Yards Per Fantasy University: Redraft & Keeper Leagues

So you’ve decided to join the ever growing fantasy football space? Or possibly you’re here to get a leg up on your competition this year after losing in the playoffs of your league last season. Either way, this article was written with the sole purpose of preparing you for what to expect, from your pre-draft prep, to your draft execution, your waiver wire approach, all the way to your championship run.

Redraft leagues are essentially the foundation of fantasy football. Most users begin their careers in one form of redraft or another. Although some, if not most, move on to bigger, more sophisticated fantasy leagues such as dynasty, keeper, or empire leagues, redraft is debatably still the most widely used format. Everything in redraft is taken at a season by season basis. This forces you to take a slightly different approach at every turn, while allowing you to focus on the short term season thats in front of you, as opposed to the long game that comes with dynasty, and to a certain extent, keeper leagues. I will touch on the ever slightful differences between keeper and redraft leagues later, but for now, allow me to get you prepared to succeed.

Pre-Draft

There are two things that you absolutely must do before any draft, regardless of format. It is imperative that you know your league settings and your league size. How you approach your draft will drastically change if you’re in a PPR (points per reception) 8 team league, as opposed to a 14 team, standard league. Does your league start 2 QBs? Perhaps your league allows you to start a QB in a flex spot (SuperFlex) or offers a bonus for receptions to a tight end (Tight End Premium – TEP). These things will factor into your draft and how you begin your approach. Once you understand how your league is setup, I strongly encourage you to find a fantasy service or app that you are comfortable with.

The Yards Per Fantasy App for example, gives you a ton of information including rankings, team profiles, and an “Ask an Expert” tool that allows you to ask questions you may have and receive a personal response from a member of the Yards Per Fantasy team.

You’re now ready to dive into some mock drafts. Consider these your trial runs, batting practice, whatever term you may use. It can’t be overstated how important this is. This is your opportunity to see which strategy you want to implement in your real draft when the time comes. Now, every draft is different. No two drafts will ever fall exactly the same way. However, this gives you an opportunity to see where the fantasy community and experts are valuing players and where you can take advantage of guys falling to a value.

The more reps you have beforehand, the more comfortable you’ll feel in your actual draft, making it much less nerve racking. This is your opportunity to try different strategies to see which one you like the best. As previously mentioned, not every draft falls exactly the same, so the more attentive and studied you are predraft, the less surprised you’ll be come draft day. Do not allow yourself to be set in any particular strategy. Stay flexible and stay prepared.

Now, my final piece of advice for your predraft process, is to break your rankings into tiers. Breaking your rankings into tiers is another way to make your draft process go smoother than trying to go strictly based off of a number ranking. Tier based rankings are relatively simple, and there are plenty of sites and analysts that have already done the hard work for you. Using tiers allows you draft players at a value easier, while also allowing you to see where you are able to wait on a particular position.

This is especiallly helpful if you are drafting in the first or last third of your draft, where you are able to better predict who will be there at your next pick. For example, if you are picking at the 2.08 of a 10 team league, and you have one Tier 1 WR and five Tier 2 RBs still available, you know that a RB in that tier will still be available to you at your next selection. Therefore, you can safely take that Tier 1 WR, knowing that you are guaranteed a solid, Tier 2 RB. Make sense? Fantastic!

Now that you’ve got your trusted site and/or analyst, you got your practice in, got your tier based rankings, you’re officially ready for the big time.

Draft

The meat and potatoes of your off-season and debatably the most significant part of the entire process. The Draft. Here is where you lay the foundation for the season ahead. This is where knowing your league settings will truly matter and your preparation will come into fruitition. There is some things to consider here, including your league size and scoring settings.

The larger the league, the more important your depth becomes. As you proceed further into your draft, as you should’ve seen in your mock drafts, the thinner positions will become. For example, the first pick in round 5 of a 10 team league, is pick 41. However, in a 14 team league, the first pick in round 5 is pick 57. For context, going off of overall finishes last season according to FantasyPros, you could get AJ Brown (41st overall) in a 10 team league, or Carson Wentz (57th overall) in a 14 team league. You can wipe the “eww” look off of your face now. These things matter. The other important thing to remember, is your scoring settings. In PPR leagues, receivers and running backs that are involved in the passing game, are naturally more valuable than those that aren’t. Obviously there are outliers, like Derrick Henry, who are so dominant on the ground and score enough TD’s to offset the lack of receiving work, but for the most part, this statement holds true.

For example, last season J.D. McKissic was RB17 in PPR formats with 191.4fpts. In standard scoring leagues, he was RB34 with 111.4fpts, behind guys like Latavius Murray and Adrian Peterson. Guys like McKissic, Tarik Cohen, Nyhiem Hines, etc, are much more valuable for a PPR league than they are for standard scoring leagues.

In your redraft leagues, things like age and future outlooks aren’t taken into consideration as closely as they may be in dynasty leagues. You simply want guys who are going to score as many points as possible. As long as you follow your tiers, for the most part, this should be relatively easy to execute. In shallower leagues, you’re able to be much more aggressive in your approach. Your waiver wire, or free agent pool, will be a lot more talent rich, as opposed to your deeper leagues, where the remaining talent is a little more scarce. Therefore, in a shallower league, if your later round guys don’t pan out, or injuries start to occur, there’s a better chance of finding a replacement level player off your waivers as opposed to your deeper leagues.

Waiver Wire

Now that you’ve selected your team, and your point scoring season has officially started, you now need to shift your focus to ensuring your team stays as competitive as possible. Outside of making trades, the waiver wire is your best bet to keep up in your league. Every year, and that is no exaggeration, there is a player or two that ends up being a waiver wire add that helps someone win a championship. Whether thats James Robinson or Mike Davis of last year, or Priest Holmes of years past, there’s always value to be had at some point in the season. Starters get injured, coaching philosophies change, a rookie shows drastic improvement, anything can happen in an NFL season.

The key is to try and be ahead of the curve as often as possible. See a rookie beginning to see a higher snap share week to week? A starter hurt early in a game or even late in the week at practice? That’s your opportunity to snag value off your waivers. Pay attention to practice and injury reports, along with snap share percentages from week to week. The more you pay attention, the more likely you are to get a potential league winner, essentially for free.

Championship Push

If you’ve followed along so far, you may notice that some luck may factor into this fun game inside of a game that we play. If you’ve drafted well, gotten value off your waivers, and stayed active in your league, you’ll hopefully be preparing for your playoff push. At this point, you should have a pretty solid handle on your roster and your starting lineup. Now is the time that you start to focus on upcoming schedules for your playoff weeks. If you see a guy that you’ve been plugging into your lineup every now and again has a difficult schedule for your leagues playoffs, take a look at what’s available to you in a trade or off your waivers for a guy who has a softer schedule on the horizon.

Maybe you notice that your opponent has a late season injury to a starting RB and his backup is available, go snag him for a bottom of your roster WR or QB. Every slight advantage could be the difference between you winning your league, or going home empty-handed. Remember, the point is to score more points than your opponent each and every week, and if you have to play a little “dirty” to do that, so be it.

As a personal example, in the championship week last year, I saw my opponent’s starting RB for a Monday Night game was injured. Ahead by 15 and a player remaining to his two, I took no chances and picked up each running back that could have gotten significant snaps and dropped my bench receivers. Victory secured, money in the bank. Dirty? Cheap? Possibly. Probably. But if the point of the game is to win, you do what you need to do. Why put all the hard work and dedication day to day, week to week, just to lose in the waning moments of your season? Not this guy.

End of Season

Now that you are officially your league champion, what is next? Well, that depends. If you’re in a redraft league, well then your season is over. Back to square one. However, if you’ve decided to join a keeper league, things change slightly. In most keeper leagues, you can keep anywhere from 2-5 players from year to year. All leagues are different, and this is where knowing your league settings is paramount. Can you only keep players drafted after a certain round? Perhaps you can only keep players for so long. It’s a modified dynasty league, but keeps the league relatively fresh from year to year.

In keeper leagues, the biggest thing to remember is that you want to keep value. VALUE. If you drafted Josh Jacobs in the first round this past season, and your league says you need to keep a player at that same round, that is no longer a value. However, if you drafted a guy like Jonathon Taylor or Justin Jefferson in the 5th round, they will now be values, as they are 1st or early 2nd round picks this season according to ADP (Average Draft Position).

Age and future situation is now a factor into your decision, and luckily, most leagues simply want your keepers in before that next seasons draft. This allows you to look at the landscape of the league and your team to see which players you can keep at a value or guys that have lost value since the end of your season. Once you have your keepers set, now its back to square one for you. The best thing about redraft/keeper leagues, is you’re guaranteed a fresh, or borderline fresh, start. Bad luck hit? Injury riddled roster? Top scoring team that unfortunately ran into a buzz saw at the end of the season? It’s all wiped, relatively, clean. You’re able to come back more prepared, more seasoned, and more confident than the year before.

So there you have it. Whether you take everything in stone, or take bits and pieces, the hope is that you learn something, anything about your redraft or keeper leagues. If this is your first time playing, or you’re simply looking to better yourself as a fantasy manager, just remember, “There are three kinds of lies; lies, damn lies, and statistics.” Thanks Mark Twain.

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 @mackey_ffb