Drafting To Win At the NFFC

Updated 8/27 by Chase Stuart, Exclusive for Footballguys.com

The National Fantasy Football Championship (NFFC) is a high stakes fantasy football league that attracts the most diligent and brightest fantasy football minds in the country. Consider some of the things that make the NFFC unique:

14-team leagues. Every position is at a premium in fourteen team leagues; you simply can't be solid at every spot in your starting lineup. Unlike in most leagues, in the NFFC, you need to have strong feelings on why your 24th ranked QB is ahead of your 28th QB, and you must know how much more you like your 58th ranked WR compared to the 68th receiver on your board.
Starting lineup of 2 RB/3 WR/1 TE/1 Flex. Most 14-team leagues will go 2 RB/2 WR/1 Flex, or just eliminate the flex option. What this means is each week, 50-65 WRs will be starting in your NFFC league. In bye weeks, some teams will be forced to start third WRs on bad offenses. You really need to know your stuff to compete in the NFFC.
The NFFC devalues the RB position, long overemphasized in most fantasy leagues. By awarding 6 points per TD and only -1 for each interception, QB scoring is increased. And by awarding 1 PPR for WRs and TEs but only 0.5 PPR for RBs, the value of WRs and TEs increases. The old theory of going RB-RB and then starting to pay attention just doesn't work in the NFFC.
Third round reversal. In some years, a regular serpentine draft means the guys with the 1st or 2nd pick have a huge leg up on everyone else. There were years when you knew if a guy was able to land Marshall Faulk, he could go on autopilot the rest of the draft and still make the playoffs. But by letting the owners at the back end of the first round picks early in the second and third rounds (and then alternating the rest of the draft), the value of each slot is smoothed out.
Kentucky Derby Style (KDS) selection of draft slots. The owner who wins the draft lottery doesn't automatically pick first - he picks wherever he wants to pick. If you want to pick last, first, or in the middle, you are much more likely to end up where you want in a KDS-style draft system.

So how do you win the NFFC? For starters, preparation, preparation, preparation. You need much more clarity in your draft strategy in the NFFC than in a regular league; you must know exactly where your tiers start and end at QB, RB and WR, and you need to be very familiar with the average draft position (ADP) of about 250 players in a typical NFFC league. But first, let's figure out which draft pick we want.

Which slot to choose?

The first thing to keep in mind is that draft order - especially in the NFFC - is overrated. I asked three of the smartest people I know what my plan should be for the KDS draft preference, and I received three different answers. Jeff Pasquino wrote a great article detailing the value of each draft slot in a fourteen-team league. He concluded that the 3rd Round Reversal twist smoothes out the value of the different draft slots, but the top picks are still the most valuable. On average, those first few picks are worth so much because historically, value drops off at an exponential rate in the first round. Therefore, picking early is best.

Of course, there are also lots of reasons to want to choose at the end of your draft. There are 15 or 16 or so elite fantasy players, or 14 elite non-fantasy QBs. It would be great to get two of the big ten RBs (Peterson, MJD, Jackson, Tomlinson, Forte, Turner, Johnson, Gore, and Williams), big four WRs (Fitzgerald, Moss, Johnson & Johnson) or Brady (or Brees). Only by picking at 13 or 14 can you ensure that you get two of those guys, and only if you pick in the 10-14 range can you even ensure of getting a Westbrook, Wayne or Steve Smith in the second round.

On the, uh, third hand, all the value for the rest of your draft is in the middle. In the first two rounds, you're probably hurt by picking anywhere in the three to nine holes. There's a drop-off after pick two, and the difference between picks three and nine is not significant enough to overcome picking earlier in the second and third rounds. Picking in the third, fourth, fifth or sixth holes are the worst spots in the draft. But what about 7-8-9? By picking in the middle, you get to scoop up all the value. Angry that Jason Witten is still around in the middle of the 4th round because everyone is scared to take a TE? Well if you're picking at the turn, there's not much you can do about it. When you are constantly waiting 24 picks before it's your turn, you're unable to scoop up value. You're often forced to reach on your second pick, as well, knowing that you won't pick again until a bunch of players are off the board.

All three theories are sound. While picking 1st and 2nd will help you dominate the first round, picking at the back end will help you dominate rounds two and three. Still, I like being able to dominate the rest of the draft, and there's something about picking at the turn that puts you behind the 8-ball. In a twelve team league, you can get cute at the turns by taking handcuffs or loading up on a position. For example, when a team has a good passing offense but a battle for the #2 WR spot, both receivers fall a bit in most drafts due to that uncertainty. If I've got the first or last pick, I like taking a team's #2 and #3 WRs at the end of the middle rounds of a draft to get a solid #2 WR at a discounted cost. I can also wait to take the 12th and 13th QBs off the board with back to back picks in certain leagues when I'm picking at the turn. While these strategies are effective and it's always fun to watch them succeed, you're sacrificing a lot to have this option in a fourteen team league. There will be bad picks in your draft, and there will be great value available. You just need the ammunition to take advantage of that situation, and you need to be in the middle of the draft to do that.

My KDS preference:

#10 - Ideal: Get three of the first top 33 players (10th, 19th, and 33rd) and are fairly close to the middle of each round
#9 - Hope to get Steve Smith in round 2 and never have to wait long between picks
#11 - Dominate the first three rounds
#12 - Dominate the first three rounds
#13 - Dominate the first three rounds
#14 - Dominate the first three rounds
#1 - Get Peterson and pray for a 2,000 yard year
#2 - Get MJD and pray for he's RB1
#8 - Cross your fingers that you get your choice of WR1 or top RB
#7 - Grab stud WR/RB
#6 - Grab stud WR/RB
#5 - Grab stud RB/WR
#4 - Not much to get excited about here.
#3 - Ugly. Everyone should put this #14.

General Drafting Prep

There are a bunch of things that every owner should do to win any league he enters. Read the FBG e-mail updates. Listen to Cecil and Sigmund on The Audible. Stay on top of the newswire. In the NFFC, you're going to be making tough calls on key backup positions among guys a lot of fantasy players know nothing about. You can't be one of those guys. Having a cheat sheet only gets you so far - you need to know the upside of each wide receiver, how they pair up with your current QBs, RBs and WRs, and what needs to happen for them to break out.

Further, be sure to play around with the Draft Dominator; the more practice drafts you can run, the better. See how your team looks when you go QB/RB to start your draft compared to WR/WR. What happens if you take Witten in the third? Or Gates in the fourth? Or wait until 15 QBs are off the board? Each individual drafter should have their own strategy, but you can only maximize your preferences after seeing how all the combinations work out. If you are confident that you can find a sleeper WR your draft strategy will be much different than that of a guy who always hits on his sleeper tight end. You need to plan your draft out over and over again. Once again, clarity is key: you need to know exactly what happens when you shift strategies mid-draft and go WR-RB-WR instead of WR-RB-RB. You need to be able to weigh those decisions on the fly. Another great to test out different styles is to put a bunch of teams into the Rate My Team application.

NFFC Draft Prep

While you can never plan exactly how your draft will unfold, there are certain guys you should target in each round. For each fantasy player, this could be different. One guy might want to make sure he gets Donald Driver, Darren McFadden and Greg Olsen; someone else could focus on grabbing Antonio Gates, Brandon Marshall and Matt Schaub. Whoever your key targets are, figure out what it means to your team to grab them. If you love Matt Schaub, you don't need to debate Brady in the first round. If you think Brandon Marshall will have a huge year, you don't want to be "forced" to take Eddie Royal in the third because he's the best WR left in his tier; maybe you grab a WR in the second round instead of the third round because of that.

There are two thoughts I like to keep in mind, one NFFC-specific and one that is useful for any competitive league. The NFFC-specific one is go big or go home. Only one person out of around 332 will win the grand prize. That person certainly won't win it all by playing it safe. And there's no difference between finishing 100th or finishing 332nd; therefore, you need to focus on maximizing upside with your picks. Matt Waldman wrote a terrific piece explaining this theory over the summer; essentially, Matt argued to skip on RBs in the first couple of rounds and load up at the other positions. Then, if you find the mid-round sleepers at RB that are this year's stars, your team will be unstoppable. While this is a "shoot for the stars" strategy, remember, only the stars win the NFFC. Go big, or go home.

The other theory to keep in mind is what I call "avoid taking your last starter." In the NFFC, you'll start 1 QB, 1 TE, 2-3 RBs and 3-4 WRs. If you purely follow the "avoid taking your last starter" plan, you'll go RB/WR in round 1 and 2, and will have grabbed 2 RBs and 3 WRs by the end of round five. Why? Because then your picks in the next three rounds can be your last starting QB, your last starting TE, and your last starting RB/WR. If you're picking at the 10th spot, this could land you a starting lineup of Michael Turner, Derrick Ward, Steve Smith, Eddie Royal and Jerricho Cotchery. If you're at the 5-hole, you could end up with Marion Barber, Reggie Bush, Andre Johnson, T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Roy Williams. At 14, you're looking at Frank Gore, Knowshon Moreno, Reggie Wayne, Anquan Boldin and Hines Ward.

What's the advantage of going RB-WR-WR-RB-WR or WR-RB-WR-RB-WR in your first five rounds? This way, when value drops, you can snatch it. I love Jason Witten this year. He legitimately could break the TE reception record in 2009, and I can't fault anyone that takes him in the middle of the third round. But once you take Witten, you won't take Tony Gonzalez in the 5th, Greg Olsen or Chris Cooley in the 8th, or Kellen Winslow in the ninth. Sure, those guys have ADPs suggesting they'll go earlier than that, but there are always guys that fall in your draft. Once you take your last starter at a position, you effectively flush down the toilet your chance to get the steal of the draft at that position. By taking Witten in the third, you're making a good pick, but not necessarily the best pick.

The same thing is true with Brady, Brees or Manning, but even moreso. You have to spend a top 20 pick to draft any of those three QBs. While doing so will make you set at QB, you'll be chasing value at RB and WR for the rest of the draft. Even worse, what happens if Aaron Rodgers falls to the end of the fourth? Donovan McNabb to the beginning of the sixth? Kurt Warner to the 7th? If I asked you before the draft would you rather have Warner in the 7th or Brady at the end of the first, I'm sure most would say Warner in the seventh. We all know that's value, because Warner shouldn't be there that late. But by taking Brady in the first, you foreclose the option of taking a QB that drops. On draft day, you don't want to be jealous of the owner who went RB/WR heavy in the first few rounds and still got Donovan McNabb at the end of the sixth; you want to be that owner.

For those same reasons, I wouldn't advise going RB-RB, either. You still can start three RBs, but you're basically forcing your hand for the next few rounds - you have to grab three WRs with your next four picks, and you may not be able to get them when you want them. You'll be letting the draft dictate what you do, instead of owning the draft yourself. When at the NFFC, keep the "avoiding grabbing my last starter" theory in mind.

Handcuffs: They're not just for your RB1

For years, fantasy owners have been handcuffing their RB1 to his real life backup running back. Guys like Trung Canidate, Skip Hicks, LaMont Jordan, and Michael Turner were key targets for some owners in the later rounds of their drafts. The handcuffing strategy worked best in 2005, when fantasy owners who drafted Priest Holmes also tried to draft Larry Johnson; when Holmes was injured, Johnson came in and was a top-two fantasy running back for the rest of the season.

And while I still suggest handcuffing your RB1 in most situations, it's important to remember that you can handcuff in other, more strategic ways. For example, Jeremy Maclin and Kevin Curtis will probably be drafted near the 11th and 12th rounds. Why not take both? If one gets injured, the value of the other will skyrocket. If DeSean Jackson and Brian Westbrook are hurt, you could start both Maclin and Curtis and put up solid numbers. If Maclin is a star rookie, you have him; if he busts, Curtis will probably outperform his ADP. Later in your draft, you can grab both Keenan Burton and Laurent Robinson; it's not clear who will be the best fantasy option between those two, and as a result, both have very low ADPs. By taking both, you've eliminated most of the risk associated with them. Grabbing two WRs on the same team with low ADPs due to the uncertainty of which player is the guy to have can be a great strategy. There's obviously one key risk associated with it - what if the QB gets hurt? In that case, you're going to have two dead weights at one position on your roster. That's certainly an ugly scenario, but that's a risk worth taking if you want to win it all. Once again, to win the NFFC, you have to take some chances.

Similarly, you can handcuff two undervalued running backs competing for the same role. Michael Bush and Darren McFadden are slipping in drafts, but if you grab both, you could have a steal if either gets hurt. The same is true in Tampa Bay, although Cadillac Williams may be stealing too many carries there. You can also try something a little riskier - take a guy you think will be great in September and pair him with someone who should be a stud down the stretch. Marshawn Lynch won't hold much value early on, but LeSean McCoy (or Julius Jones) might if Westbrook (or Edgerrin James) isn't full strength by week one. Donald Brown could be a star the second half of the season if he takes the job from Joseph Addai; until then, someone like Jamal Lewis could hold the fort for you. Worried about Tomlinson's age but don't want to spend the heavy price on Sproles? Beanie Wells or Knowshon Moreno could be showing why they were first round talents by November, even if they had slow starts to their careers. You may not love Fred Taylor in the 7th, but if you don't love him because of injury risk, just grab Sammy Morris or Laurence Maroney at the end of your draft. Handcuffing RBs isn't just for your stud RB, and in the NFFC, you need to take advantage of every edge you can find.

Perhaps the most exotic handcuff out there? Reggie Bush and Lance Moore. Let's say you draft Bush in the early fourth as your RB2, and you're understandably nervous about his durability. If you draft Moore in the early sixth - and he should be there - you've done a great job of protecting your Bush investment. Why? Bush averaged around 14 FP/G last year (NFFC scoring), and if he plays sixteen games and puts up that average in 2009, he'll be a terrific pick in the fourth. And what if he gets hurt? Lance Moore jumps up from a moderate starter to a stud. In the 10 games Bush played in last season, Moore averaged 10.2 FP/G; in the six games Bush missed, Moore averaged 21.7 FP/G. And those were games where Colston was healthy, too.

Another good handcuff might be Greg Olsen or Devin Hester to Matt Forte. If Forte gets injured, expect more dump-offs (although not as many as there would be if Kyle Orton was still there) to Olsen; similarly, the Bears might use Hester on more bubble screens in lieu of running the ball. Be creative with your handcuffs - try and isolate situations where you can take advantage of undervalued players. Brandon Marshall was running with the scout team as recently as late August, and he may have to work his way into Josh McDaniels' good graces. He might last until the 5th round in your NFFC draft if enough owners are afraid to pull the trigger. But Fred Jackson could be a solid handcuff to Marshall, and someone you start the first couple of weeks until you're confident Marshall is back to his top-ten fantasy form. The key, as always, is being creative.

Late round fliers

Make sure you have a couple of boom or bust guys that you are targeting for the end of your draft. Figure out who you want to grab out of Troy Williamson, Michael Crabtree, James Jones, Mike Thomas, Brandon Lloyd, Javon Walker, Percy Harvin, or Miles Austin. You need a couple of swing for the fences picks that you can get a good read on after a couple of weeks. Is Mike Thomas healthy and playing well? Is Harvin redefining the RB/WR tweener role? Has Troy Williamson put it all together? Hopefully, by week two or three, you'll get your answer. If it's good, you might have the steal of your draft. If it's bad, you have a guy you can drop to pick up a hot starter that might turn out to be the steal of your league.

Reading about the lines is more important than reading between them

If there's one final piece of advice, it's to make sure you keep reading about the big uglies on the offensive lines. Buffalo and Cincinnati have lots of upside this year. The Bengals have a healthy Palmer and three very talented receivers. The Bills are implementing the no-huddle offense with an accurate QB, two great wideouts, and two strong running backs. While there's fantasy value to be had (for my money, Lee Evans and Carson Palmer), these two teams have Nitroglycerin offensive lines; they could blow up at any moment. It's easy to get caught up in the sexy stories, but be cognizant of the talent each team has on their lines. Without strong bodies up front, it's very tough to produce good fantasy numbers. When Walter Jones had arthroscopic knee surgery towards the end of training camp, that news shouldn't have flown under your radar.

Kickers and Defenses

As usual, I wouldn't spend many resources before or during your draft on the kicker position. At defense, I always advise players to implement the Defensive Team By Committee (DTBC) strategy. While you can never guarantee results in fantasy football, going the DTBC route costs little in terms of draft picks and can often yield great results. If the defenses you draft don't look good early, don't be afraid to drop them for some of the hot defenses early in the season.