2015 Fantasy Football Mock Draft: Round 6

Scoring: This mock draft is based on standard-scoring formats and is for the 2015 season only (i.e., not keeper or dynasty leagues). Passing touchdowns are worth four points while rushing and receiving touchdowns are worth six points. In addition, one point is earned per 25 passing yards, 10 rushing or 10 receiving yards.

Mock Draft Start Date: Saturday, August 22nd
Mock Draft End Date: Tuesday, September 1st

Four of our site's contributors — Kevin Hanson, Brendan Donahue, Sean Beazley and Dan Yanotchko — will make picks for three teams of this 12-team mock. The mock will go 12 rounds with no kickers or team defenses selected.

Although this is a slow draft, we will post picks as they occur, along with comments from Kevin Hanson, as opposed to waiting for the entire mock draft to be completed.

Round: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 - Teams | Positions

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Here are Round 6 results of our 2015 Fantasy Football Mock Draft:

6.01 - Sean Beazley (Team III): Greg Olsen, TE, Carolina Panthers

Posting career highs of 84 catches for 1,008 yards last season, Olsen now has at least 69 receptions and 816 yards while finishing as a top-seven fantasy tight end in each of the past three seasons. Over that three-year span, Jimmy Graham (3,086) is the only tight end with more yards than Olsen (2,667) and only Graham (256) and Jason Witten (247) have more receptions than Olsen (226). He's never scored more than eight touchdowns in a season, but he has at least five scores for seven consecutive seasons. In addition, Olsen is extremely durable having played all 16 games in seven consecutive seasons.

With the season-ending ACL injury to Kelvin Benjamin, Olsen clearly enters the season as the team's top pass-catcher should rank near the league lead in targets among tight ends.

6.02 - Brendan Donahue (Team III): Drew Brees, QB, New Orleans Saints

After three consecutive 5,000-yard seasons, Brees fell just shy of that mark in 2014 but still tied with Ben Roethlisberger for the league lead with 4,952 passing yards and threw 33 touchdowns. For the first time since signing with the Saints in 2006, Brees finished outside the top-five fantasy quarterbacks (sixth) in 2014. And while he has thrown at least 650 pass attempts in five consecutive seasons and he led the league in pass attempts per game (41.2) last season, a transition to a more run-based offense appears set to begin with their offseason moves. My fourth-ranked fantasy quarterback heading into 2015, Brees is the fifth quarterback off the board in this mock.

6.03 - Kevin Hanson (Team III): Brandon Marshall, WR, New York Jets

A lot went wrong for Marshall and the Bears offense last season as he missed multiple games, was limited in others, Jay Cutler struggled and was benched, etc. Marshall posted his lowest totals for both receptions (61) and yards (721) since his rookie season, but he was traded to the Jets in the offseason and gets a fresh start. A return to his 2012 or 2013 numbers appear unlikely, but I expect a bounce-back to the 1,000-yard range.

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6.04 - Kevin Hanson (Team II): Giovani Bernard, RB, Cincinnati Bengals

Better suited for his return to a change-of-pace role, Bernard can still be productive as the flex for this squad. As an example, Jeremy Hill carried the ball 22-plus times for 100-plus yards in the team's final three regular-season games. In those same games, Bernard finished as the weekly RB11, RB17 and RB13, respectively, in standard-scoring formats. As beat writer Paul Dehner Jr. noted earlier this offseason, "... once settling into a complementary role the final three weeks, [Bernard] returned to the explosive, multi-dimensional player the Bengals team envisioned."

6.05 - Dan Yanotchko (Team III): Sammy Watkins, WR, Buffalo Bills

The fourth overall pick of the 2014 NFL Draft, Watkins finished his rookie campaign with 65 receptions for 982 yards and six touchdowns. While Watkins had four 100-yard games including a career-high 157 yards against his new head coach's former team, he also had nine games with 35 receiving yards or less. In a run-first offense with a less-than-ideal quarterback situation, there will still be plenty of weekly inconsistency from Watkins even though his overall numbers should improve on a year-over-year basis.

6.06 - Dan Yanotchko (Team II): Jeremy Maclin, WR, Kansas City Chiefs

After sitting out all of 2013 with a torn ACL, Maclin returned to the Eagles on a one-year deal and posted a career-best season (85/1,318/10) in Chip Kelly's offense. He then parlayed that success into a five-year deal to reunite with his former coach. Few players, if any, have seen their fantasy stock drop more in free agency than Maclin as he transitions to an offense with a quarterback incapable and/or unwilling to challenge opposing defenses down the field. That said, he's a solid WR3 behind Dan's first two receivers -- Brandin Cooks and Amari Cooper.


6.07 - Sean Beazley (Team II): Jarvis Landry, WR, Miami Dolphins

Among rookies, only his ex-LSU teammate Odell Beckham (91) had more receptions than Landry (84) last season. Over the final nine games of the season, Landry had a minimum of five receptions every game and racked up a total of 59 catches over that span. In addition, he had at least nine targets in six of his final eight games. Landry should improve upon his 84/758/5 rookie numbers, but he's a much better option in point-per-reception (PPR) formats.

6.08 - Sean Beazley (Team I): Joique Bell, RB, Detroit Lions

Scoring the 14th-most fantasy points among running backs in 2014, Bell finished with 223 carries for 860 yards, both of which were career highs, as well as 34 receptions for 322 yards and eight total touchdowns. That said, it was the second consecutive season that Bell has averaged under 4.0 YPC.

While I expect Bell to lead the team's backfield in touches in 2015, second-round rookie Ameer Abdullah weakens Bell's grip on the featured-back role and it wouldn't surprise me if Abdullah emerged as the lead back at some point during the season. With Bell coming off a pair of offseason surgeries, he's still not practicing although he is expected to be ready for the opener.

6.09 - Brendan Donahue (Team II): Doug Martin, RB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Just a couple of seasons ago, Martin racked up 1,926 yards from scrimmage, 49 receptions and 12 touchdowns in 16 games as a rookie when he finished the year as fantasy's RB2. Over the past two seasons (combined), however, Martin has only 1,080 YFS, 25 receptions and three touchdowns in 17 games. Going into 2015, Martin appears to be in line for the largest share of the backfield's workload.

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6.10 - Brendan Donahue (Team I): Martellus Bennett, TE, Chicago Bears

Setting career highs across the board in 2014 with 90 receptions, 916 yards and six touchdowns, Bennett finished as a top-five scorer among tight ends and led the position in receptions. With the Bears trading Marshall to the Jets and the injury to top pick Kevin White, Bennett has the potential to come close to those numbers this season.

6.11 - Kevin Hanson (Team I): DeSean Jackson, WR, Washington Redskins

Despite the revolving door at quarterback, Jackson was one of the few bright spots for Washington's offense in 2014. D-Jax finished with 56 catches for 1,169 yards and six touchdowns and he led the NFL in yards per reception (20.9).

Even though he finished as the 16th-highest scoring fantasy wide receiver, the big drawback of owning Jackson is his boom-or-bust nature. Jackson finished as a top-17 fantasy wide receiver in eight of 15 games last year; in all seven of the other games, he finished as the WR53 or worse. Stated differently, Jackson had zero games within the range of WR18 and WR52 in a given week last year.

6.12 - Dan Yanotchko (Team I): Alfred Blue, RB, Houston Texans

Blue averaged just 3.1 YPC as a rookie last season and he backs up one of the league's few workhorses in Arian Foster, but he finished as a top-40 fantasy running back in 2014. The Texans were more committed to the run than any other team in the league and Foster, who missed three games last season, is always a candidate to miss a game or two. In fact, Foster will miss at least some games to begin the season following groin surgery.

At this point, however, I'd actually prefer Foster over Blue. There is some optimism that Foster may only miss a few games as opposed to half the season as initially expected.

> Continue to Round 7 of our Fantasy Football Mock Draft
> Go back Round 5 of our Fantasy Football Mock Draft

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