Fantasy Football Draft Advice: Salary Cap League Spending Strategies (2023)

Over the past several years, we’ve seen many changes in fantasy football. While traditional snake drafts are still popular, more of the general public have changed their draft to an auction or salary cap format.

However, an auction league can be overwhelming for first-time players. An auction draft takes more strategy and on-your-feet thinking than a traditional snake draft. The first thing new auction league players need is to have a strong understanding of how their fantasy draft works.

Below are four strategies and tips to help fantasy players properly spend their budget during an auction draft.

More Fantasy Football Advice
Snake Draft Pick Strategy: Early | Middle | Late
Expert Consensus Fantasy Football Draft Rankings
Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator

Don’t Be Too Aggressive Early

First-time players will be excited about the new draft format and the ability to land multiple first-round players. However, be careful how aggressive you are with your budget. You want to partake in the draft process and land a superstar or two. Yet, you don’t want to use 85-90% of their budget on two players, no matter how good they are.

Instead, have a game plan before the draft starts. Plan to spend no more than 30-35% of your budget on your top player. However, don’t double down on first-round talented guys. Remember, your budget will disappear faster than you realize. Furthermore, you want to save a fair chunk of your budget for the final several rounds, where a buck or two could be the difference between landing a sleeper at a discount or missing out on them completely.

Fantasy Football Salary Cap Calculator: Create custom rankings and dollar values based on consensus projections

Limit Your Spending on One-Starter Positions

While superflex leagues have become more popular over the past few years, most public or home drafts have a starting lineup with only one quarterback spot. Similarly, most fantasy leagues have only one tight end, team defense and kicker starting slots. Those are the positions you can stream off the waiver wire. Therefore, fantasy players should be very conservative with their budget at those positions.

Fantasy players shouldn’t spend the big dollar amount needed to land Patrick Mahomes or Travis Kelce. Last year, Mahomes was the QB1, while Kelce was the TE1. However, those two players likely cost fantasy players a significant chunk of their budget.

Meanwhile, Geno Smith was the QB5, while Evan Engram was the TE6. Though they didn’t end last season as the top quarterback or tight end, they also probably cost fantasy players only $1 of their budget. Instead of paying for a big-name quarterback or tight end, save your budget for the positions you need to start multiple players – running back and wide receiver.

Follow the 50/20 Rule

The 50/20 or 20/50 rule is one of my favorites for auction drafts. Fantasy managers want to save 20% of their budget for the final 50% of the nominations. They want to have more money than their leaguemates for the final rounds. There are two ways to win your auction draft – avoid overpaying/picking bust players and be able to outbid your leaguemates for the double-digit round sleepers. While that doesn’t mean you should hold onto half of your budget and miss out on the superstar players, bookmark 20-25% of your budget for the second half of the draft.

Another thing to remember with this rule is every dollar counts. Those later-round nominations will come down to one team having an extra dollar or two to spend. Remember, most fantasy football platforms require every team to fill out their roster by the end of the draft. If you have a $100 budget and 16 roster spots to fill, you can’t spend more than $85 on a player because you need at least $1 for the other 15 spots. If you want a specific sleeper, being able to bid $2 instead of $1 might be the difference between getting them or not.

The Not-So-Famous $2 Bid

Many auction articles are about players at a discount or which players you should target for $1. However, the $2 bid rarely gets mentioned. As mentioned previously, the ability to have an extra dollar or two in the final round is the difference between landing your favorite sleeper tight end or missing out. Furthermore, there is a way to make sure your leaguemates miss out on that sleeper simply by making the opening bid $2 instead of $1.

When you make a nomination for $1, the next bid must be at least $2. However, every dollar matters in those final rounds, especially for those who didn’t follow the 50/20 rule. For example, you are the only one who can spend more the $2 on a player, and it’s your time to nominate a player. Instead of nominating the player for $1 and allowing your leaguemate to bid $2, fantasy players should start the bidding at $2. That way, no one else in the league can bid on the player. Since everyone else’s max bid is $2, you have secured the player right after nominating them.