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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 4 - QUICK NEWS AND NOTES
We have come to our first week where we have teams on bye weeks which this week we only have two with Carolina and Washington but it is something to monitor as it cuts into the player pool and might make certain positions even more valuable while drafting. Another critical area to look at is injuries as the weeks go by and in Week 4 they are starting to pile up. We have big names such as Leonard Fournette, LeSean McCoy, Matt Breida, Devonta Freeman, Joe Mixon, Jay Ajayi, and Chris Carson all at running back that have their questionable status up in the air. At wide receiver we also have some question marks now with Kenan Allen, A.J. Green, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Doug Baldwin. These are all big names to watch as we go into the weekend and with only having to roster five players it makes it hard to draft these guys with comparable options out there. It is almost better to see your opponents selecting these players with the questionable tag as it could give you a slight edge on the week.
The popular high scoring games to target this week are going to be Cincinnati vs Atlanta (51.5 O/U), New Orleans vs NY Giants (50.0 O/U), Baltimore vs Pittsburgh (50.5 O/U), and Kansas City vs Denver (55.5 O/U). Whenever you are in position to choose between two players you feel have similar upside you might just want to choose the one that is from one of these four games as they all seem to ones that will have some high scores and lots of fantasy points from all the star players involved.
HEAD-TO-HEAD DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY
- Alvin Kamara RB1
- Saquon Barkley RB2
- Ezekiel Elliott RB3
- Melvin Gordon RB4
- Michael Thomas WR1
- Antonio Brown WR2
- Julio Jones WR3
- Odell Beckham JrWR4
- Patrick Mahomes QB1
- Drew Brees 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. I feel like this week you can almost just go with any of the top running backs with your first pick and follow it up with WR/RB depending on who you like with your top four picks and just take whatever quarterback is left out of Mahomes or Brees with your last pick.
3-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY
- Alvin Kamara RB1
- Saquon Barkley RB2
- Ezekiel Elliott RB3
- Melvin Gordon RB4
- Michael Thomas WR1
- Antonio Brown WR2
- Julio Jones WR3
- Odell Beckham JrWR4
- Patrick Mahomes QB1
- Tyreek Hill WR5
- David Johnson RB5
- James Conner RB6
- DeAndre Hopkins WR6
- Drew Brees QB2
- Matt Ryan 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 Matt Ryan (or even Aaron Rodgers) 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
- Saquon Barkley RB2
- Ezekiel Elliott RB3
- Melvin Gordon RB4
- Michael Thomas WR1
- Antonio Brown WR2
- Julio Jones WR3
- Odell Beckham JrWR4
- Patrick Mahomes QB1
- Tyreek Hill WR5
- David Johnson RB5
- James Conner RB6
- DeAndre Hopkins WR6
- Mike Evans WR7
- Jarvis Landry WR8
- Kareem Hunt RB7
- Davante Adams WR9
- Carlos Hyde RB8
- Jordan Howard RB9
- Drew Brees QB2
- Tevin Coleman RB10
- Travis Kelce WR/TE10
- Keenan Allen WR11 (Questionable)
- Lamar Miller RB11
- Matt Ryan QB3
- Aaron Rodgers QB4
- Giovani Bernard RB12 (Questionable)
- JuJu Smith-Schuster WR12 (Questionable)
- Deshaun Watson QB5
- Ben Roethlisberger QB6
Just like every week the running back position is the one you want to pound early hoping that you can land one of the top four backs in Kamara, Barkley, Elliott, or Gordon and build your team from there. There is a drop off after that with David Johnson, James Conner, Kareem Hunt, and Carlos Hyde the next on the list. James Conner keeps being under valued in this DRAFT format and I have been able to get him in the third round in a lot of these 6-man drafts during the week. Much like the running back position the wide receiver position is also stacked at the top with Thomas, Brown, Jones, and Beckham as the big names. Even after that both Tyreek Hill and DeAndre Hopkins look like excellent options as top tier guys that have huge upside each week and good matchups this week.
I feel like you can usually get your top three players this week with RB/RB/WR or RB/WR/WR and feel really good about it this week. I think you absolutely wait for your quarterback until at least the fourth round and if you can find a quarterback to stack with one of your receivers go for it but if not I think you wait until the last round to draft a quarterback here. I prefer to get two running backs in the first two rounds if I can but for sure by the end of the third round I want two running backs as I seem to be able to find better receivers at the end of these drafts that I like more than the running backs. Guys like Mike Evans, Davante Adams, and Jarvis Landry seem to fall to the fourth round quite often and make excellent options to fill your receiver position.
10-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY
- Alvin Kamara RB1
- Saquon Barkley RB2
- Ezekiel Elliott RB3
- Melvin Gordon RB4
- Michael Thomas WR1
- Antonio Brown WR2
- Julio Jones WR3
- Odell Beckham JrWR4
- Patrick Mahomes QB1
- Tyreek Hill WR5
- David Johnson RB5
- James Conner RB6
- DeAndre Hopkins WR6
- Mike Evans WR7
- Jarvis Landry WR8
- Kareem Hunt RB7
- Davante Adams WR9
- Carlos Hyde RB8
- Jordan Howard RB9
- Drew Brees QB2
- Tevin Coleman RB10
- Travis Kelce WR/TE10
- Keenan Allen WR11 (Questionable)
- Lamar Miller RB11
- Matt Ryan QB3
- Aaron Rodgers QB4
- Giovani Bernard RB12 (Questionable)
- JuJu Smith-Schuster WR12 (Questionable)
- Deshaun Watson QB5
- Ben Roethlisberger QB6
- T.Y. Hilton WR13
- Demaryius Thomas WR14
- Will Fuller WR15
- Kenyan Drake RB13
- Golden Tate WR16
- Marshawn Lynch RB14
- Rob Gronkowski TE/WR17
- Alex Collins RB15
- Sony Michel RB16
- Zach Ertz TE/WR18
- Kerryon Johnson RB17
- Emmanuel Sanders WR19
- Tom Brady QB7
- Matthew Stafford QB8
- Jamaal Williams RB18
- James White RB19
- Sammy Watkins WR20
- Royce Freeman RB20
- Andy Dalton QB9
- Russell Wilson QB10
10-man contest become more and more difficult as bye weeks and injuries start to pile up and in Week 4 we are dealing with both of those issues. The drop off is bigger than normal at the running back position so you are going to want to make sure you have that position filled by the end of round three if possible. At wide receiver you can always seem to be able to find value late in these drafts so choosing a second receiver over your second running back seems foolish in the 10-man format. Also look to pair your final receiver spot with a quarterback in the last round to give your team a little boost.
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!