Fantasy Football Draft Strategy & Advice: PPR vs. Standard Scoring (2023)

A significant thing you should know when joining a league and approaching a draft is, looking at the settings and scoring breakdown of the league.

Not knowing this information can have you taking the wrong approach and could result in having to carry out your last-place punishment.

The two basic scoring systems are standard and PPR. When you look through the list of players, you will notice they’re ranked in each scoring system. You will also observe that those numbers aren’t the same, and that’s why you need to know which scoring system your league has.

We will tell you how to approach each draft so you can be successful in each system.

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• Fantasy Football Draft Strategy
• 2023 Fantasy Football Draft Kit

PPR vs. Standard Scoring Draft Strategy

Standard Scoring Breakdown

In standard, quarterbacks dominate the leaderboard, owning the top 12 spots.

Does that mean you’re going a quarter early? Not necessarily. If you want one of the top guys like Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, or Jalen Hurts, you will need to grab them in the first couple of rounds, but most of these quarterback’s ADPs are much later, and you can target them in the mid to late rounds.

You will want to highlight the running back position for the standard scoring draft. After the string of top-scoring quarterbacks, RBs control the board. They hold down a good portion of the top 13-31 with eight of those spots.

While running backs tend to get more touches than any other position, there are a few outliers at wide receiver that you should target early. Justin Jefferson, A.J. Brown, Stefon Diggs, and Ja’Mar Chase are big-play, heavily targeted receivers that will go well over 1,000 yards in a 17-game season. You will see them as the top options available towards the middle and end of the first round, and I would suggest grabbing one of them and then a running back with your next pick.

There is one tight end you should be smashing the draft button for in the first round. Travis Kelce gets the ball a lot, especially in the red zone, where he led the league in targets, catches, and touchdowns. With the high-yardage and touchdown advantage, he is a high-priority at the position with very little depth.

Mark Andrews and T.J. Hockenson are close to that tier and ones you should look for early on. Other than that, seek mid-tier tight ends toward the end of your draft.

PPR Scoring System

Now we understand why you must take a different approach to this scoring system than the standard. Just comparing the top scorers of each format shows where your priorities should land.

While quarterbacks appear at the top of this list, they do not dominate like in standard scoring. If you want one of those top guys, you will need to grab them early, but as you’ve noticed, the weight of the quarterback positions isn’t as heavy in this type of scoring, especially when comparing the ADP of some of those top players.

You want to procure players that will be getting a lot of touches. You see, by this list, it will be the running backs that are involved in the passing game. Of the top-10 PPR-scoring running backs last season, all but three (Derrick Henry, Nick Chubb, Tony Pollard) also finished in the top 10 of most catches by running back.

Pollard finished 12th in receiving yards amongst RBs, and his 9.5 yards per catch led those 12.

Henry and Chubb will be the outliners because they were the two of three running backs to have 300+ carries last season.

Early in your draft, go for the guys that get yards on the ground and through the air.

As previously mentioned, there are exceptions at wide receiver. Receivers with at least 100 catches and 1,000 yards are the ones you want to take early, if not first, depending on your draft position. In 2022, those were: Justin Jefferson, Tyreek Hill, Stefon Diggs, CeeDee Lamb, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Chris Godwin, and Davante Adams. Godwin’s and Adams’ change in quarterbacks could see those numbers decrease, and their ADPs reflect that.

A couple of exceptions to that list who finished high in receiving yards and/or touchdowns were A.J. Brown and Ja’Mar Chase, and I’ve seen these players go in the first two rounds.

As you see again, Travis Kelce is an incredible value at tight end, and you should continue to trust him as long as he and Patrick Mahomes share the same turf.

What We’ve Learned

As we’ve seen in the news during the 2023 offseason, teams are not valuing the running back position, at least not financially. It’s also changed because the “workhorse running back” is becoming extinct.

In 2005, 17 running backs had at least 250 carries; in 2022, there were eight. The game itself has also changed in that establishing the run to open the pass is not the game plan anymore because, with the rules of protecting the quarterback, the passing game is always open.

What hasn’t changed is that there are running back spots in your fantasy football lineup. Since these highly-used backs come at a premium, it is essential to grab one early.

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