My home league is a blast, and the draft is an annual event that everyone looks forward to. We hold it live with the previous season’s losers buying booze and meat to throw on the grill for everybody. For the sake of anonymity, we’ll call my buddy, the subject of this story, Andy.
Our 2017 draft was held on a Friday night. Andy decided to go to a happy hour with some coworkers and showed up to the draft not only late, but utterly unprepared for what was ahead of him. He had done next to no research, and the only things he had in front of him were his phone, the sheet of paper the host provided to cross names off of, and a beer.
We keep a couple players, and he traded some picks, so he was already behind the eight ball coming into the season, but things unraveled when he took Kirk Cousins with the 79th pick only to take Derek Anderson nine picks later. Yes, that Derek Anderson. The Panthers’ backup quarterback.
The Anderson pick forms my number one draft strategy tip, which I’m going to coin as “The Derek Anderson Rule” — never be the most intoxicated person in the room. So you’re at your draft with a (relatively) clear head. Now what? Let’s go through some draft strategies to help you pick your best team.
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Auction Drafts
Studs and Scrubs
This strategy is exactly what it sounds like — grabbing three or four top-tier players, think first or second round picks in a standard draft, and then filling out your roster with replacement level players — the type that would typically be found in the double-digit rounds of your normal snake draft. A lot of very smart analysts love this strategy. If your studs stay healthy, they can carry you to a playoff birth, and with a big waiver wire hit or two, it’s easy to see yourself steamrolling to a championship. The flip side, of course, is an injury or bust to a couple of your top dogs, which would all but tank your season. “Studs and Scrubs” is the ultimate risk versus reward strategy, so using it comes down to risk tolerance.
Wait it Out
Pretty much the exact opposite of the “Studs and Scrubs” approach. With this strategy you let the other people take the risk of blowing most of their budget on the top tier players, instead opting for a deep roster from top to bottom. You can still get some lower-end WR1 or RB1 caliber players and a stable full of WR2/RB2s. You’re not going to have the monstrous weekly performances out of your top guys, but the balance should keep you competitive every single week, and there’s still the opportunity to find your studs on the waiver wire.
This is my strategy for auction drafts. I have a fairly risk-averse personality, and with the weekly variance of the head to head matchups we have in fantasy football, my strategy is generally to get to the playoffs and hope for the best from there. I’ve had too many stacked teams fizzle out in the first round to take that risk in the regular season.
Standard Snake Drafts
Running Back Heavy
Way back in the day of workhorse running backs scoring 25 touchdowns every season (those magical years between 2000 and 2006 or so), running back-heavy drafts were considered a must. The advantage the top running backs gave weekly was something that was seemingly impossible to win without. Guys like Marshall Faulk, LaDainian Tomlinson, Priest Holmes, and Shaun Alexander are the stuff of legends for those of us who have been playing fantasy football since then.
According to MyFantasyLeague’s historical ADP list, in 2003 the first eight picks off the board were running backs. The first round had 10 running backs, one QB, and one WR off the board. You had to have a top-tier running back.
It seems like many analysts are back to this line of thinking. So far this season we are seeing nine running backs going in the first round, the most since 2013. The idea here is to load up on running backs and get yourself a solid base of consistent production at the position. With wide receivers seeing the lowest amount of volume in years last season, the thinking goes that there are plenty of receiving options in the middle rounds. Players like Golden Tate (ADP 51), Michael Crabtree (ADP 67), and Pierre Garcon (ADP 84) can give you a solid floor every week while upside options such as Corey Davis (ADP 70) or Will Fuller (ADP 74) can provide you that weekly boom to dominate.
Zero RB
The antithesis of the first strategy, Zero RB was the strategy to go with as recently as 2016 when we saw the first three picks off the board and six of the first 12 come from the wide receiver position. I wrote about Zero RB earlier this offseason, but the idea is simple — wide receivers are easier to project and less injury prone than running backs. In that piece, I noted that running backs are 15% more likely to get hurt than wide receivers, and when they do it’s for 22% longer.
With Zero RB you’re hoping the top of your draft is consistent and healthy and your goal is to load up on running backs in the middle rounds. You’re looking for guys at this point who have a clear path to touches (Lamar Miller, anyone?) and/or third down backs if you’re playing in a points per reception league. This strategy is one that I often find myself employing with the rush for everyone to grab running backs early. If I’m picking in the late first and can grab Odell Beckham Jr. and Julio Jones with my first two picks, I feel like I came out of these first two rounds as well as anyone.
The above four strategies are just glimpses into the complexities we find ourselves dealing with on draft day. There are numerous articles written on our site that explore the concepts more in depth, but a general overview of each should hopefully give you an idea of how you want to attack your drafts. Remember that drafts are fluid and a lot can change in a short amount of time, so the willingness to adapt is key, but having a clear plan (and a clear head) is never going to hurt you.
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Ryan Melosi is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Ryan, check out his archive and follow him @RTMelosi.
