Draft Strategy

Disclaimer

I feel that I should begin this article with a disclaimer. Fantasy football is about having fun. The best teams often lose and people often win with strategies based off which player they like most. I personally have had Wes Welker in every league for years simply because he is my favorite player in the NFL. That being said, it is fun to win, and there is a better way to draft than filling your starting spots one by one.

Why do RBs Go off the Board so Early?

Ever wonder why running backs always go off the board first? After all in 2009 nine out of the top ten highest scoring players were quarterbacks. Similarly why do kickers go so late? Last year, Nate Keading outscored such notable players as Marcus Colston, Chad Ochocinco, and LaDainian Tomilson. The answer lies in how deep each position is in a given year. More specifically the point differential between the players within each position.

Running backs go off the board first because there are so few elite backs. Think about it. About half the teams suck at running (ex. the Colts), another third of the teams use several running backs (ex. the Cowboys.) That leaves only a small group of running backs who are capable of putting up a lot of points. Eliminate the injury prone players (ex. Larry Johnson) and there are only a handful of elite running backs.

Calculating the Point Differential

The key to drafting is figuring out how big the drop off is between any given player and the best player of that position that will still be available if you waited a round or two.

Allow me to drive this point home with an example. You have the very first pick in your ten man league. You have decided to spend your pick on the player who is projected to score more points than anyone else, Drew Brees. You then spend the next three rounds picking up a RB and two WRs. At the beginning of the fifth round you realize that you need your second RB so you pick up the best one available, Felix Jones. ESPN projects that the Brees / Jones combo will award you 470 points. Now, if instead you drafted Chris Johnson first overall and waited to pick up an average QB like Tony Romo at the start of the fifth, you would earn 550 points. Thus, even though Brees stands to earn more points than Johnson, Johnson is the better pick.

Now don’t assume what I have said means that you want to pick running backs over any other position. Once you get past those elite running backs things start to even out. For instance, if in our hypothetical we are now picking in the third and seventh rounds and we still need a RB and a QB, it now behooves you to pick the QB first. The best running back you will get in the third is Shone Greene and the best quarterback you will get in the seventh is Matt Ryan. That combo will earn you 391. Conversely, in the third you could still get Tom Brady, and Brandon Jacobs will still be around in the seventh. The Brady / Jacobs combo is worth 438 points.

Watch Out for the Runs

In an ideal world, you could sit down calculate out the drop off between each player and calculate out the perfect draft. But things don’t work out that way.

Let’s say according to your math and ESPN’s projections the best plan of action is to draft a RB in the first round, a WR in the second, a QB in the third, a RB in the fourth, a WR in the fifth, and a TE in the sixth. (I have no idea if this is really a sound strategy.) Things are going to plan until right before you pick in the fifth round someone picks up Dallas Clark and you feel that a run on the TEs is about to happen.

This puts you in a tricky situation. Sticking with your plan to draft a TE in the sixth would now be foolish. Antonio Gates will be gone and the difference between the third and the ninth TE is only 10 points. So you have to decide whether to grab Gates and his 26 point lead over the next best TE, or wait until the eleventh round when you can probably pick up a TE just as good as the one you would have gotten in the sixth.

A similar run could happen with the QBs, so be aware of where the drop off occurs. From the #1 QB to the #5 QB there is a 49 point drop off but from the #6 QB to the #10 QB there is only a 20 point drop off.

This is too complicated

Unless you are a mathematical wizard like Dave Barney or have way too much time on your hands, it is too much work to try and keep all the point differentials straight. There are just too many moving parts. That's alright. You don't need to know the actual point differentials, but be able to identify where the drop offs occur. Some people use a tiered system. For instance, Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson, MJD, and Ray Rice are all tier 1 RBs and Benson, Greene and Grant are tier 3 RBs.

I prefer to ask myself, who will still be available if I waited a round to fill that position? Will there still be a good QB in the fourth round? It all boils down to this: the deeper the position is the more likely you can draft a quality player deeper in the draft.