Fantasy Football Draft Order & Slot Picks to Target (2024)

With draft season here, we face a multitude of questions. We must figure out who to fade, who are the sleeper plays, and who can drive our team to victory. The question we tend to look past is, “Which draft slot will be the most successful in 2024?”

Do not overlook this question because your league mates will, and this will allow you to out-research your opponents. There are positions within the draft that will help you navigate your team and your league on your road to victory.

What should you look for when deciding the best slot within your draft order? Let’s break that down below!

Draft Slot Preferences This Season

1. How Big is Your League? Understanding Your League Format

If you know the size of your league, this will help you decide which is the best draft slot. For example, if you’re in a bigger league, such as 14 or more teams, you will want to be on the end to control your destiny easily because fewer picks could “snipe” you between your picks.

In the 14-team scenarios, the best decision is to play from the first pick to the third pick or the 12th pick to the 14th pick. These draft slots allow you to easily control what your team becomes and read the board of only a few teams between your draft selections instead of a plethora of teams.

What happens if you’re in a smaller league with 8 to 10 teams? What will you do then? When it’s a smaller league, you do not have to worry about your draft selection being in the corner of the draft boards to optimize your snake selection. Instead, the best decision is to land in the middle of the draft.

Let’s speak to an example of a team where you are drafting fifth overall. You will have a shot at either starting trends or ending a trend.

A good example is the beginning of the 2024 draft. The last few seasons have seen wide receivers go early, such as Tyreek Hill, Justin Jefferson, CeeDee Lamb and Ja’Marr Chase, especially when a point-per-reception (PPR) rule is involved.

If this happens while you are the fifth seed, you’ll have your choice to continue or end the trend while aiming for another wide receiver such as Amon-Ra St. Brown, or you can begin the running back train with players like Breece Hall and Bijan Robinson. This strategy will allow you to control the board of the teams around you by controlling the beginning and end of trends.

2. Can ADP Put Me in a Sticky Situation?

Let’s return to the example of a 10-team league in a PPR scoring format. Let’s say you are the fourth pick in your draft. If you follow the average draft position (ADP) value, you will draft Bijan Robinson. At first glance, this feels amazing. However, when your third-round selection comes around at the 24th overall selection, it usually drafts Drake London with that ADP value.

Now, you will be in the awkward position of either leaning too heavily into one offense or fading a player just because you’ve already drafted one from said offense, thus not reaching your optimal window potential for your fantasy football team. The ADP value states that you may want to skip over the fourth pick to avoid this example and either go back to a slot as we discussed earlier or “reach” in the first round and ignore ADP.

3. Talent Over Everything!

This step in your draft process is a very simplified approach. However, KISS is an essential rule in life. KISS means to keep it simple, stupid. It’s excellent advice, but it hurts my feelings every time (Office references, anyone?).

In fantasy football, the best players get drafted first. This rule means players such as Christian McCaffrey, Tyreek Hill, Justin Jefferson and others will generally go early in the draft. With this commonality, we create an edge by having the best players in the league.

This rule states that whenever you can get 1.01-1.03, you must do it to help amplify your chances of outperforming your team’s floor while dominating within your league.

4. Find Your Weak Link

This rule is specific to each draft that you conduct. It is a personalized rule that cannot come with quantifying numbers or studying analytics. This rule is specific to leagues and allows you to choose your draft slot instead of a randomized selector. This rule states that you must find your league’s weakest fantasy football player and attach yourself to their draft pick.

In this example, if they decide to draft seventh, you must draft sixth or eighth. This rule is because these players tend to make sloppy decisions. These decisions can be fueled by alcohol, poor research and the fact that they aren’t as invested in fantasy football as you. It would be best if you took advantage of these players. If you correctly line yourself up with the weakest players within your draft, you can optimize your lineups easily while working around their ADP mistakes.

5. You Can’t Win Your League At The Draft!

Remember to stay fluid within your drafts. Sometimes, you’ll want a particular draft selection; however, you may not get to make that decision. Remember that everybody has equal odds to win their league at the draft. If you don’t end up with the draft selection that you like, the draft isn’t over. You’ll have people in your league who draft poorly, fade the incorrect players and don’t understand the game.

With all these variables in mind, you can win your league from any position because you are here doing research with the help of the world’s best website for fantasy football.

So, remember to read all the fantastic work here at FantasyPros. We will spend this offseason helping you through your draft process so that you can enter your season on the best foot possible. If you need any more unique help with your league, please contact me on Twitter @jpep20. Good luck with your fantasy football drafts this offseason!

Fantasy Draft Advice NFL Tyreek Hill Justin Jefferson CeeDee Lamb Ja’Marr Chase Amon-Ra St. Brown Breece Hall Bijan Robinson Drake London Christian McCaffrey