The 2022 draft's top four picks aged like milk except one

Three years out, the 2022 Fake Football League draft reads like a lesson in how fast running backs fall off a cliff.

The top of the board actually held up at the very top. Cmoney7 took Jonathan Taylor first overall, and he's still an elite RB — a rare case of a 1.01 not aging into a cautionary tale. PatBerry followed with Christian McCaffrey, also still elite, proof that even a noted trade addict can nail a straightforward pick.

After that it got ugly. Picks 4 through 8 — Austin Ekeler, Najee Harris, Dalvin Cook, Joe Mixon — are all off the fantasy radar now. Cooper Kupp at 6 has slid to depth-piece status. Four backs and a former WR1 gone from relevance inside three years is not a great look for the position that dominated the first round.

The receivers held up better. Justin Jefferson and Ja'Marr Chase, taken 9th and 11th, are still weekly starters and elite respectively — the kind of picks that make CapitanKampana's disdain for draft capital look a little less convincing.

The real story is what happened after round one. Cmoney7 doubled down with CeeDee Lamb in round 3, now elite. DamnBrit found Amon-Ra St. Brown in round 5 and Nico Collins fell to PatBerry in round 14 — both now weekly-or-better starters. Best of all, connorolson landed James Cook in round 10, an RB10-and-under pick that's now an elite back. Somewhere, the guys still holding first-round running backs are wondering how that happened.