Hey nerds! Yeah, I know exactly what you are; you can’t fool me. If you weren’t as big of a nerd as I am, would you really be here trying to figure out how to master a game that you’ve already spent hours falling short on? Or perhaps you are just another bored soul in lockdown who stumbled across this article and has no idea what you are about to dive into. As the first group of people can attest, this game will satisfy your boredom. We at FantasyPros built a game that maxes out your need for strategy and leaves you always wanting one more try.
It’s called the Perfect Draft Challenge and here’s how it works: We are going back to August of 2019 right before the NFL season starts. You will be drafting a team using Draft Wizard which accounts for ADP, expert rankings and realistic draft volatility so that every single draft is different. Your goal is to build the perfect team based on what actually happened last season. You will need 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex, 1 D/ST and 6 bench players. The Perfect Draft takes every week’s performance into account then gives you the best possible lineup each week from the players you drafted.
You can complete as many drafts as you want to which is what makes it such a unique challenge. You’ll be crafting ways to try getting just a little better while trying to figure out how the heck #1 on the leaderboard accomplished what he did. I won’t give away the full roster but I’ll give you some major tips today. And you aren’t going to want to miss this because we are giving away a signed Amari Cooper helmet to one person who beats the score from my first try (on the podcast at Youtube.com/FantasyPros). Now let’s talk about how to do just that and perhaps even break the overall record.
Perfect Draft: Play for Free and See How Your Score Stacks Up! 
You aren’t filling an empty bucket, you are building a puzzle
Perfect Draft isn’t about accumulating the top players at each position, but rather, fitting each player on your roster together to cover each position with solid performances every single week. You can get the #3 fantasy quarterback from last year, Dak Prescott, to play alongside Lamar Jackson, but considering both have a Week 8 bye, that won’t help you as much as last season’s #23 quarterback, Gardner Minshew.
The same applies, of course, to other positions. The Patriots were the top D/ST, but they had just two double-digit weeks after Week 8. The 49ers D/ST was great too, but they fell off towards the end of the season as well. You’ll have to balance your roster with two D/STs that work together, or perhaps even just punt a few weeks and use only one D/ST so that you can grab a 6th or 7th wide receiver. Have fun figuring out this giant jigsaw puzzle. You’ll become addicted as you inch one step closer to that elusive 3,000 mark that only one brilliant mind (Jaafar Beydoun) has achieved thus far.
This is an open book exam
If you listened to the FantasyPros Football Podcast episode where I demolished my fellow-analyst, Mike Tagliere, in a head to head matchup, you’d remember that we competed blindly with no information at our disposal. You don’t have to do it that way. Ok, sure, maybe it’s fun to try the first time, but if you really want to compete, do your research. We’ve got a handy leaders page that really helps out and it is easy to use. The link brings you to half-PPR’s top wide receivers from Weeks 1-16 (the settings in Perfect Draft). You can adjust it, however, to find out which defenses dominated in the second half, for instance, or which quarterback was great during Lamar Jackson’s Week 8 bye.
Likewise, I found it useful to surf Pro Football Reference’s play index in order to find the players (hint: Darius Slayton) who had a few huge weeks that would come into play using the best ball format. Additionally, you can click on a player’s name with Perfect Draft and click the “Games” tab to check their game logs. This can help you, for instance, find that fourth running back to fill the gap during the bye weeks of your other three backs. Use the information available to you and perhaps even build a game plan before you start your draft.
Mulligans are legal and they are your friend
What I’m about to tell you isn’t for the faint of heart. When I play Perfect Draft, I have four windows of the game open side by side by side by side. You can choose your draft order and I prefer to draft from the 3, 4 or even 5 spot in the first round. If Christian McCaffrey isn’t available, I’ll hit the refresh button. After I take him, I’ll look to see if one of my preferred second-round targets is available. If not? You guessed it; refresh.
In the time it takes a sane person to complete one Perfect Draft attempt, I’ll throw 50+ into the garbage before I find one that I really want to continue. Once that happens, you’ve got to cross your fingers that no one snipes you for Lamar Jackson, Davante Parker and other must-haves if you want a chance at that top prize. Now, you don’t have to be as ridiculous as me, but the point stands that it doesn’t hurt to start over if you don’t like how things fell the first time.
If you play enough, something crazy will happen
The best thing about Draft Wizard, whether in Perfect Draft or preparing for your 2020 league, is that every single draft is different from the previous one. It isn’t designed to just draft with ADP in mind or one set of rankings, but it utilizes over a hundred minds from around the fantasy football industry to provide you a realistic experience of all the things that could happen in your draft. That way, you can be prepared for any type of league from any spot in the draft. In Perfect Draft, this means that you will be shocked to see certain players fall in 1 out of 100 drafts or so.
The first time it happened to me, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Here I was, drafting from the #4 spot in hopes that George Kittle would fall to me at 2.21 so I could experiment with him as my first tight end. Low and behold, Dalvin Cook fell! I missed out on pairing him with either Aaron Jones or Derrick Henry, which hurt, but it intrigued me to press on for another chance at a trio of Christian McCaffrey, Dalvin Cook and Aaron Jones. I ended up finally getting that to happen but missed out on my preferred #1 tight end, #1 and #2 wideouts and backup quarterback. Ouch!
Then something crazier happened when I was trying again. Michael Thomas, the clear-cut #1 wide receiever who is often off the board in the first round, dropped to me in the late second. I had him and CMC; how could I screw this up! Well, I’ll tell ya, some lunatic AI team reached for Lamar Jackson in the SIXTH round. C’mon, man! Then the Patriots were sniped from me. Even still, I ended up nearly topping my all-time top score without Lamar or the Pats D/ST. Now, you have something incredible to inspire towards. Will this fall into your lap even better than it did for me?
Going for the top individual draft score isn’t the only fun thing to compete for, by the way. You can try to climb to the top of the leaderboard from the #8 spot in the draft; or the #12 spot. In fact, we have something called the Masters leaderboard which takes your top draft from all 12 draft order spots and compares it to everyone else’s. As far I’m concerned, the real champion of Perfect Draft isn’t the one with the best single score, but the one with the best combined scores from all 12 spots. Can you achieve it?
Can you Draft the Perfect Fantasy Team? Find Out
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