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2010 Ultimate Fantasy Football Draft Strategy

Our article “Draft Strategy Based on Historical Data” was a huge hit and, as promised in that article, we will now apply our findings to the 2010 season. It is difficult to write an article like this with so many different scoring systems. For the majority of this article, we’ll use the WCOFF Scoring (4 pts per TD pass and 1 pt per reception) but we’ll discuss how the strategy changes for other scoring systems at the end of the article.

Lets first look at a basic strategy position by position:

Quarterbacks:
As discussed in the other article, the two groups with the most value are either the top 4 quarterbacks or the 11 to 18 group. There are two reasons why we recommend staying away from the middle group (5 to 10). First, they are usually quarterbacks who many believe have the potential to be top five but have a couple of question marks. However, because of their potential, there’s a couple of owners who will draft them earlier than they should, which makes their average draft position better than their real value. Second, this middle group usually gets drafted between the third and sixth round which is usually when you can have the best value at RB and WR. At RB, there’s usually a drop around the end of the fourth round and there’s one at WR at the end of the sixth round so in those rounds, you’ll have much better value at RB and WR.

Drafting two QBs in the 11 to 18 group is usually our favorite strategy. In our article Top QB or QB Tandem, we showed that drafting two quarterbacks in that range is almost as good as drafting a top quarterback and a below average backup. However, in doing so, you are getting much more value out of your draft picks, even in a non-PPR league with 6 points per TD pass. The top four QBs are worth some consideration if they fall quite a bit below their average draft position and if there are no RBs or WRs that you like when it’s your turn to pick. This is however quite rare and it is not a strategy that we recommend but sometimes you don’t have a choice.

Recommended strategy:
-Draft two QBs in the 11 to 18 range which is the equivalent of round 8 through 11 in a 12-team league.

Running Backs:
Based on our analysis, there is a pretty significant drop after the top 29 which generally comes at the end of the sixth round. This year, there are only 25 RBs getting drafted in the first six rounds and we don’t really like the next few guys until their situations clear up. Those players include C.J. Spiller, Marion Barber and Justin Forsett. We are strong believers that depth at RB is very important so you really need to draft three of those 25 RBs but that list will get bigger by the end of August depending on what happens in different training camps.

The other drop at RB comes after the top 42 or so which means that you will want at least four running backs by the end of the tenth round. There really isn’t much point to drafting RBs after this point (other than possibly handcuffing your starters) so if your starters are risky and you want more depth, get them before the end of the 10^th round.

If we backtrack a little, we mentioned that you needed to draft three of the top 25 RBs. Like every other expert, we’ll tell you that you need to draft one of the top four RBs this year, if you have one of those picks, but we also recommend drafting Frank Gore and Steven Jackson before any WR. After those six, we see a huge drop and this has also been the trend in the past five years. In the past five years, the 13 to 20 group has been almost as good as the 5 to 12 group and coincidentally, our favorite RBs this year fall in that 13 to 20 group: Ryan Grant, Knowshon Moreno, LeSean McCoy, Pierre Thomas, Matt Forte and Joseph Addai who is 21^st. The others which fall in that group but that we don’t like as much are Chris Wells, Cedric Benson and Jonathan Stewart but they can still be good picks.. That group is really where the best value is at RB and they are usually drafted between the beginning of the third and the beginning of the fifth round. Ronnie Brown and Reggie Bush (in PPR) are part of the next group which you can draft in the fifth or sixth round but there are very few guys in this group for now so you need to be careful not to get caught off guard by a run on RBs.

Recommended strategy:
-Draft three of the top 25 RBs which is the equivalent of the first 6 rounds in a 12-team league.
-Draft four of the top 42 RBs which is the equivalent of the first 10 rounds in a 12-team league.
-Favor the top 6 RBs (early 1^st round) and the 13 to 20 group (early 3^rd to early 5^th round).

Wide Receivers:
The strategy to use for wide receivers is pretty similar to the one for running backs. The top 7 are usually dominant, there is little value in the next group (8 to 16), the 17 to 25 group has very good value and there is a big drop after the top 43 or so. The good news however is that even though the groups are pretty similar, WRs are generally drafted later than RBs so the two add up pretty well.

Of the top seven WRs this year, our favorite ones are Andre Johnson, Randy Moss, Reggie Wayne and Roddy White but Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson and Miles Austin all have good value as well. These seven players are usually drafted between the middle of the first and the end of the second round. The 17 to 25 group averages only 14 points less than the 8 to 16 group despite being drafted two rounds later on average so it’s worth waiting on your receivers. In this group, we like Wes Welker, Chad Ochocinco, Percy Harvin (if Favre comes back), Dwayne Bowe, Hines Ward and Jeremy Maclin. This group usually gets drafted in the fifth and sixth rounds and you’ll want at least two and probably three of these top 25.

If you can only get two of the top 25, you can still be in good shape but you’ll need to draft two players instead of one in the rest of the top 43, usually by the end of the 11^th round. Players like Mike Wallace, Santana Moss, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Malcom Floyd and others all have potential to be top 20 WRs but have more question marks.

Recommended strategy:
-Draft two or three of the top 25 WRs which is the equivalent of the first 6 rounds in a 12-team league.
-Draft four of the top 43 WRs which is the equivalent of the first 11 rounds in a 12-team league.
-Favor the top 7 WRs (first 2 rounds) and the 17 to 25 group (rounds 5 and 6).

Tight Ends:
The tight end position is the position with the simplest strategy. As we discovered in our analysis, there is a pretty consistent drop amongst the top 12 TEs which means that you should draft one whenever you feel you’d be reaching for an RB or WR. The top 12 are getting drafted between the fourth and tenth round this year but be very careful if you wait that long because you could be in trouble; we’d recommend getting one before the end of the ninth round. Our favorite ones this year are Jason Witten, Tony Gonzalez, Kellen Winslow, Zach Miller and Heath Miller but as we said, anyone in the top 12 should be pretty good; the only one we don’t really like is Chris Cooley.

Recommended strategy:
-Draft any of the top 12 TEs which is the equivalent of the first 9 rounds in a 12-team league; we call this a flex pick which means that you draft your TE whenever you don’t have value at the other positions.

Defenses and Kickers
There’s pretty much no difference amongst the top 16 at both of these positions so we strongly recommend waiting as long as possible. Just make sure you draft one of the top 16 kickers and probably two of the top 16 defenses.

Recommended strategy:
-Wait as long as you can but draft one of the top 16 kickers.
-Wait as long as you can but draft two of the top 16 defenses. 

If we put all that together, in the first 11 rounds of a 12-team league, you should have: 2 QBs, 4 RBs, 4 WRs and 1 TE. This is a basic rule that applies to pretty much all 12-team leagues and all scoring systems unless strange things happen during your draft. The breakdown is pretty simple:
Rounds 1-6: 3 RBs and either 3 WRs or 2 WRs and 1 TE.
Rounds 7-9: 1 QB, 1 WR and 1 RB or TE (depending on rounds 1-6).
Rounds 10-11: 1 QB and 1 RB or WR.

These are obviously flexible by one round or so because a lot of things change during a draft but they are excellent guidelines to follow and that will give any team an edge over their opponents in terms of strategy.

These guidelines don’t change much even in non-PPR leagues that give 6 pts per TD pass. The only change we would make is that we would probably favor RBs over WRs in the first few rounds but that always depends on who’s available. The QB tandem strategy is still the right one, good RBs are always rare, the TE position is always flexible and you still need one of the top 12 TEs no matter the scoring system. The only thing that really changes in a non-PPR league is that WRs lose a little value compared to RBs. 

Our 2010 Ultimate Draft Tool will generally follow these guidelines but will make automatic adjustments based on how others owners draft in your league. The expert league we are currently drafting right now is a very good example. Don’t worry too much about the players we take, because you can use your own projections, but the Ultimate Draft Tool is following our strategies to perfection. 

As an incentive, anyone who signs up for our forums and makes a valuable post (start an interesting discussion or add an opinion on something) before Friday August 13^th, will receive 20% off the 2010 Ultimate Draft Tool. The discount will be given as a refund once you purchase the draft tool.