Fantasy Football Draft Strategy: 6 Tips To Win Your League
Sharing knowledge with my friends and family about how to best approach their fantasy drafts is a pleasure for me. In fact, I love it so much that I will even give people I’m playing against advice on the best strategy to prepare for their fantasy football draft. The problem is that it takes longer than a 10 minute conversation. Preparing for the most important day of the season requires practice and preparation. If you want to be the champ, you must put in the work.
Every draft is its own beast. They move differently and present ever changing circumstances but there are ways to prepare and attack them. During this article, I will be discussing each strategy I personally use to prepare for every fantasy football draft. If you have any questions regarding these guidelines, please feel free to reach out to me on Twitter. I am always happy to help.
1. ADHERE TO SCORING AND ROSTER SETTINGS
Before entering any draft lobby, always go through the scoring settings as well as the starting roster and bench structure of your fantasy league. Most leagues are distinct from each other in terms of scoring.
For example, tight end premium leagues exclusively offer extra points for tight end receptions. If that is the case, do not be afraid to draft Travis Kelce or George Kittle in the first round. Hell, don’t be afraid to draft them back to back in the first two rounds. I like Tyreek Hill too, but there is no way I am taking him above those guys in tight end premium leagues. Do not be stubborn. Adhere to scoring settings and you will be off to a good start.
When researching roster structure, one thing is important to remember, “DEPTH”. If you’re playing in a 10 team league that starts three wide receivers, attack the wide receiver position early on in the draft to acquire quality starting receivers. After you have drafted your starters, pepper your bench spots to satiate that wide receiver demand.
If that same league only has two bench spots as opposed to seven bench spots, then receiver may not be that important because the shallow bench spots will dictate that plenty of wide receivers be left in the free agency pool.
2. PRACTICE IN MOCK OR BEST BALL DRAFTS
I can’t emphasize how important this is. Think about how NFL players are working their tails off during training camps to condition for actual regular season games. That is exactly how you should be approaching mock and best ball draft preparation. I do countless mock drafts every off season to condition my mind for any scenario I may encounter during my actual drafts.
Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your draft position as well as which players tend to fall to you in a given round is vital. Average draft position is constantly changing. Be aware of what you’ll be exposed to and you’ll be that much stronger.
Best ball drafts are useful because in order to participate in them, you must put a little of your own money on the line. It gets the blood going a bit and tests your wits. It is a great setting to see how prepared you really are. Try a few to help get the draft day jitters out.
There is a noticeable difference between those that prepare and do not prepare. If you prepare enough, then you will be walking away from your drafts completely satisfied no matter the outcome.
3. ESTABLISH PLAYER AND POSITION TIERS
Tiers are useful for several reasons. Primarily, tiers group players of a specific skill position together who share similar projected point projections. Constructing my own tiers helps me understand where I value players.
Let us say I have a tier of wide receivers made up of JuJu Smith-Schuster, D.J. Moore, Adam Thielen, and Allen Robinson. If I am drafting and I see that tier of wide receivers begin to get tapped into by other drafters, it alerts me that I should grab one before they are all gone.
Tiers also helps me understand where other drafters value certain players relative to mine. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen players I have ranked in lower tiers go before my higher tier players. That tells me that I am safe to wait another round and can pivot to address another position.
4. DURING DRAFTS, ALWAYS BE AWARE OF OTHER MANAGERS’ ROSTERS
As your draft approaches the middle to later rounds and managers begin to fill their rosters, it quickly becomes apparent as to what positions need to be filled on everybody’s rosters. Being aware of this gives you leverage in knowing how to prioritize your future picks.
If you are drafting from the 8th position in a 10-team league, that puts you close to the turn (area of the draft where a round switches). That means you only have two other managers to consider and that it’s four picks until your next pick.
A scenario: It is round three and you are picking from the 8th position. You want the last available running back in your tier. You are thinking of waiting until the next round to grab him. You quickly glance at the other owners’ rosters between your next pick and see that they went wide receiver heavy early. This implies that they need to fill their running back positions. Well, you better believe that the odds are high that the running back you are targeting will not be there when it comes back around to you in round four after the turn. Take your running back in round three and further deprive your league mates of quality players.
5. UNDERSTAND DRAFT STRATEGIES
This year, there are several prevalent draft strategies:
- Robust Running Back: Drafting three or more running backs in the first half of drafts.
- Zero Running Back: Not drafting a running back until after the 8-to-10th round.
- Modified Zero Running Back: Drafting a running back in the first round and not drafting another until the later rounds.
- Late Round Quarterback: Waiting until after the 8-to-10th round to draft a quarterback
- Quarterback/Wide Receiver/Tight End Stack: Pairing a quarterback with their wide receiver or tight end. (Matthew Stafford and Kenny Golladay, Lamar Jackson and Mark Andrews).
The mistake a lot of people make is going into drafts is having already made up their minds about which of these strategies they want to utilize. Do not enter your drafts with a predetermined draft strategy. These strategies are tools which are meant to help you remain flexible during your drafts. The only time it is acceptable to go into a draft with a predetermined strategy is when we’re practicing in mock drafts.
Becoming comfortable with each of these strategies allows you to confidently pivot from one strategy to the next. Think about generals on a battlefield. They go into a battle knowing the terrain. They have researched their opponent. They understand the depth of their resources. But they cannot account for every scenario their opponent will throw at them. They do not adhere to one strategy when it begins to fail. The successful battlefield general is able to comfortably pivot to an alternate strategy in order to out maneuver their opponent.
Be the savvy general. Understand these strategies and you will be better able to adapt to anything that comes your way.
6. RESEARCH SKILL POSITION DEPTH
Supply and demand are fundamental concepts to the marketplace. Remember how I said smart generals understand their depth of resources? Well in fantasy drafts, those resources are the players available to us at different skill positions.
Having a solid understanding of skill position depth (S.P.D.) grants us yet another level of comfort and confidence during our drafts. I’ll give you the short and sweet of player depth this year:
- Quarterback: Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes are the only set it and forget it quarterbacks. Other than those two, there is a historical amount of depth at the position. Unless you are looking to build a stack or are in a league that starts two quarterbacks, don’t really worry about drafting a quarterback early.
- Running back: The top running backs are going in the first two rounds. After that, its older, injury prone, committee, bad team situation, and rookie running backs in vague situations.
- Wide Receiver: Marianas Trench deep. Journey to the Center of the Earth Deep.
- Tight End: Top tier of two to three tight ends. Behind them there is a lot of talent which will help contribute solid weekly production along with some spike weeks. There’s always a couple late round tight ends who break out into the top tier.
When you draft with awareness of S.P.D., you draft with grace and composure. After we understand our respective roster and scoring settings along with our player tiers, we are less likely to react out of panic when we see a position run begin. Cooler heads always prevail.
Again, feel free to contact me on Twitter if you have any other questions. Always happy to help and good luck to all of you!
