"Whoops, I drafted a Charger": Seven hard lessons learned

In life and in fantasy football, it's a good idea to assess and adjust as you go, even if you can't apply what you've learned until a later time. Internalize the lesson while they're fresh, is what we're saying. Now that we have reached the halfway point of the fantasy regular season, we asked our ESPN fantasy football analysts to highlight one of the lessons they've learned this season. These takeaways will eventually guide future draft strategies and decisions, and some may even apply to lineups right now as we all move away from our Los Angeles Chargers, but the common thread is that even the experts are constantly learning. You need a proven back for the "hero RB" draft strategy If you are building your strategy around a specific player, it is best to know that player can carry a team. I like the hero RB approach, in which you take one running back early and then wait before taking your second one as you get your starters at every other position. But I learned a tough lesson this year, as I went with Omarion Hampton as my hero RB in too many leagues and it has been a struggle at the position each week. My teams where I went hero RB with James Cook III, Jonathan Taylor or Ashton Jeanty (or two RBs early) are doing much better. That's especially the case with it becoming more difficult to find usable RBs off the waiver wire. Or, maybe the lesson is don't trust a Charger. -- Michael F. Florio That second RB can be a hero, too (see: Kenneth Walker III) I was looking at some of my better teams and it's no surprise the teams where I drafted in the top two seem to be doing much better. That feels like a no-brainer because those teams have either Jahmyr Gibbs or Bijan Robinson, both of whom have been excellent this season. But the other common thread is that I took a second back early: Kenneth Walker III. Bypassing the hero RB strategy and loading up with Walker has proven to be quite a benefit, especially when ignoring other receivers who were available in those slots. In other words, it was the old-school RB-RB approach that really did it for me. -- Adam Rank You really don't need that "tier one" quarterback in the draft We talked about the depth at the QB position all offseason, and that's really bearing fruit through the first half of the season. Jared Goff, Caleb Williams, Brock Purdy, Bryce Young and Trevor Lawrence are all top-10 QBs in fantasy PPG this season, while Kirk Cousins, C.J. Stroud, Tyler Shough and Matthew Stafford each have at least three games of 20-plus fantasy points this season. You didn't need to use an early draft pick on a QB, and in today's pass-heavy league, that trend may continue heading into next year. -- Daniel Dopp The new coaching hire doesn't always lead to immediate results I was all-in on the Chargers this offseason after the club hired Mike McDaniel as the new offensive coordinator. The system fits here, no? More two-back personnel. A heavily schemed run game. Defined throws for the quarterback. So, I pushed both Hampton and Justin Herbert up my draft board because of it. But as we enter Week 8, this offense has been a bust. Hampton is scoring just 9.6 fantasy PPG and Herbert has fallen completely out of my weekly ranks (and we rank 25 QBs). Now, there are always other factors here, like the subpar play of the Chargers' interior offensive line, for example. It's rough. Still, this is a good reminder that coaching moves can require a transition period, which will directly impact player production.-- Matt Bowen If you're going to settle at tight end, just stream Brock Bowers (19.1 fantasy PPG) and Trey McBride (18.6) are dominating in a tier of their own, proving well worth their early-round ADP. Later-round picks Isaiah Likely (16.1) and George Kittle (14.9) provided better preseason value, while Tyler Warren (14.0) is the only other tight end to crack the top five. Ultimately, this production curve proves that instead of settling for middle-tier traps like Colston Loveland, Kyle Pitts Sr. or Harold Fannin Jr., the best positional strategy is to either invest in elite talent early or hunt for value late. -- Liz Loza Just because a player hasn't done it before, doesn't mean he can't do it I admit I was skeptical of Walker handling a massive workload with the Chiefs and delivering MVP-type numbers. Walker's career high for touches in a season as a Seahawk was a modest 255 during his rookie campaign. Today, through six games, he is on pace for 391 touches, and there is little evidence the Chiefs plan to alter the trend, nor can they afford to do so. Walker missed games in three of his four previous seasons, and I scoffed at the possibility of him approaching 400 touches with his new franchise. Today, who knows? Perhaps I will be more trusting of potential workload increases for running backs in future seasons. -- Eric Karabell Be supremely patient through proven players' September struggles We're all sorry, Drake Maye. After three weeks of sub-10-point fantasy production, we were all running for the hills. Since then? He's scored 23-plus in four straight and is QB3 for the season. Maye did look awful in September, posting the league's worst interception rate (7.5%). He also faced three defenses (@SEA, PIT, @JAX) that, for the season, rank among the eight toughest against quarterbacks (schedule adjusted). Remember, we don't really know anything about the intricacies of the matchups themselves during the opening weeks. We need to give them evaluation time, and we need to face the possibility that our struggling players may be dealing with bad matchups. So, will I forgive Maye for getting me ousted in the opening week of our in-house Knockout league? Yeah, I guess I will. -- Tristan H. Cockcroft