7
52.8%
G2
Smallwood Retrievers over jfinau, by 3.4
53.5%
G3
Unauthorized Use of No. 5 over NoseyNabers, by 3.3
53.4%
G4
She’sTheMann over OldeRowanRiot, by 14.5
64.8%
G5
trevorh84 over H00dedWizard, by 5.6
55.8%
Four of the five sit under 56%, which is the honest way of saying this league is close to a coin-flip factory and anyone telling you otherwise is guessing with extra steps. Only the Dread Bowl looks like a real edge. Come back Tuesday and find out how badly that aged.
The Heckle Wall
Shared · live
Post as your team. Everyone with the link sees it and can vote. Nothing is deleted, so choose your words with the confidence of a man whose lineup is optimal.
Connecting…
No heckles yet. Someone has to go first.
The Ledger
Opens after Week 1
Four more numbers Sleeper computes for nobody. Each needs a played week before it means anything, and each settles an argument the standings can't.
Points On The Bench
Your optimal lineup minus the one you actually started, measured against real scores rather than projections. The true coaching table, and the best source of Tuesday-morning regret available.
Manager efficiency
All-Play Record
Your record if you played every team every week. The honest answer to "am I good or just lucky?" — a 4–1 team sitting at 22–23 all-play is a fraud and this is the receipt.
Luck index
Schedule Luck
Total points your opponents scored against you. Someone here will lose four games to the week's high scorer and be owed an apology nobody will give them.
Strength of schedule
The Picks, Scored
The five predictions above, marked right or wrong, with a running record. If this sheet is going to call your lineup a choice, it can carry its own losses too.