There are no wrong settings and no wrong leagues when it comes to fantasy football. Whatever you find fun is all that matters. Some people can only get a few friends or prefer smaller leagues. That’s great, but others prefer to play in deeper formats. Deeper leagues can come with their own set of challenges, but they can also be much more rewarding as you get deeper into this hobby. Here are some ways I attack deeper fantasy football leagues differently than shallower ones.

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Strategy Tips for Deep Leagues

Define What Deep Is

First, we need to define what exactly makes a league deep. The way I see it, two different settings tend to make a league deeper. It’s either more managers (14- or 16-team leagues) or deeper benches (20+ players per team). Both of these require more total players to be taken from the available pool, reducing the number of players available on waivers.

In either kind of league, what you leave the draft with will likely be the team you’re working with all season. You might have a few players pop up worth grabbing on waivers, but the odds are low. In these leagues, you want to do a little extra research before your draft. You want to know who to stash on the end of your bench in the later rounds of the draft. You want to look for upside options that will break out later. You want to grab those waiver options before they ever go to waivers.

Go Against the League

Once you’ve determined how deep your league is, it’s time to draft. In leagues with more managers you’re likely going to suffer at at least one position. In 16-team leagues where you’re required to start a single QB and one TE, someone is going to end up relying on players at the bottom of the rankings at those positions. In 16-team Superflex leagues, there could be 32 starting quarterbacks in starting lineups. That means every QB in the league will be starting each week.

Since you know you will likely suffer at a position, you then need to look at what position(s) you can excel at to balance your lineup. If you see QBs going off the board earlier than you expected in your draft there might be valuable RBs falling further down. It’s going to benefit you to go against the grain in these larger leagues, especially at the top. Take the value that comes to you instead of following the trends. If you can start a run rather than end one, your team should be better off for it.

In leagues where benches are deep, the starting lineups should all be pretty similar. The league winner will likely come from the players taken in later rounds instead. Looking at depth charts and using FantasyPros’ expert consensus rankings (ECR) should be helpful, but ultimately you need to go with your gut. Take the guys you like to watch. If your league is adding a lot of RBs later on, maybe there will be some positional value elsewhere you can add to differentiate yourself. You just want to be different from everyone else so you can bring home the title.

Don’t Be Afraid to Pivot

Being different is good, but don’t be so different you ignore the room. If you see people grabbing QBs early and you notice there are only a handful of options left you prefer, be liquid and pivot. This is why I tend to lean heavily on tier-based drafting. I don’t go in with a full-blown plan, but I try to take the best players available with each pick. If there is a single QB left in one tier versus four or five RBs left in another, I might draft the QB ahead of the RBs, since I can wait and try to grab one of those other RBs in the next round.

Ultimately, you want to do whatever you can to add as much talent to your team. This goes for after the draft, too. If you added a lot of running backs at the draft you might want to look at dropping the one worth the least for a receiver on waivers. Don’t worry about Week 2 at the draft, though. Just worry about grabbing as much talent as possible and the rest will work itself out. Pay attention to articles about deep league stashes and follow the weekly waiver wire articles. You can find plenty of gold if you’re willing to look for it.

Stay Calm

In the end, while the draft will end up being responsible for the vast majority of the players you roster all season, you can always add players from waivers and trade with other managers. If you end up with a big positional disadvantage after the draft, see if you can figure that out later. Nothing is ever set in stone, so don’t stress too much about it. Deeper leagues can be more stressful but they can also be more fun. You get more managers to trade with and more decisions to worry about, which can also mean a lot more fun. As long as you keep in mind that this is all for fun, it’ll all work out just fine. I have faith in you.

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Andrew Hall is a featured writer for FantasyPros. For more from Andrew, check out his profile and follow him @AndrewHallFF.