Join the Footballguys Daily Update
Start your morning with our roundup of the most important stories in football - with the fantasy insight you need to make league-winning decisions. Delivered straight to your inbox, 100% free.
In life, fear of the unknown can be paralyzing. It forces us to stand pat and stick with the familiar. Such fear also creeps into the minds of even the most experienced members of the fantasy football community.
So many owners are comfortable with the traditional league models. Maybe they’ll venture into the PPR waters, but it can be hard to drag your buddies away from the snake draft. Up until a few months ago, I had been that way about auction formatting. I was not prepared to leave the cozy quarters of my snake redraft leagues; not ready to think about dollar values instead of ADPs.
As the offseason wore on, I read more about and listened to experienced players talk auction drafts. Intrigue took over. It was clear that the time had come for me to take my shot at one. It was a real delight to see an open spot in a Football Guys staff auction league when I came aboard. A 10 team, $200 budget, PPR extravaganza I was ready to take part in.
After signing up and going through my first auction draft a few night’s ago, I’m hooked. There are five key nuggets I gleaned from my inaugural journey.
Spend big to grab elite running backs
LeSean McCoy, Jamaal Charles, Adrian Peterson and Matt Forte are the consensus top fantasy running backs. You typically won’t get a shot at them in a snake draft unless you own a top five pick. In an auction format, they’re up for anyone to have. Provided you are aggressive enough.
I had my sights set on either snagging either McCoy or Charles. The Eagles’ runner came up first, and went for a pricy $55. With one of my targets off the board I couldn’t afford to let Charles slip through my grasp. The bidding got wild pretty quickly, and I waited to jump in until it got serious at the end. I ended up paying $56 for the Chiefs’ All-Pro rusher, and that was just fine by me.
Here’s another benefit to auction leagues; the fun didn’t stop there. There is an almost 0% chance you can get two of those elite four in a standard draft. With the auction, you aren’t so limited.
Several players came and went after my investment in Jamaal Charles. I still had a good amount over $100 to spend when Matt Forte was nominated. In a moment of revelation, I saw that I could pair he and Charles together. There was no hesitation as I aggressively bid on Forte. Ultimately winning him at a reasonable $47 price tag.
This scenario shows the appeal of auction drafts. My roster has two top-five running backs that are the centerpieces of their offenses. With Charles and Forte’s pass catching prowess they’ll both regularly approach the 20-point mark in our PPR format.
I ended up spending over 50% of my budget on Forte and Charles. It was worth it. If you’re going to play in an auction league, you may as well reap the full benefits it offers. Be bold and swing for the fences. Even if it’s not two of the elite runners, do something you can’t manage in a snake draft. Maybe target two strong receivers that are very close in ADP.
Just because you sink a big chunk of change into one position doesn’t mean you won’t have a good auction team. This brings us to the next lesson.
Take a stand on your guys
I went all out and spent big on two premier running backs. Consequentially, I wouldn’t be housing many premier players at other positions. Such a propostion might seem frightening, but it actually presents a fun opportunity. Now you get to take a stand on the players you believe in.
The second player I won after Jamaal Charles was Cordarrelle Patterson. I recently completed a study analyzing Patterson’s rookie season. After coming away impressed, I’ve been eager to invest in him in all fantasy leagues. The young player’s rising ADP frightens some, but in auctions the fears are lessened.
Understanding that I would not be able to secure a surefire WR1, I had to be bold. Patterson has massive upside with Norv Turner in town to squeeze the most out of his natural gifts. I needed someone with that sort of outrageous potential, since he’d be a weak WR1 choice. A winning $24 bid later and the Vikings’ sophomore receiver was on my team. As a believer in Patterson, I was just fine being aggresive with my money.
Later on, I also made plays for fantasy assets I expect to vastly outperform their current reputations. Players like Khiry Robinson and Marvin Jones are ascending talents I’ve been high on since the 2013 season’s conclusion. Brandin Cooks is a favorite of mine amongst the crop of rookie receivers. Acquiring players like this are essential in auctions drafts. If they hit, your big spending on elite players earlier won’t cause an imbalance in your roster.
Auction drafts force owners to put their money where their mouth is. Well, at least the fantasy equivalent of monopoly money. Its important that you’re ready to take a strong stance on the players you really believe in.
Be ready to adjust on the fly
It’s nearly impossible to have everything go just as you planned it when in a fantasy draft. Your fellow drafters may do the unpredictable, thus altering your board. Each selection you make should affect your next one, regardless. While these credos exist in traditional drafts, they carry even larger weight in the auction arena.
Jimmy Graham or Rob Gronkowski inhabited almost every single one of my 2013 fantasy squads. Owning them is quite addicting. Once you play with the massive statistical advantage they provide, you don’t want to go through the withdraw symptoms. Here in 2014, I’m doing whatever it takes to make sure I obtain their services. Taking Graham in the mid-first round is quite good by me. Chasing Gronk in the late second or earlier third round is a fine backup plan if I’m out of position for Graham.
Even after securing Jamaal Charles at a steep price, I was still ready to chase the big two tight ends. It wasn’t until the Jimmy Graham bidding war began to close that I had a change of heart.
As soon as I submitted a hefty bid of $48 on the Saints’ phenom, regret coursed through my body. My love for these game-changing tight ends runs deep. Yet, I didn’t like the idea of saying goodbye to 50% of my budget unless I was stacking the running back position. So, Graham went to someone else. I only half-heartedly submitted a $30 proposal on Gronk that others would surely outbid. Walking away with the Graham or Gronk trump card just wasn’t happening in this draft.
My affinity for chasing a Graham or Gronk is almost matched for my disdain for rostering a certain type of receiver. I avoid drafting older, low upside wideouts almost to an inadvisable degree. I prefer to risk a low floor in hopes of a higher ceiling than to take someone like Anquan Boldin. Yet, in this auction I ended up winning guys like Marques Colston and Greg Jennings. While that was quite a deviation from my normal strategy it made sense in light of my previous selections. Pairing potential boom or bust players like Cordarrelle Patterson and Brandin Cooks with their safer teammates seemed like a wise move. If the youngsters tumble down far short of expectations, at least I can land at the veterans’ floors.
Your preferences and strategies are likely different than mine. That’s fine and to be expected. What the auction draft teaches fantasy enthusiasts is the importance of being flexible. A single bid on a moment’s notice could force us to change our course of action.
Save a good stack of cash for the end
Plenty of guys in auction drafts will rush out and spend their cash in pursuit of stars. There are merits to the strategy, and some will end up with loaded rosters because of it. On the other hand, doing so is akin to leaving a party at 10:00 p.m. Some really wild stuff is bound to happen after you’ve bowed out.
Not only does it make the auction more enjoyable, but saving also makes sense strategically. At the end of drafts you want to be sitting on a nice pile of cash, as most of your league mates are down to their last two or three dollars. This way you can pluck sleepers and breakout candidates off the board with little to no resistance.
In our Football Guys auction draft, three of us clearly employed this approach. Chad Parsons, Sigmund Bloom and myself were way out in front with at least $24 dollars to spend in filling out final roster spots. Bloom and I did battle over Marvin Jones and Kenny Stills. He ultimately won Stills, while I walked away with Jones. Parsons seems to share my affinity for the Browns’ rookie running back, Terrance West. We got into an awfully costly bidding war at the conclusion of the draft for the rights to own West. I ended up blinking first when Parsons entered a finishing bid of $17. He won the standoff because he wisely saved $35 to drop on his final three roster spots.
I was able to bounce back from losing West by securing Khiry Robinson, Greg Jennings and Knile Davis. Nominating them as $5 entries assured I wouldn’t even face a challenge. Robinson and Jennings are players I am willing to take strong stands on outperforming their traditional ADPs. Davis might be the most valuable handcuff in the league, especially since I invested in Charles.
Saving a small side stack of money for the end of drafts really helps you round out your fantasy roster. You’ll come away with some of your favorite gems, and you won’t have to worry about a challenge.
Don’t be afraid, just do it
The biggest lesson from my first auction draft was that I shouldn’t have waited so long to try it. The experience was fun, and the unfamiliar format brought on a new challenge. By assigning monetary values to players I have been able to better solidify some of my own projections and theories. I feel as if I posses more clarity in my return to snake mock drafts and MFL10s.
Participating in my first auction draft has made me a better fantasy owner in all spectrums. I’ve strengthened some of my opinions, and formulated a plan of attack for future auctions. Of which I hope there are many in the not too distant future.
The unknown in the fantasy football world might give you hesitation. Just don’t let it hinder you too long. As the industry continues to boom, so will the popularity of all the different formats it has to offer. Auction drafts are just one of the many ways to enjoy the goodness of the game we all obsess over.
I hope my story provided you with a few tips and strategies to be better prepared for auction drafts. More importantly, I hope it inspired you to take the plunge into a new adventure and get into an auction draft.