Yards Per Fantasy University: Drafting
The first part of the fantasy football journey for any new team or league is the draft. It’s the foundation of your team and the center of everything you’ll do from here on, so it’s important to understand what goes on.
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The Basics
Now you can’t just pick whatever players you like the look of and start building your team, you have to draft against your league mates. This will be a set date and time, and either be at a location where you all gather together or (as is more common these days) it will be online. Most platforms let you do it from their app or from a desktop site.
We’ll cover different types of drafts and strategies later but for now, we’ll hit on the most common type of draft – a snake draft with a timer. With these drafts, there will be a draft order (which may be determined by previous season results, randomised pre-draft, or some other extravagant method of picking the order) and a time limit for each pick (could be as little as 30 seconds or 60 seconds). When the draft starts, the manager with the first pick takes the player they want, then the second manager takes the player they want, and so on. Once a player is selected, they’re off the ‘draft board’ and no-one else can take that player.
When you hit the last manager and they take their pick, the next round of the draft starts and you go again. However this time, you ‘snake’ back around through the teams so whoever picked last in the first round will pick first in the next round. If you picture a grid with 12 columns, the snake goes left to right, then right to left, then left to right, then right to left, etc. This is designed to provide balance and not give manager one an unfair advantage.
Side Note: you may hear ‘the turn’ which refers to the ends of the draft order where the snake ‘turns’ and comes back the other way.
Who to Draft
The concept is simple, you draft the players that you think will score you the most points. Guess what? Your league mates are doing the same and they’re going to take players that you wanted. So we need some principles and strategies to help guide us through.
Understand Value
The highest scorers in fantasy football are usually Quarterbacks, but the difference between the highest scoring Quarterback and the 5th highest scoring Quarterback is a lot less than the difference between the highest scoring Running back and the 5th highest scoring Running Back. Taking the first Quarterback in round one therefore doesn’t give you a significant advantage over those who wait and take a Quarterback later.
Suggested Players
When you’re drafting, there will be a list of suggested players (usually filterable by position) in order of who is the ‘best’ player still available. That order will be different across different platforms and will either be based on the rankings created by that site, or the Average Draft Position (ADP) of others that have drafted before you.
This list is the opinion of people using that platform, it is not gospel and your draft will not follow this order. It does however serve several purposes:
- If you don’t have a set of rankings you trust or you’re getting frazzled by how quickly the draft is moving, they shouldn’t be a million miles off and you can use them to help guide you to the players you like;
- You can get an idea of how your league mates may be drafting. You can see the likely players in the list up ahead and use it to help predict what other managers are going to do with their picks;
- You can also see whether certain players are likely to have been drafted before your next pick and whether there are players that aren’t predicted to go for several more rounds that you may be able to wait for.
Drafting in Tiers
A strong draft strategy is to have the players ranked in tiers and then to understand those tiers. Lets say, for example, that you consider five running backs to all be of a similar value but only one wide receiver, then there is a greater chance that one of those running backs will be there with your next pick and you could take the wide receiver with your current pick.
There is still a danger that all the players in a particular tier get drafted by others between your picks but it’s a likelihood game.
Draft Board
This goes along with the previous point, look at the draft board and see what your league mates are doing. If the managers that sit between your current pick and your next pick need wide receivers then maybe you take that wide receiver now before its too late. If 8 out of 9 league mates have drafted a Quarterback then maybe you can afford to wait another round or two before you draft yours.
Again, there’s no guarantees with any of this. It might not make sense to you for one of your league mates to draft that second Tight End this early, but they might see value in it. It certainly helps if you know your league mates and their tendencies.
Queue
A tool available on most platforms is the queue. Here, you can start to line up the players that you want to take with your next couple of picks. Drafts can move quick and when you’re on the clock, panic can set in. So spending the time in between picks queuing up the players you like in the order you like can be valuable. And if your timer runs out or you lose internet connection, the system will auto-draft the player at the top of your queue and not the Kicker sat at the top of the suggested players list.
Roster Construction
There are lots of opinions and strategies around roster construction, and that’s covered in a more detailed guide, but there are some fundamentals to think about.
- How many starting spots are there on your roster? Do you have to start two wide receivers or three? Are there more Flex (WR/RB/TE) spots or less? The more starting spots there are for a position, the more depth you’ll need on your roster to cover them.
- How many teams are in your league? If you’re in a 14 team league that starts three wide receivers each, that’s 42 starting wide receivers before you even get to the flex positions. In those leagues you’ll need more wide receivers on your roster than an 8 team league that starts two wide receivers each (16 starting wide receivers only).
- What’s your scoring format? If it’s a PPR (points per reception) league then players who catch more passes have more value than those who don’t.
- How many bench spots do you have? The more bench spots you have, the more depth you can stash and the more ‘shoot for the moon’ stashes you can make. If you only have a few bench spots, you’ll probably need to save these for reliable backup players.
- How volatile are the players you’re drafting? Have you got a solid running back who is likely to get consistent volume and work every week, or have you got a wide receiver that’s either going to score five touchdowns or catch three passes? More stability at the top of your roster might allow you to take some more chances further down, whereas a team with volatile players at the top might need some more steady performers to back them up.
Reaching v Get your guys
A term you may hear around drafts is ‘reaching’. This means drafting a player earlier than his value says you should have. As an extreme example, if you take a third-string running back in the first round of the draft then you’ve definitely reached!
Drafting is about getting value for your picks. If you reach beyond a player’s value then you are less likely to see the return in production that makes that pick worthwhile. However, if you really do believe in a player and don’t believe they’ll make it to your next pick then go get your guy! It’s a personal decision and influenced by all the other factors we’ve talked about, but ultimately this is a game and you’re supposed to be having fun – if securing that player on your team is what it takes then go for it, just don’t reach too far or too early. If there are solid picks still available then you’re probably better taking the value, but there’ll be a point in the draft where the guaranteed starters are all gone and that’s a fantastic point to start getting your guys.
Kickers and Defense/Special Teams (DST)
It’s not everyone’s favourite topic but they’re still a part of many leagues.
If your roster requires you to draft a kicker and/or DST then the best strategy is to wait until the last picks of your draft and then take the best available. Some people will ‘reach’ a bit but the difference between these players is minimal and there’s no guarantees on who is going to be the best pick. You might want to start grabbing them one pick earlier if you think your last bench stash player will be available at the end, but you shouldn’t go much further than that.
For DST’s, a popular strategy is to ‘stream’ them. This means that you take the DST that you think has the best matchup in any given week. If you’re doing this, you draft the DST that you think has the best week one matchup and figure it out from there.
Again, know your rules. If you’re drafting several weeks before the season starts and you don’t have to draft these positions then you can grab more bench stash players or backups in case an injury happens before the season starts. Then in the last few days before games commence, you can drop your worst player and pick these positions up.
That’s the key fundamentals of a draft. Lots of moving parts and it can flash past very quickly, but it’s one of the most fun parts of fantasy football so enjoy it!
And of course, you can always ask the Yards Per Fantasy team for help and advice any time with our Ask The Expert feature.
Professor: Follow @MattFFBall
