Ultimate Guide to Fantasy Football Salary Cap Drafts (2021)

There’s no right way to approach or execute a fantasy football salary cap draft. Google “fantasy football salary cap draft strategy,” and you can spend days learning various recommended tactics to dominate your league.

Like many fantasy football managers, I struggled with fantasy football salary cap drafts for a long time, particularly when I first started. I often left myself with too much money on the table (the cardinal sin), unsure when to strike and back off. In other drafts, I’d spend willy-nilly because I couldn’t decide on a strategy and would have no sense of when to rein it in.

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But eventually, I settled on a strategy that has worked well for me for years, and the best part is that it doesn’t take all that much work to master it. So, although googling will surely bring some great ideas, in my opinion, if you follow the steps outlined below, you’ll be able to confidently enter every fantasy football salary cap draft from here on out, knowing that you’ll end the day giving your team a chance to compete for the championship.

So, let’s dive in. In my opinion, there are four steps to successfully executing a fantasy football salary cap draft.

1. Create Reliable Values
2. Divide Players into Tiers by Position
3. Build a Spending Plan Broken Down by Position
4. Execute and Adapt

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Create Reliable Values
As you might have expected, having reliable salary cap values is a pretty significant component of your success. I’m personally of the mind that you don’t need to be married to your fantasy football values (fantasy baseball may be another story). To me, they’re more like loose guidelines to give you the general sense of a player’s fantasy worth, but you need to be able to push past them without much hesitation at the right time.

Still, that’s not to say that your values are meaningless. Although I don’t believe you should be tied to them, you should feel confident that they accurately represent the general values of players by position. As you’ll see when you reach the end of this section, you can (and I recommend you do) use the FantasyPros Salary Cap Calculator to create your values because it will do what I’m talking about here in about three seconds.

But, to the extent you: A) don’t have a computer, tablet, or smartphone (and since you’re reading this, I know you do, so stop fibbing) or B) just like complicated math problems, let’s walk through the process of how you should create salary cap values. Otherwise, skip right on by this section.

The theory behind most salary cap values is VORP or Value Over Replacement Player. It’s a subset of VBD or Value-Based Drafting. Essentially, it merely means that a player’s projected point total is only valuable in relation to the fantasy points projected for the best option on the waiver wire.

As an example, take the 15 players who finished with the most half-PPR fantasy points last year: 1) Josh Allen, 2) Kyler Murray, 3) Aaron Rodgers, 4) Patrick Mahomes, 5) Deshaun Watson, 6) Russell Wilson, 7) Ryan Tannehill, 8) Tom Brady, 9) Justin Herbert, 10) Lamar Jackson, 11) Alvin Kamara, 12) Derrick Henry, 13) Kirk Cousins, 14) Dalvin Cook, and 15) Davante Adams. That’s 12 quarterbacks, two running backs, and a wide receiver. But even if you knew that the order would be the same this year, you’re certainly not drafting in that order or considering drafting a quarterback before Christian McCaffrey in anything but a superflex league.

VORP is the simple reason behind that. Let’s assume you’re in a 12-team league. Josh Allen’s 405.7 points were fantastic. But Derek Carr, the 13th-ranked quarterback and our best waiver-wire option scored 281.1.  That’s a difference of 124.6 points.

On the other hand, Derrick Henry scored 314.1 points last year, an impressive total, but one that was ultimately almost 100 points lower than Allen’s. James Conner, the 25th-ranked running back (aka, your best waiver-wire running back in this example*), scored 129.6.

In other words, Henry was 184.5 points better than the best waiver-wire option at his position, while Allen was only 124.6 points better than the best waiver-wire option at his position. That is the reason you have a higher value on Henry, Dalvin Cook, and a ton of other running backs than you do on Allen in a single-quarterback league. And because even without preparing at all, you know you’d want to pay more for Henry than Allen, that officially makes you a genius. Way to be!

* In reality, the  25th-ranked running back in your league – here, Conner – was rostered because every starting running back is rostered, fantasy managers often play running backs in their flex spots, and running backs will occupy several bench spots. So, this is a bit of an over-simplification. But if we included additional running backs in this example (and perhaps a few additional bench quarterbacks, then Henry’s VORP would be even more pronounced than Allen’s. So, let’s keep it simple to make the point. 

Ok, ok, settle down there, tiger. We’ve just established the broad theory on which many salary cap values are based. We’ve got a long way to go before we’ve actually created our values. To do that, you begin by projecting statistics for every player, or at least every player that you expect to be taken at your salary cap draft given your league parameters.

You then take those projections and turn them into fantasy points based on your scoring system. Fun, huh? Don’t worry; we’ve got a long way to go. Let’s assume you’ve done this, and it came out to 8,000 fantasy points that will be purchased at your draft.

You then need to take the total amount of money that will be spent on the draft and divide that number by the total number of fantasy points that will be purchased at the draft (that 8,000 we just discussed). So assuming you’re in a 12-team league with $200 budgets, that means that the league as a whole will spend $2,400, and you divide that number by the total number of fantasy points that will be drafted (8,000). That equals 0.30 – we’ll call this the multiplier.

Have you stopped reading and gone to the salary cap calculator yet? No. Ok, well, your next job is to multiply the multiplier by every player’s VORP – the number of fantasy points by which he exceeds the fantasy points of the best waiver-wire option at his position. So, looking back at Derrick Henry and Josh Allen, if those numbers above were your projections, Henry would have a value of $55.35 (184.5 x 0.30) while Allen would have a value of $37.38 (124.6 x 0.30).

Look, if you want to do all that, I think it’s not only commendable, but it’s a gratifying experience.  I also think you’re probably going to need to quit your day job and tell your spouse that you’ll likely be checked out for a while. When viable alternatives are available, there’s no need to turn your life upside down to create values you trust.

And, as I mentioned above, my preferred viable alternative is the FantasyPros Salary Cap Calculator, and it’s for a pretty simple reason. Window dressing aside, values are only as good as the projections on which they are based. The FantasyPros Salary Cap Calculator uses the aggregate of several established projection systems.

It’s the same reason we all look at the expert consensus rankings each week before setting our lineups. Why trust one great mind when you can combine dozens or even hundreds? Just input your custom scoring settings and let it do the work of creating strong salary cap values for you.

Okay, so we’re through the first step, and really, it’s going to take you just a couple of minutes to get it done unless you want to be a hero. Don’t be. Admit you’re just a mere mortal, take your shortcut, and move on. I promise, there’s plenty of work to be done!

Divide Players into Tiers by Position
After our marathon first step (if you decided to forego technology, that is), we’re on to our much quicker and even easier second step – creating tiers. As you probably know, creating tiers is merely a way of grouping similar-caliber players, and each tier should contain players who you believe will contribute around as much as the other players in the same tier.

Tiers help to guide you during your salary cap draft. You may be feeling like a ton of running backs are off the board, but if you realize that you still have five left from your second tier, you’ll know not to panic and possibly overpay.

Ask five different experts, and they’d all give you different tiers at each position, so there is no science behind it. It’s all about how YOU feel in terms of which players you think fall into the same general level of production.

You think the top tier of running backs is two-deep instead of four-deep? Great. The most important part is that you divide your players into tiers, whatever those tiers may be, based on your created salary cap values.

Build a Spending Plan
Your final step before entering your draft is to create a plan for how to allocate your budget. Determining how you want to distribute your dollars in advance of the draft is the key to staying in control when the bidding starts getting fast and furious. There are only two rules for creating your spending plan: 1) Split your budget in whatever way makes you comfortable, and 2) Write down your spending plan in pencil, not pen.

If you want to make sure you have two top running backs, or you know from your league’s history that you’re going to need to pay for wide receivers, that’s all well and good. How much you want to spend on each position is truly a matter of personal preference and, when it comes down to it, it’s all about how you think you can maximize your dollars.

One of my favorite leagues begins with a $200 budget and has the following roster positions: Two quarterbacks, two running backs, four WR/TE, one flex, and four bench spots. Here is what my spending plan looked like heading into last year’s draft:

Now, when all is said and done, my actual budget allocation differed substantially from the breakdown above. But that’s not what matters. What does matter is I had a comfortable framework ready to go, one which I could quickly change in the heat of the draft depending on my purchases.

I’ll reiterate — how you break down your budget allocation is entirely up to you. You want to go stars and scrubs or not spend more than $20 on a player? Have at it. This is simply the breakdown that I used based on my values and how I saw the draft playing out. You do you.

A final note on the spending plan — all the numbers in bold are based on formulas. Each separate position is merely the total of how much you spent on each player, and the “TOTAL” adds up the totals from each of the five columns. As you go along in the draft and fill in your players, you’ll be changing the amounts you’ve spent, which will automatically update your total. I’ve found this to be the easiest way to keep track of your plan during the draft.

In addition, you should be using the Draft Wizard Draft Assistant, which is an easy way to keep track of everyone’s budgets and which syncs with your salary cap draft. I’ll discuss it a bit more later, but let that tool do the bulk of the bookkeeping for you while you focus on the next step.

Execute and Adapt
All your preparation is done, and the only thing left to do is execute your salary cap draft. There is no one guiding principle or lesson that you can follow to perfect a salary cap draft. But there are several things you need to be mindful of during your draft to ensure that all your preparation is not for naught:

1) Be ready to change your spending plan quickly
You’re looking for discounted buys wherever they come, and it could be that you spend more for Lamar Jackson than you thought you would on a quarterback. When you write his name into your top QB slot, you might have to change that “25” to a “38” swiftly. But that puts your quarterback total at 58 and your overall total to 213. What now?

That moment — when you’re looking at your spending plan and knowing you need to make some changes while also following what is happening at the draft — is the most difficult part of the salary cap draft experience. In the end, the biggest takeaway is that you can always adapt your plan further, so don’t spend too much time worrying about what to do in that instant.

But get that total number back to 200 as quickly as you can. Perhaps instead of the $45 you had allocated for your RB1, you take that down to $38 and then trim $2 each from your top three wide receivers.

Whatever you do, you need to be prepared to adapt at a moment’s notice.

2) Nominate players that you actually want…sometimes
Most fantasy managers try to nominate stud players in whom they have little interest to get money off the board. That’s a fine strategy, mainly after you’ve spent much of your budget and you want to even out the playing field. But do not be afraid, at any point in the draft, to nominate a player who you do want.

If you know that most of your league has an irrational hatred of Ezekiel Elliott, you might think to yourself that you’ll just let everyone bid on some other stud running backs before moving in on him, when the price will probably be even lower. Except what if one random manager has decided that Elliott is the last RB1 left, or they merely predict big things from him, and you’re outbid? At that point, you’ve missed out on many of the other top players thinking you’ll have Elliott, and you’re in a bit of a pickle.

If you have a specific target that you think will present a value, it’s often better to nominate that player early, so you’ll know whether or not you’ll be the highest bidder. That’s particularly true of a high-priced player. If you lose out on the bidding, you can easily transition to your Plan B.

Also, there’s often a lull in the bidding at some point when most managers are trying to conserve money and are not looking to make a move. That’s a good time to try to nominate a player you want and sneak him through.

3) Keep track of everyone’s roster
Keeping a rough track of how everyone else’s roster stacks up is essential in executing a successful salary cap draft. If you know that only one other team hasn’t filled its third wide receiver spot, but that team has more of its budget left than you, you might want to wait on nominating your sleeper wide receiver until that manager spends a bit more. At the same time, if you see most everyone has their quarterback position filled, it might not be a bad idea to get the guy you want out there.

I mentioned the Draft Wizard Draft Assistant earlier, and it is by far the best way to keep track of everyone’s roster. You can easily look at how every other team in your league is faring, whether with roster positions or remaining budget. You can certainly do it by hand if you’re a better person than I am. Which you probably are, but still. I don’t see why you had to get so mean about it.

4) Don’t panic
Sounds easy enough, but salary cap drafts are about as stressful as can be. Sometimes, you can narrowly lose a bidding war and go on tilt, targeting another manager rather than building the best team. Other times, you’ll get overly concerned about the available players and greatly overbid on mediocre talent.

Take a deep breath. You’ve done the legwork already. Check your tiers and get a stock of the available players. See how your budget looks. Check everyone’s roster. You’re not going to walk out of there with a dog of a team.

And there you have it. Sure, you’ll still have fantasy seasons that won’t go perfectly, and you’ll leave some salary cap drafts feeling like you could have done more in hindsight. But, for the most part, a good fantasy football salary cap draft is mostly just about putting in some prep time and trusting the process. Do that, and your days of feeling lost or nervous before your drafts will be over.

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Dan Harris is the Editor-in-Chief of FantasyPros. For more from Dan, check out his archive or follow him on Twitter at @danharris80.