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2010 Ultimate Fantasy Football Draft Strategy - Summary

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.

Recommended strategies by position:

Quarterbacks:
-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:

-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:
-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:
-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
-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.

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