Expert DRAFTing Week 7

Photo: Bill Streicher, 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 7 - QUICK NEWS AND NOTES

We have come to our fourth week where we have teams on bye weeks which this week we have our first time with four teams on bye. Green Bay, Oakland, Pittsburgh, and Seattle are the four teams off this week which will lower the player pool depth. We also can disregard the Thursday Night game between Denver and Arizona, along with Tennessee and LA Chargers which will be played in London and not on the main slate of games. Taking away eight 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 7 they are starting to pile up. We have big names such as Leonard Fournette, Dalvin Cook, Isaiah Crowell, Chris Thompson, 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, Cooper Kupp, Ryan Grant, Calvin Ridley, Mohamed Sanu, Quincy Enunwa, Allen Robinson, Jamison Crowder, and DeVante 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 Cincinnati vs Kansas City (58.0 O/U), NY Giants vs Atlanta (54.5 O/U), LA Rams vs San Francisco (52.0 O/U), Cleveland vs Tampa Bay (50.0 O/U) and New Orleans vs Baltimore (50.0 O/U). It will be hard to not focus only on the Cincinnati vs Kansas City game as there are so many big-name players in that game and the over/under is so high. Whenever you are in a 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 five games as they all seem to ones that will have some high scores and lots of fantasy points from all the star players involved.

***Disclosure - Rankings are based on the "Main" slate of games on DRAFT. The Thursday Night and early London games will not be included in the rankings. Both the Denver vs Arizona and Tennessee vs LA Chargers are not included this week in the rankings. That being said if you are drafting with all the games in mind I would put Melvin Gordon as my 3rd ranked player this week***

HEAD-TO-HEAD DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Todd Gurley RB1
2. Saquon Barkley RB2
3. Ezekiel Elliott RB3
4. Julio Jones WR1
5. Odell Beckham JrWR2
6. Patrick Mahomes QB1
7. Adam Thielen WR3
8. Tyreek Hill WR4
9. Joe Mixon RB4 (or Kareem Hunt, Christian McCaffrey)
10. Matt Ryan 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 Matt Ryan.

3-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Todd Gurley RB1
2. Saquon Barkley RB2
3. Ezekiel Elliott RB3
4. Julio Jones WR1
5. Odell Beckham JrWR2
6. Patrick Mahomes QB1
7. Adam Thielen WR3
8. Joe Mixon RB4
9. Kareem Hunt RB 5
10. Tyreek Hill WR4
11. A.J. Green WR5
12. Matt Ryan QB2
13. Michael Thomas WR6
14. Christian McCaffrey RB6
15. Kirk Cousins 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 Matt Ryan or Kirk Cousins 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. Saquon Barkley RB2
3. Ezekiel Elliott RB3
4. Julio Jones WR1
5. Odell Beckham JrWR2
6. Patrick Mahomes QB1
7. Adam Thielen WR3
8. Joe Mixon RB4
9. Kareem Hunt RB 5
10. Tyreek Hill WR4
11. A.J. Green WR5
12. Matt Ryan QB2
13. Michael Thomas WR6
14. Christian McCaffrey RB6
15. Alvin Kamara RB7
16. Mike Evans WR7
17. DeAndre Hopkins WR8
18. Robert Woods WR9
19. Kirk Cousins QB3
20. Stefon Diggs WR10
21. Sony Michel RB8
22. Mark Ingram RB9
23. LeSean McCoy RB10
24. Jarvis Landry WR11
25. James White RB11
26. Travis Kelce WR/TE12
27. Tevin Coleman RB12
28. Jameis Winston QB4
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 backs this week in Gurley, Barkley, Elliott, Mixon, Hunt, or McCaffrey 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. Saquon Barkley is a close second behind Gurley so even getting a top two pick you should feel very happy about your chances of building a dominant team for the week. If you can land two of these six 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, Beckham, Thielen, Hill, Green, Thomas, Evans, and Hopkins who all have very good matchups. I think Mahomes is the top quarterback play on the week with Matt Ryan and Kirk Cousins not too far behind as far as matchups and opportunities go.

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 six running backs, there are also some other good alternatives with the likes of Kamara, Michel, Ingram, McCoy, White, or Coleman that all should have heavy usage this week and all have touchdown potential because of the number of touches they should see. After the top eight wide receivers, you still have some big names in Woods, Diggs, Landry, and Kelce that you can settle on to fill out your draft. The key this week will be going heavy on the running back and wide receiver positions and relying on your player rankings and hoping some of your favorite plays fall to you.

10-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Todd Gurley RB1
2. Saquon Barkley RB2
3. Ezekiel Elliott RB3
4. Julio Jones WR1
5. Odell Beckham JrWR2
6. Patrick Mahomes QB1
7. Adam Thielen WR3
8. Joe Mixon RB4
9. Kareem Hunt RB 5
10. Tyreek Hill WR4
11. A.J. Green WR5
12. Matt Ryan QB2
13. Michael Thomas WR6
14. Christian McCaffrey RB6
15. Alvin Kamara RB7
16. Mike Evans WR7
17. DeAndre Hopkins WR8
18. Robert Woods WR9
19. Kirk Cousins QB3
20. Stefon Diggs WR10
21. Sony Michel RB8
22. Mark Ingram RB9
23. LeSean McCoy RB10
24. Jarvis Landry WR11
25. James White RB11
26. Travis Kelce WR/TE12
27. Tevin Coleman RB12
28. Golden Tate WR13
29. Zach Ertz WR/TE14
30. Kenyan Drake RB13
31. Matt Breida RB14
32. Kerryon Johnson RB15
33. Alex Collins RB16
34. Brandin Cooks WR15
35. Kenny Golladay WR16
36. Jameis Winston QB4
37. Bilal Powell RB17
38. Rob Gronkowski WR/TE17
39. Jared Goff QB5
40. Corey Clement RB18
41. Marquise Goodwin WR18
42. Tyler Boyd WR19
43. Cam Newton QB6
44. Carson Wentz QB7
45. Jordan Howard RB19
46. T.J. Yeldon RB20 (Questionable)
47. Allen Robinson WR20 (Questionable)
48. Tom Brady QB8
49. Drew Brees QB9
50. Deshaun Watson QB10

The 10-man contests become more and more difficult as bye weeks and injuries start to pile up and in Week 7 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-three 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.

The 10-mans look to be tough this week as there is a big player drop-off after the first three rounds with so many bye weeks and with the Thursday Night game along with the London game. Follow the news closely this week if you are playing 10-mans and fine tune those 31-50 player rankings as we lead up to the start of Week 7.

As always best of luck in this week's DRAFTs!