With your fantasy draft rapidly approaching, it’s time to settle down and work out a strategy.
Of course, every draft is different and you’ll have to adapt on the fly, but that’s what preparation is for.
The best advice we can give you approaching the big day is sorting players in position groups into different tiers. This way, you can see where the drop-offs are at talent in certain positions and help yourself better evaluate where to go with your next pick.
For example: You’re up now and have another pick after the turn a few slots later; if you see that there’s only one RB left in your current tier and three or four WRs, you’re much better off taking the RB now and landing one of those WRs next time up.
As for strategies, this year more than ever, we’re preaching patience at four of the six positions. When it comes to QB, TE, DST and K, you can certainly land a good fantasy option much later on in the draft.
The only exception we’d make for this is if one of the three top TEs start tumbling past their ADP. Nabbing a Travis Kelce in the fourth or fifth round would be excellent value if it happens.
If you’re waiting on that many different positions, you can scoop up as many valuable RBs and WRs as possible in perhaps the first 10 rounds of your draft. With the way that players get hurt and how the passing game has evolved, it’s better to have a ton of options at these positions than filling out your starting lineup first.
There has been much talk the past few seasons of the ‘Zero-RB’ and ‘Zero-WR’ strategies, but we prefer a balanced approach based on where you’re picking.
It’s also key to remember that ‘Zero-RB’ doesn’t mean to not take any RBs. It means go WR-heavy in the first three rounds and then start looking for lottery-ticket type RBs that could be thrust into high-value roles.
When prepping, it’s also a good idea to look at projections from multiple sources. Some sites will be much higher on players than others and some will place more value on different positions when doing rankings. It’s always good to see different opinions.
Finally, keep an eagle eye on the waiver wire. That’s typically where leagues are won. Injuries happen and roles change. If you’re not in for a Philip Lindsay type after Week 1, you’ll be playing from behind against your league rivals.
PIVOTAL INFORMATION
To further our reasoning on why to wait on a QB, take a look at the top five QBs from 2018 in terms of points per game with a minimum of 10 played.
Patrick Mahomes (26.1 ppg), Matt Ryan (22.2), Ben Roethlisberger (21.4), Deshaun Watson (20.7) and Andrew Luck (20.5) topped the category, but of them, only Watson had an ADP among the top five QBs selected in 2018, with Mahomes notably the 16th QB off the board and Ryan going 11th. That’s the top two fantasy QBs being taken as backups last year.
While we’re not expecting a massive jump akin to that of Mahomes from anybody, it does show that there is certainly value to be had by taking guys later on.
PIVOTAL INFO II
We’ll touch on this more during our QB preview later this week, but Mahomes might actually be a bit regression-proof.
While an injury would certainly scuttle things for the superstar QB, the stats show that even if Mahomes regresses at a normal rate, he’ll still be among the fantasy elite.
Since 2004, the average fantasy point regression for QBs that throw for 40-plus TDs in a season is about 16%. If you take that amount off of Mahomes’ 2018 total, it still would’ve been good enough to tie Ryan as the top fantasy player of the season.
PIVOTAL INFO III
When evaluating players, we often don’t pay enough attention to their schedule for the season. One that jumps out to us this year is Atlanta’s.
The Falcons don’t play a single outdoor game until Week 11 and play just three outdoor games overall — two of which are in warm-weather locations against Tampa and San Francisco.
So how does this affect us fantasy players?
Well, Ryan’s career record indoors is 66-36 and 34-33 outdoors. His TD-INT ratio in wins is 3.29 compared to 1.39 in losses.
PANNING THE STREAM
If you’re not going to jump on a top defence like the Bears and are looking to stream defences through the season, you probably shouldn’t be looking at season-long projections when drafting.
One team to look at is the Dallas Cowboys, who in the first three weeks face the Giants, Washington and Miami. Those are some pretty solid matchups that even an average could exploit.
On the other hand, high-end defences like the Jaguars and Texans could have their hands full with the Chiefs and Saints, respectively, in Week 1. It’s certainly something to weigh in consideration.
QUICK HITS
I know that there are some conspiracy theorists out there that think he’ll come back, but how is Rob Gronkowski’s ownership currently at 5% on Yahoo? If Luck’s sudden retirement has taught us anything, it’s that players are very willing to walk away with their health relatively intact … Want an idea of how much Earl Thomas affected the Seahawks defence? Over the past three seasons, in the 19 games with Thomas off the field, Seattle allowed 31 passing TDs and had seven INTs. In the 29 games he was one the field, Seattle allowed 30 passing TDs and had 30 INTs. Think his move to Baltimore will have an impact on both teams? … On a per-game basis, three Rams receivers (Brandin Cooks, Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp) finished in the top-20 in fantasy points.