Before you start, take a look back at the title of this article. How to win your draft. NOT how to win your league. A million things can, and will happen throughout the season that change the course of your fantasy finish. For instance, a simple waiver wire pick up of Odell Beckham Jr. or C.J. Anderson last year likely brings you home the hardware. Or a 2.4 fantasy point performance from the number one quarterback, Andrew Luck, in most fantasy league’s championship week. If you could Marty McFly back to last year’s draft would you skip on Luck knowing he would shit the bed in week 16? Probably not. The point of the fantasy draft is to add enough depth and to draft based on value, giving yourself the best probability to win, week in and week out.
You should never have an exact strategy when entering a fantasy draft. The key is to improvise and choose the best player available during the early to late rounds and shoot for high-ceiling players and sleepers towards the end. Maybe you love Peyton Manning this year. Doesn’t mean you take him in round two. This is where mock drafts come in to play. Manning’s ADP, or average draft position, is currently around 35, or midway through round four in 10-team leagues. Given the variation from draft to draft, there’s a time and place to reach for guys you love. Your fantasy league is probably made up of nine other dudes you’ve known for at least a few years. Ya’ll have talked football throughout the summer and you can get a feel for what their next move is going to be. Is there a Broncos fan picking at 32? He’s probably shooting for Peyton. If you’re doing an online draft with random league members, you’ll need more practice. You don’t want to take Peyton with pick 25 when you can more likely than not get him at the 35th pick. In the end, it’s the same result: Peyton Manning is your fantasy QB. The difference is, if you take him in round two, you’ll get a much less enviable RB/WR in round three, whereas you can get a round two RB/WR and still grab Peyton in round three.
It’s all about practice. This year, only an Andrew Luck or Aaron Rodgers is worth taking that early given the stupid depth at the QB position. Ultimately, test the waters in mock drafts. See where guys that you like are being taken and figure out if it’s worth the reach. If you reach for player A, causing you to miss out on player B, C and D, are you okay with that?
Which brings me to my next point, waiting on a QB and TE. If you read a ton of fantasy football articles and listen to too many podcasts in the offseason like myself you’ve probably heard this before. Whe drafting a QB or a TE, either be the first or the last person in your league to do so. The reason being – the difference between QB5 (Drew Brees) last season and QB15 (Eli Manning) was 2.3 fantasy points per game. I’m willing to bet it’ll be a similar drop-off in fantasy ppg at the QB position this year. When you take a look at a position like running back, RB5 (Marshawn Lynch) scored 5.5 more fantasy points per game last season than RB15 (Giovani Bernard). Looking at the TE position, the difference between TE6 (Martellus Bennett) and TE23 (Jermaine Gresham) was less than 3 points per game.
What all those numbers mean is that you can literally wait 7-10 rounds and instead of drafting Drew Brees in the third, grab Eli Manning in the 11th and miss out on two fantasy points per game. And with that third round pick, you can snag RB10 instead of RB19 in the fourth, gaining 5-6 points on a weekly basis; numbers don’t lie. It’s the same reason why I hate people who think they’re smart taking a defense in round 7 or a kicker in anything besides the last round; the difference between points per game at these positions is so minimal that you’re wasting a pick.
Draft running backs and wide receivers until your starting spots are full. And then draft more of them. And then another one. Unless Andrew Luck drops to you at pick 25 or later, wait on the position. I know it’s tempting, but when you look back at your draft you’ll be happy with your depth at RB and WR. And it’s not the end of the world if you have an Eli Manning, Carson Palmer or Sam Bradford holding the reins. To get specific I wrote about which late round QBs you want leading your fantasy team here in Steals of the Draft: QB Edition. In my draft this year, I have pick number three (10-team) and I’ve known for a few months already that I’ll draft whoever of Adrian Peterson, Le’Veon Bell or Eddie Lacy fall to me, in that order. And I’ve done enough mocks to start gaining a general plan that at 18-23-38 I’m likely going WR-WR-WR. But again, if a top RB falls to one of those spots, I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger.
I want to touch on the WR position for a sec. As I said before, I have the third pick in my draft, but if I had the fifth pick or later, I’d almost definitely be taking two receivers. The way I look at it, there are seven (would have been eight with Jordy Nelson, can argue Randall Cobb now if he’s healthy) elite receivers that are sure things, not a term to throw around loosely in fantasy, barring a flukey injury. Those seven are Antonio Brown, Demaryius Thomas, Dez Bryant, Julio Jones, Calvin Johnson, Odell Beckham Jr., and A.J. Green. Everyone of these guys has proved to be dominant at their position, have been the number one wideout on their team and will undoubtedly lead there team in targets, receptions, and touchdowns. Compare that to the top seven or eight running backs and things start getting muddy. The WR position at the top tier is much larger and safer than the top tier of RBs.
Start off WR, WR, WR if the best player available at those spots are WRs. In a draft of mine last year I went Demaryius Thomas, Brandon Marshall (who I later traded for Julio Jones), Antonio Brown to start off. You can imagine how my year went. But the same goes with running backs. Never reach for a player simply because you “need” to fill a position hole. But don’t be an asshole. Just because I said best player available, don’t use your first eight picks on WRs.
Rule of thumb: you can start off drafting as many of one position that can fit in your starting lineup. If your league starts 2 WR 1 Flex, don't hesitate to draft three WRs off the bat if that's what your draft has given you. If you can only fit a maximum 2 WR in your starting lineup, I wouldn't necessarily cut off the position but it could be a tie breaker at the point.
Especially this year, there are a shitload of RBs that you can get in the middle rounds that are just as capable of low-end RB1 numbers as some of the guys going inside the top 15. Think guys like LeGarrette Blount, Rashad Jennings, Doug Martin, C.J. Spiller, Todd Gurley, Christopher Ivory, Isaiah Crowell, etc. You stack four of these guys on your team and it’s almost a guarantee one or two of them will pop off. All of them are inline to lead their team in carries and are more than capable of feature back workloads if something goes wrong, or in some cases, right.
The one exception to the rule here, in my opinion, is Rob Gronkowski. As I said before, either be the first or last one in your league to grab a tight end. Personally, I would never use my first round pick on a TE, but I honestly couldn’t accumulate a good argument against someone that does it with Gronk. He’s completely in a class of his own and the Pats tight end will give you an advantage at a scarce fantasy position every single week. But for those of you who think like me, take a WR or RB with your first round pick and grab one of these guys with your 10th-13th round pick.
When you get to the later rounds in your draft (think Round 9 and later) you want guys with high ceilings. I’ll take a combine hero rookie like Breshad Perriman whose ceiling is that of a top-15 WR, but floor admittedly could be in the WR55 range, over a proven veteran like Marques Colston. Colston will never finish inside the positions top 12. He might give you seven points per game, a nice fill-in for your WR3/flex, but what happens if Perriman comes back and blows the fuck up. The Ravens drafted him to be their WR1, and given their lack of depth at receiver, it’s more than possible. I’m just saying, when it gets late in the draft, high-ceiling players are who you want. Maybe not every pick, but now is the time to pick a player that leave’s people scratching their head. Cause really, when you look at your previous years draft board, how many players picked in round 9 or later are still relevant in fantasy? Maybe four or five. These are the rounds to swing for the fences on guys you’ve been eyeing since June.
Speaking of the late rounds, and I don’t think it’s possible to convince me otherwise, round 14 is strictly for defenses, round 15 is strictly for kickers. I’m not going to get into this again about the differences in points per game, but the numbers speak for themselves. Plus it’s way smarter to stream defenses weekly based on the offense they’re going up against. I don’t hate the strategy of having two defenses on your team throughout the season either. Yoo can draft a stout D like the Dolphins or Bills, and then take a peep down the schedule at who matches up against Tennessee in two weeks. Stash and laugh.
There’s a million ways to win your fantasy league, but all of them start with draft day. You can’t win your league in the first round, but you can lose it. This isn’t the time to reach for a player or draft a guy with big injury concerns. Your round 1 pick should be supplying you with elite numbers every week. If you fuck that one up, you’re already wayyyyy behind in your weekly match ups. Play it safe in round 1, you can make big moves later in the draft or via trade. If your friends are like mine (in that they’re retarded), you’ll have plenty of good players that fall to you where they shouldn’t. Build your depth at WR and RB, wait on QB and TE. Last year I went a full 11 rounds before taking anything but these two positions and I’m still alive to talk about it. Here’s my draft board for proof: (I’m “The Hard R’s”; pick #2)
Never draft a kicker before the last round. Don’t think that because the magazine you picked up 11 minutes before your draft ranks a certain WR two spots ahead of another, that you can’t choose the lower ranked of the two. Mock, mock, and mock some more. You can’t pick based on value if you don’t know what a player’s value is in in the first place. And most importantly, trust your gut. But make sure you do your research before you need to ask your gut.
From the entire Big Dogs family, have the dopest of dope fantasy football seasons.
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