The most overlooked edge in fantasy football drafts is tailoring your strategy to your specific league. Drafting the right players is universal, but it’s also very hard — as much as we all love talking about sleepers and busts, even the best fantasy analysts are wrong almost as often as they are right with player takes. However, using a more effective strategy for your particular league is a much more low-variance way to increase your odds of winning a championship.

While many people focus on the differences between PPR, half-PPR and standard leagues, a much more relevant league setting is often overlooked: Depth. The difference between a deep 12-team league with 16 roster spots and a shallow eight-team league with 14 roster spots is massive. Today, I’m going to focus on those shallower leagues. These strategy tips will give you a leg up on everyone else in a smaller fantasy football league who is using generalized draft rankings and strategies.

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Fantasy Football Shallow League Draft Strategy Tips

What Counts as a Shallow Fantasy Football League?

Before I get into breaking down strategies for shallow leagues, let me establish what counts as a shallow league. As a rule of thumb, a shallow league is any league with fewer than around 90 total players (not counting kickers and defenses) being started in a given week. This could be a 10-team league with eight roster spots (e.g., 1-QB, 2-RB, 2-WR, 1-TE and 2-Flex), an eight-team league with 10 roster spots, or even a 12-team league with seven roster spots. Some of the strategies in this article will be specific to leagues with lower numbers of teams, but most will apply at least partially to any league that fits this criteria.

Pay Up For Elite Players At One-Off Positions

In shallow leagues, it is much more effective, often nearly necessary, to draft elite players at one-off positions like quarterback and tight end. This is true for two main reasons.

First of all, it is much more important to have an elite player in a one-off position in a league with fewer managers. In a 12-team league, it’s not too bad to wait and select a player like Jared Goff for your QB1 slot, because many of the teams you face will also have mid-level options. But in an eight-team league, 50% of your competitors are rolling out Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes. You’re immediately at a disadvantage if you don’t have a truly elite option in your quarterback slot, and the same applies at tight end.

The second reason it is more viable to force drafting an elite quarterback and tight end in shallow leagues is lower opportunity cost. If you spend two early picks on one-off positions in a deep league, you’ll often end up with some truly questionable options filling your all-important flex spots. In shallow leagues, you either have fewer lineup spots to fill or fewer teams competing to fill those spots, so it’s much easier to find enough viable Flex options even after passing on some early-round RBs and WRs.

Pass On Boring, High-Floor Veterans

In deep leagues, a boring but stable player like Courtland Sutton can have real value. In shallow leagues, players of that profile are worse than useless, taking up valuable bench slots because they’re “too good to drop” but never providing any value in return. They won’t make your lineup unless your roster is so decimated by injuries and byes that you’re already doomed — and even in that case, there are probably very comparable players on the waiver wire. And no one else ever wants to trade for these players, as most managers will have multiple players who are producing similarly on their benches. This is especially true for wide receivers, who have less contingent upside than running backs in particular, but it applies to all positions.

Upside, Upside, Upside

Instead of drafting high-floor players, stack your bench with high-upside players, even if they have non-existent floors. This includes running back handcuffs, rookie or second-year receivers and even injured studs. In deeper leagues, burning a middle-round pick and bench spot on Nick Chubb, for example, can hurt your team. But in shallow leagues, it’s possible to eat the cost of drafting and stashing a player for multiple weeks. This can also apply during the season: If someone in your shallow league drops their second-round pick who is out until at least Week 15, jump on it.

Always Try to Trade Up

This applies both to draft picks if your league allows draft trades and to player trades during the season. In shallow leagues, a two-for-one trade will almost always favor the manager receiving the single player. The best teams in shallow leagues will have certified studs at nearly every single position, and those studs are worth their weight in gold. On the flip side, Flex-level players are much less valuable in shallow leagues. A shallower league means you have a good chance of replacing that mid-level production from the waiver wire, especially if you are making sure to stack your bench with high-upside bets. If you can turn two WR3s or two RB2s into a true WR1 or RB1 it is worth doing.

If your league becomes wise to this trend (which most leagues will), a good trick can be to make a two-for-one trade seem like a two-for-two by adding in a low-level bench player from your opponent’s team. If you can frame a trade as both teams upgrading at one position and downgrading at another (while still making sure you receive the best player in the deal), your team will benefit in the long run.

Final Thoughts

Every league is different, and not all of these tips will apply to every league. If your league mates draft six quarterbacks in the first round, don’t force yourself to join the trend (just make sure you draft a high-upside option like Kyler Murray or Jayden Daniels). But the number one thing to remember about a shallow league is that the level of competition is always higher. The best teams will be better, with fewer holes and better studs in every position. This means you need to swing for the fences with every decision you make: In the draft, on waivers and in trade talks. Someone in your shallow league is going to have a juggernaut team; do your best to make sure it’s you.

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