So our first discussion on Draft Strategy focused on being flexible during the draft and not boxing yourself in with a set strategy and instead focus on drafting the best value with every pick.
Sounds pretty easy right?
Well if it was that easy, we’d all have our own fantasy shows and be winning the big fantasy contests.
Value is hard to recognize, but here are some guidelines that can help you spot value and maximize your drafts.
So what is value?
Value can be a player that is still available well below his average draft position or someone that you have ranked much higher than the current draft position. It can be a player at a different position while the other teams are on a run at a certain position. There are also tiers or groups of players that are expected to provide similar value, so a player at the end of that tier can be a player you can get later than the players at the top of that tier but who provide similar production. Know the offensive a player is playing in and his role in that offense. Know the offensive lines of the teams that the players you are drafting play for, because you are not only drafting the player, you are drafting the offensive line of that player as well.
I talked about drafting Mahomes last year on one team and how he ended up being a league winning pick. According to FantasyData.com, Mahomes average ADP last year was 39.1. I drafted him with pick #59 and he was the number 1 fantasy scoring player last year. Did I KNOW he was going to be the #1 scoring player? Absolutely not, but I was pretty confident he would be a top 3 player and be close to Allen and Herbert. I got Mahomes 36 picks after Josh Allen was drafted. I was confident that Allen wouldn’t outscore Mahomes by more than 2 points a game. After picking Allen at pick 23 following Jefferson at #2, that team probably felt pressured to take a RB and picked Leonard Fournette as their RB1 and the 14th RB picked instead of AJ Brown who was the WR9 drafted. That cost that team 73.5 points over the season, about 4.3 points a week. They followed that up with Dalton Schultz at #47 and TE6 in the first four rounds. Schultz ADP last year according to FantasyData.com was 62.9, so he reached by about 15 spots to get Schultz and Schultz finished as TE10. Panicking for Fournette in round 3 and reaching for Schultz in round 4 dug that team a hole they could not get out of. They finished 8th in the standings. Meanwhile I recognized the value presented by Mahomes at #59, I recognized that Barkley being another season healthier after his injury would provide value and drafted him as RB9 at #14 when he averaged RB11 and #16, I had faith in Tua in Miami and drafted Waddle as WR17 at #38 when he averaged WR19 and #46.5 and by the end of round 5, I had a significant advantage over the team that drafted Allen even though I actually could have drafted slightly better. I passed on DaVante Adams for Barkley, but I wasn’t sure how Adams would do in LV with Carr instead of Rodgers. I also missed on my first round pick, taking Kamara at #11 when he ended up #31 of non QB’s, but my other picks made up for it. Kamara did have an ADP of 10.6 so a lot of us missed on Kamara.
That leads me to my next point, going another direction when there is a run at a position. The Adams pick in the previous example came after a run of seven straight RB’s and 10 RB’s drafted in the first 15 picks. They picked the WR5 instead of RB11. They zagged while others were zigging. They were rewarded with the 7th most non QB points. Adams averaged 12.4 ADP but was still available at #16. That is recognizing value after a run at a position. Another example using ADP would be Stefon Diggs. He had an ADP of 14 but was WR5 sandwiched between Swift at 13.1 and RB9 and Aaron Jones at 15.3 and RB10. Taking the 5th best WR instead of the 10th or 11th ranked RB netting savy drafters the 13th best non QB player and almost an extra point a game over Aaron Jones. You pick up a point a week advantage with your first 10 picks, and you have a nice little advantage every week.
Another way to get value is being the last to draft a player from a group of players projected to provide similar value. If you can manage your draft to be the owner that gets the last of a group of players with equal value more often than not, you can use that extra time during the draft to use your picks to get value at other positions. Last year Rashod Bateman, Amari Cooper, DeVonte Smith, Elijah Moore, Brandon Aiyuk, DeAndre Hopkins and Allen Lazard were all grouped together ranked WR33 to WR39 with ADP between 82.3 and 90.7, so all within the same round. Bateman got injured and Hopkins was suspended so that makes them hard to compare equally, but in one of my leagues Lazard went at 6.12 while Aiyuk went at 8.9. Aiyuk outscored Lazard by 53 points and went almost two rounds later. He was also not more than 1 point a week behind Amari Cooper and Devonte Smith who went at 7.10 and 7.5 giving the Aiyuk owner a chance to get more value in the round before.
Value can be found be drafting players that give you a nice advantage at a position. If you were lucky enough to get one of the Big 3 QB’s last year, you had a big advantage at the highest scoring position in fantasy football. Mahomes, Allen and Hurts averaged at least 3 points a game more than #4 QB Joe Burrow. They gave their owners an almost 8 point a game advantage over the #10-11 QB’s, Jared Goff and Justin Herbert. That is a pretty big advantage. Last year however, might have seen the biggest positional advantage in recent fantasy football history with Travis Kelce. He outscored TE2 by 100 points. Yes you read that right, 100 points. TE23 Mike Gesicki didn’t score 100 points on the season. Kelce outscored TE6 Tyler Higbee by 164.3 pts. Only five TE’s scored more than 164.3 points on the season. This week I heard a fantasy expert on a national fantasy sports talk show say he would rather have a top 5 WR or RB than Travis Kelce. Why? Because that is the way it has always been done? Don’t be that guy. Remember our #1 rule in draft strategy. Be flexible. Adjust to the times. Kelce was the 8th highest scoring non QB last year, so if you are taking him after the top 5 RB and WR’s you are giving away points. WR5 was CeeDee Lamb who scored 15 less points than Kelce. Barkley was RB5 and he scored 32 less points. If Kelce continues to produce as he has over the last five seasons, averaging 101 catches for 1289 yards and 9.5 TD’s, aren’t those WR1 numbers? PLUS you get the bonus of positional dominance. You will start every week with a 7-8 point lead on your opponent.
Know the offensive tendencies of the teams you are drafting players from and the roles of the players especially in the red zone. Last year no team threw the ball more than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and no team threw the ball less than the Chicago Bears, so while Darnell Mooney was the WR1 on Chicago his 61 targets would have finished 6th on Tampa. Russell Gage, the WR3 on Tampa, finished the year with 22 more fantasy points than Mooney despite an ADP of 155.7 to Mooney’s 68.1. There is a lot of value there. Atlanta ran the ball more than any other team and despite only starting 7 games on the season, Tyler Allgeier still carried the ball 210 times for 1035 yards. He finished 16th in the NFL in carries and 14th in yards but was drafted as RB43 at 106.7 ADP. Know which QB’s will get rushing yards. QB rushing yardage seems to be at an all-time high. In 2010 only 1 QB ran for over 400 yards and only 3 for over 300 yards. Last year 7 QBs ran for over 400 yards and 2 others for over 300 yards and Trevor Lawrence was 9 yards short of 300. Those are bonus points for QB’s that raises the floor on their production. Know who gets the ball in the red zone and inside the 10 yard line because that is where most of the TD’s come from. 34 of Mahomes 41 TD’s came in the red zone with 29 of those from inside the 10. Travis Kelce had the most red zone targets and tied for most targets inside the 10 yard line. Fantasy owners that were paying attention noticed Jerrick McKinnon’s increased usage late in the season. He ended the season scoring TD’s in the last six games and tied for 7th in the league in targets inside the 10 with 11 which he converted into 9 catches and 7 TD’s. Why has Austin Eckler been a TD machine scoring 38 TD’s the last two seasons? He touches the ball A LOT in the red zone. This year he ranked 5 in red zone targets, third in targets inside the 10, third in red zone rushes. Know who gets the goal-line carries. Jamaal Williams had 28 carries inside the 5 and Jalen Hurts was second with 20 carries inside the 5 but that was only 48.8% of the Eagles carries inside the 5. Miles Sanders had 11 carries as well.
These are a lot of things to look at and know when you are determining the value of players. Hopefully the above examples will add to your fantasy toolbox.
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