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Strategies for Drafting Depth
(page 2)

Quarterbacks
As you can see, quarterbacks are the ones that play the fewest number of starter games amongst all positions. This means that quarterbacks are quite unpredictable and also get hurt quite often. In our Top QB or QB Tandem Article we suggest that you should draft two quarterbacks in the 13 to 16 range instead of drafting one of the top quarterbacks. That strategy would get you 14.0 starter games on average which would still leave you 3.0 games short on average.

The number of starter games available on waivers is about 1.5 per team in a 12-team league and most are generally hard to pick up (fantasy players were all over Matt Cassel after Brady’s injury in week one). Based on those numbers you should try and draft a third QB in the 17 to 24 range to get you to 16.5 starter games. Most fantasy players are generally satisfied with two quarterbacks but as you can see many owners will find themselves with very average quarterbacks and drafting a third might be worth it depending on the number of rounds in your draft.

Running Backs
Fantasy players generally draft a lot of depth at the running back position because it is known that running backs are injury-prone and you can usually find some nice sleepers late in the draft. If your league starts two RBs, you will need 34 starter games which can be achieved in a number of different ways.

One relatively easy way is to draft a top 12 running backs and three in the 13 to 36 range. If you do that, most of the time you will not need your other backups and four running backs would be enough. If you draft one in the top 12 and only two in the 13 to 36 range, you will need at least two or three additional running backs late in your draft to have enough average starter games.

After the top 36 running backs or so, there are very few that have starter potential so our suggestion would be to draft four in the top 36 and then maybe gamble on one later in your draft if you have room on your roster.

Wide Receivers
In a league that starts three wide receivers, you will need 51 starter games amongst the wide receivers you select. Wide receivers will generally play more games than running backs and there is also more depth available later in the draft and on waivers. If you draft two WRs in the top 24 and two more in the 25 to 48 range, it will leave you a few games short and you would have the option of drafting one more in the top 48 or two in the 49 to 60 range. Also you should note that the wide receiver position is where there are the most starter games available on waivers during the season.

You have to be very careful with WRs because it is true that they aren’t injured as often but you can’t forget that you will usually have to start three. That means the odds of one of them getting hurt are bigger and it also means you have three bye weeks to fill-in for. However, even if you have to wait until the final few rounds of your drafts to select your backups, it is not a big deal because there is quite a bit of depth at the position and you can always get more on waivers during the season.

Tight Ends

Most fantasy players generally don’t bother about their backup tight end but as you can see, even if you draft a top eight tight end, you are still missing 4.4 starter games.  Because of that, we strongly recommend that you draft your backup tight end in the top 16 or you could lose some valuable points from the tight end position for a number of games.

Conclusion

These numbers were quite surprising to us and show that you cannot underestimate the value of a backup quarterback or a backup tight end. Based on this analysis and our Average Draft Position Analysis, in the first nine rounds of your draft you will need at least 1 QB, 3 RBs, 2 WRs and 1 TE. There is nothing wrong with drafting your second backup RB before your last starting WR or your backup QB before your first backup WR if you are getting good value. The only thing that you want to ensure is that you do not go over the average starter games required before having drafted all of your starters at these four positions.  The final pieces of advices are that the position which you neglect in the first nine rounds of your draft is the position where you will want to draft the most backups and if your draft has 20 rounds or more, you should absolutely draft a third QB.

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