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DRAFT offers weekly snake draft contests with 5-man rosters (1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR/TE) with 0.5-point PPR scoring (the same as FanDuel). There is no salary cap on DRAFT which makes it unique to how you play compared to the other daily fantasy sites. Teams are built through live snake drafts that have 30-second timer per pick. The most common contest sizes are Head-to-Head, 3-Team, 6-Team, and 10-Team.
We will explore both the rankings and draft strategies for each of these four DRAFT sizes. To understand why players are ranked where they are, be sure to check out the overall rankings where I will have in-depth breakdowns of some of the top options and some personal favorites down the list. When developing these rankings we will be excluding the Thursday Night games and only focus on the main slate on DRAFT, the Sunday and Monday games.
If you want to follow me on DRAFT my username is "Eaglezzz" as I sometimes will post contests and would love to play along with fellow Footballguys like yourselves. Please feel free to contact me on Twitter with any questions or if you would like to discuss this article or draft strategies. I welcome constructive feedback on the article and as always best of luck in this week's contests.
Week 2 - Quick News and Notes
The Le'Veon Bell saga continues into Week 2 as it looks like you can safely avoid him this week and move up James Conner in your rankings. Monitoring some of the injury news this week we will want to be cautious with Aaron Rodgers, Leonard Fournette, and Devonta Freeman. Those are the three big names that are all questionable heading into the weekend. If you can come up with some of your own solid rankings by Monday evening or Tuesday morning you can have a nice advantage over your opponents as the earlier you draft in the week you will have an advantage over your competition.
The popular high scoring games to target this week are going to be Kansas City vs Pittsburgh (52.5 O/U), Detroit vs San Francisco (48.0 O/U), and Cleveland vs New Orleans (49.5). When looking to rank players this week you may want to give players in these games a slight bump if you are trying to decide between a couple of players while drafting.
Head-to-Head Draft Rankings and Strategy
- Alvin Kamara RB1
- Todd Gurley RB2
- Antonio Brown WR1
- Melvin Gordon RB3
- DeAndre Hopkins WR2
- Michael Thomas WR3
- Ezekiel Elliott RB4
- Julio Jones WR4
- Drew Brees QB1
- Ben Roethlisberger QB2
For a head-to-head contest you need to look for the top 2 quarterbacks, 4 running backs, and 4 wide receivers/tight ends - For a total of 10 players. The main key to look at when drafting in H2H contests is to know what your opponent is doing. You want to watch if he takes WR/WR to start out the draft you know that you can draft your WR positions with your last two picks. Same goes if he drafts a QB or RB/RB, you know that you can leverage that information and wait at those positions.
In H2H drafts I typically come in with a game plan and like to stick closely to it, and let the other drafter I am up against decide what type of team I will build depending on their picks. Often times you will find others that like to draft their favorite team, maybe they just follow DRAFT's own projections/ADP and stick to those numbers just going down the list.
3-Team Draft Rankings and Strategy
- Alvin Kamara RB1
- Todd Gurley RB2
- Antonio Brown WR1
- Melvin Gordon RB3
- DeAndre Hopkins WR2
- Michael Thomas WR3
- Ezekiel Elliott RB4
- Julio Jones WR4
- Drew Brees QB1
- David Johnson RB5
- Ben Roethlisberger QB2
- Odell Beckham WR5
- Saquon Barkley RB6
- Keenan Allen WR6
- Deshaun Watson QB3
For the 3-man contests, you will need to look at ranking 15 total players consisting of 3 quarterbacks, 6 running backs, and 6 wide receivers/tight ends. The priority here is the RB and WR spots as quarterbacks will often fall and getting either Drew Brees or Tom Brady at the end of the draft is a win.
The best advice for drafting in 3-mans would be to come up with your solid 15 player ranking list that you feel most comfortable with and don't get frustrated if the top players that you have on that list get taken right before your pick. If you have picks 1.01 or 1.03 you will be picking at the turn and can have an advantage in following your league mates roster construction closely and be able to know when to take certain positions or if you wanted to stack players you will have an easier time doing so with back to back picks.
6-Team Draft Rankings and Strategy
- Alvin Kamara RB1
- Todd Gurley RB2
- Antonio Brown WR1
- Melvin Gordon RB3
- DeAndre Hopkins WR2
- Michael Thomas WR3
- Ezekiel Elliott RB4
- Julio Jones WR4
- David Johnson RB5
- Odell Beckham WR5
- Saquon Barkley RB6
- Keenan Allen WR6
- Tyreek Hill WR7
- James Conner RB7
- Christian McCaffrey RB8
- Drew Brees QB1
- Ben Roethlisberger QB2
- Dalvin Cook RB9
- Mike Evans WR8
- Stefon Diggs WR9
- Kareem Hunt RB10
- Deshaun Watson QB3
- Jarvis Landry WR10
- JuJu Smith-Schuster WR11
- Jordan Howard RB11
- Patrick Mahomes QB4
- Davante Adams WR12
- Jay Ajayi RB12
- Cam Newton QB5
- Philip Rivers QB6
The running back position is one that you want to try to land two within your first three rounds this week. If you are lucky enough to get a top two pick you will have the rights to draft either Gurley or Kamara and that is about the strongest start you can ask for. From there you can let the draft dictate what position you should target each round. I think it is another good week to wait at quarterback as I have been doing a few of these drafts and can get Brees, Roethlisberger, or Watson in the fourth round on many occasions. I am seeing Aaron Rodgers being drafted along with Leonard Fournette and I have been avoided those two because of the injuries and when those two are drafted it helps bump up the other players you have ranked and the potential that the can fall to you in the later rounds.
I feel like there is a tier drop off at wide receiver after Tyreek Hill who I have ranked as WR7. I see Evans, Diggs, Landry, Smith-Schuster, and Adams as equals and not one standing out above the other. Waiting on a quarterback until Round 5 will give you a better chance of building a team that is stronger at RB and WR as you won't have to just settle on one of those picks at the end of the draft.
10-Team Draft Rankings and Strategy
- Alvin Kamara RB1
- Todd Gurley RB2
- Antonio Brown WR1
- Melvin Gordon RB3
- DeAndre Hopkins WR2
- Michael Thomas WR3
- Ezekiel Elliott RB4
- Julio Jones WR4
- David Johnson RB5
- Odell Beckham WR5
- Saquon Barkley RB6
- Keenan Allen WR6
- Tyreek Hill WR7
- James Conner RB7
- Christian McCaffrey RB8
- Drew Brees QB1
- Ben Roethlisberger QB2
- Dalvin Cook RB9
- Mike Evans WR8
- Stefon Diggs WR9
- Kareem Hunt RB10
- Deshaun Watson QB3
- Jarvis Landry WR10
- JuJu Smith-Schuster WR11
- Jordan Howard RB11
- Patrick Mahomes QB4
- Davante Adams WR12
- Jay Ajayi RB12
- LeSean McCoy RB 13
- Zach Ertz WR/TE13
- T.Y. Hilton WR14
- Josh Gordon WR15
- Marvin Jones WR16
- Rob Gronkowski WR/TE17
- Lamar Miller RB14
- Kenyan Drake RB15
- Adrian Peterson RB16
- Dion Lewis RB17
- Cam Newton QB5
- Brandin Cooks WR18
- Adam Thielen WR19
- Philip Rivers QB6
- Jared Goff QB7
- Alex Smith QB8
- Carlos Hyde RB18
- Jamaal Williams RB19
- Kirk Cousins QB9
- Chris Thompson RB20
- Demaryius Thomas WR20
- Matthew Stafford QB10
Week 1 saw all the big name chalk hitting and was very predictable overall. Fast forward to this week and we will now have some drafters chasing last weeks big numbers and discounting players who underperformed. In order to give yourself the best shot at cashing in 10-man contests, you are going to want to dig deep for a late round stack that might make you different from your opponents.
Stacking is something you will want to look at in these 10-man leagues as you will be looking for advantages to put up big points and get on top of the leaderboard. You can look to stack a QB/WR from the same team or if you are attacking a certain game you can try to draft players from both teams. In the 10-man leagues, you are shooting to win it of course but these leagues offer top-3 prizes to land in the money. Even finishing in third place out of 10 teams can be a very profitable outcome so building a team with a high floor with a couple of high ceiling type players and a possible stack can help you get there.
Best of luck in this week's DRAFT's!