Expert DRAFTing Week 6

Photo: Kim Klement, USA Today Sports

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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 6 - QUICK NEWS AND NOTES

We have come to our third week where we have teams on bye weeks which this week we only have two with Detroit and New Orleans but it is something to monitor as it cuts into the player pool and might make certain positions even more valuable while drafting. We also can disregard the Thursday Night game between Philadelphia and the New York Giants. Taking away four teams this week that all have some good options at all the positions will make for a tougher roster construction on DRAFT this week. Another critical area to look at is injuries as the weeks go by and in Week 6 they are starting to pile up. We have big names such as Leonard Fournette, Dalvin Cook, Devonta Freeman, Matt Breida, Lamar Miller, and Giovani Bernard all at running back that have their status up in the air. At wide receiver we also have some question marks now with T.Y. Hilton, Brandin Cooks, Cooper Kupp, Randall Cobb, Marquise Goodwin, Will Fuller, Jamison Crowder, and Devanta Parker. 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 Kansas City vs New England (59.0 O/U), Tampa Bay vs Atlanta (57.5 O/U), Pittsburgh vs Cincinnati (53.0 O/U), and LA Rams vs Denver (52.5 O/U). It will be hard to not focus only on the Kansas City vs New England game as there are so many big name players in that game and the over/under is so high. 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

1. Todd Gurley RB1
2. Melvin Gordon RB2
3. Christian McCaffrey RB3
4. Julio Jones WR1
5. Antonio Brown WR2
6. Patrick Mahomes QB1
7. Mike Evans WR3
8. A.J. Green WR4
9. Ezekiel Elliott RB4 (or James Conner)
10. Tom Brady 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. This week at quarterback I think Patrick Mahomes is the top pick at the position but I would still rather lock in my two running backs before I pulled the trigger on him. If you miss out on Mahomes not all is lost as you can get the opposite side of this possible shootout game with Tom Brady.

3-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Todd Gurley RB1
2. Melvin Gordon RB2
3. Christian McCaffrey RB3
4. Ezekiel Elliott RB4
5. James Conner RB5
6. Julio Jones WR1
7. Antonio Brown WR2
8. Mike Evans WR3
9. Patrick Mahomes QB1
10. A.J. Green WR4
11. DeAndre Hopkins WR5
12. David Johnson RB6
13. Davante Adams WR6
14. Tom Brady QB2
15. 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 Tom Brady or Matt Ryan (or even Cam Newton or an 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

1. Todd Gurley RB1
2. Melvin Gordon RB2
3. Christian McCaffrey RB3
4. Ezekiel Elliott RB4
5. James Conner RB5
6. Julio Jones WR1
7. Antonio Brown WR2
8. Mike Evans WR3
9. A.J. Green WR4
10. DeAndre Hopkins WR5
11. David Johnson RB6
12. Joe Mixon RB7
13. Kareem Hunt RB8
14. Sony Michel RB9
15. Davante Adams WR6
16. Keenan Allen WR7
17. Adam Thielen WR8
18. Patrick Mahomes QB1
19. TJ Yeldon RB10
20. Tyreek Hill WR9
21. Robert Woods WR10
22. Tom Brady QB2
23. James White RB11
24. Matt Ryan QB3
25. Stefon Diggs WR11
26. Aaron Rodgers QB4
27. Marshawn Lynch RB12
28. Travis Kelce WR/TE12
29. Jared Goff QB5
30. Cam Newton 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 five backs this week in Gurley, Gordon, McCaffrey, Elliott, or Conner and build your team from there. This week the number one pick has a clear edge as Todd Gurley is way ahead of the field in all projections and in a great matchup. If you can land two of these five running backs at the top your team will be in great shape as you build out the rest of it. Wide receiver is deep this week and also has plenty of big names at the top with Jones, Brown, Evans, Green, Hopkins, and Adams who all have very good matchups. I think Mahomes is the top quarterback play on the week but he is also not a player that I will over spend on and if he is there in the third round I will think about it but likely wouldn't pull the trigger until the fourth round. I like the alternatives this week at the position and don't mind getting Brady, Ryan, Rodgers, Goff, or Newton in the last round of these 6-man drafts.

If I am picking at the turn I would be thrilled to land a pair of those top five running backs and almost think that gives you an advantage over the competition. After those top five running backs there are also some other good alternatives with the likes of Johnson, Mixon, Hunt, Michel, and Yeldon that all should have heavy usage this week and all have touchdown potential because of the amount of touches they should see. After the top six wide receivers you still have some big names in Allen, Thielen, Hill, Woods, and Diggs that you can settle on to fill out your draft. The key this week will be going heavy on the running back position and follow it up with your receivers and fill in your roster with your favorite quarterback remaining in the last round.

10-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Todd Gurley RB1
2. Melvin Gordon RB2
3. Christian McCaffrey RB3
4. Ezekiel Elliott RB4
5. James Conner RB5
6. Julio Jones WR1
7. Antonio Brown WR2
8. Mike Evans WR3
9. A.J. Green WR4
10. DeAndre Hopkins WR5
11. David Johnson RB6
12. Joe Mixon RB7
13. Kareem Hunt RB8
14. Sony Michel RB9
15. Davante Adams WR6
16. Keenan Allen WR7
17. Adam Thielen WR8
18. Patrick Mahomes QB1
19. TJ Yeldon RB10
20. Tyreek Hill WR9
21. Robert Woods WR10
22. Tom Brady QB2
23. James White RB11
24. Matt Ryan QB3
25. Stefon Diggs WR11
26. Aaron Rodgers QB4
27. Marshawn Lynch RB12
28. Travis Kelce WR/TE12
29. Jared Goff QB5
30. Cam Newton QB6
31. Jarvis Landry WR13
32. JuJu Smith-Schuster WR14
33. Carlos Hyde RB13
34. Jordan Howard RB14
35. Emmanuel Sanders WR15
36. Rob Gronkowski WR/TE16
37. Amari Cooper WR17
38. LeSean McCoy RB15
39. Chris Carson RB16
40. Alfred Morris RB17
41. Corey Davis WR18
42. Ben Roethlisberger QB7
43. Deshaun Watson QB8
44. Kenyan Drake RB18
45. John Brown WR19
46. Bilal Powell RB19
47. Tevin Coleman RB20
48. Demaryius Thomas WR20
49. Kirk Cousins QB9
50. Jameis Winston QB10

10-man contest become more and more difficult as bye weeks and injuries start to pile up and in Week 6 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!