While many say you cannot simply win your league by winning the draft, almost everyone agrees you can LOSE your league on Draft Day. Having a solid plan going into the draft can help you have success but also having experience drafting can help even more. We at Ring Factory are huge proponents of doing mock drafts. Mock drafts are really the only way to get a true feel for how your draft could go and put you into a real position of making some set choices in each round. If you have the chance to do many mock drafts, do them; you will be much more prepared going into your draft.
But, if doing a lot of mock drafts is too time-consuming for you, we have done the work for you! We have created our Mock Draft Analysis Cheat Sheets for you. We have completed thousands of drafts and these cheat sheets show you exactly how often in our drafts each player was left available for each draft slot. Our DPA (Draft Positional Availability) Cheat Sheet is available in the premium tools area of our site, www.ffringfactory.com, and is easily worth the price of admission!
Based on all of our work, below are some things for you to think about as you progress round to round in your draft.
Early Rounds: Top Talent
Rounds 1 and 2 often progress very close to ADP (Average Draft Position) for most players. It is important that in these rounds you grab the 2 best players available to you at the time. Every team will get 2 of the top 20 (or 24 if you play in a 12-team league) of the players available. How big of an advantage you get over your competition from these 2 picks will often depend on their durability during the season as most of these players will put up a meaningful amount of Fantasy points.
So, what positions should you target?
Most managers typically like to get a Top Tier WR and a Top Tier RB with their first 2 picks but that can vary based on where you are picking (#1 vs. #10) and based on your view around the Top Tier QBs or Top Tier TE’s. Additionally, for 2023, there is a meaningful trend change happening in the first 2 rounds between WR and RB. Historically, Top Tier RBs were much more coveted than WRs. This was driven largely by the fact that your RB has a much higher probability of having more “touches” per game than a WR and thus more opportunities to score both TD and fantasy points. But in the past several years the amount of Top Tier RB that have been injured or are missing games has grown. That coupled with the fact that more and more NFL teams are using more than 1 RB has diluted their value. Conversely, we have seen Top Tier WR become “go-to” options for their NFL teams, especially in short-yardage red zone/touchdown situations. This has driven up the value of the best WR and pressed down the RBs. The end result this year is that we are seeing nearly an equal split of WR/RB taken in the first 2 rounds of the draft and even more often seeing slightly more WR taken.
But what about the Top QB or Top TE you ask?
Every year and in every league a Top TE (Kelce) and a few Top QB’s (Mahomes, Allen, Hurts) will likely be taken in the first few rounds. The strategy thought here is that these players give you such an advantage at their respective positions that it gives you a large advantage vs your peers. While it is true that some of these players will perform meaningfully better than all others at the position (Kelce vs the rest of the TE), the decision to take one of these players instead of a WR/RB deserves doing some work. These selections of what we call the “onesies” positions (positions where we only start one player) will mean that you will likely have a much lower quality WR1 or RB1 than your peers. So when you are factoring in the difference in points you can score per week by having Kelce at Tight End you must also factor in the difference between potentially not having a Top 5 WR/RB and instead having WR/RB who is ranked ~10th overall. While the “math” to that may sound easy, it is a bit tricky and varies by position. Our advice this year at Ring Factory is that if someone wants to take a shot on Kelce, we get it. It might work. We have had it work in the past and have been burned by it equally. But we would not suggest reaching for the QB’s. The QB position is very deep. We like up to 7 QB’s to be our starting QB this year. With only 10 (or 12) QB’s starting in your league, the difference between the Top 3 QB’s and QBs #7-10 is not meaningful enough for us to give up the Top Tier WR/RB that you would be passing on in the first 2 rounds.
So what should you do in Rounds 1 and 2?
Your strategy around RB/WR in these rounds will depend on your draft position and who is available at the time you draft (see our DPA (Draft Position Availability) Cheat Sheets in our Premium Tool) to know who will most likely be available at your pick!). We favor going after the best WR/RB and like that balance but if you can be nimble during your draft you could very well draft 2 players from the same position (either WR or RB) to dominate that position and then go heavily after the other position in the upcoming rounds….
Rounds 3-6: Make or Break rounds?
If you look at last year's Championship teams across all of Fantasy Football there is good information in understanding who the 25 most common players were on ALL Championship rosters.
First: The mix of players in the Top 25 was 10WR, 10RB, 3TE, 2QB. This is pretty telling and supports what we talked about for your approach to positions in Rounds 1 and 2. But what is even more interesting about who the 25 most common players were on Championship rosters in 2022 is this:
28% of the Players were drafted in Rounds 1 or 2. No Surprise.
60% of the Players were drafted in Rounds 3 thru 6! SUPRISE!
12% of the Players were drafted in Round 7 or higher (or not drafted)
Look at that again. 60% of the most common players on Championship rosters were drafted in Rounds 3 through 6….this is where you make or break your draft. This is where it gets tricky to know who will be available and who will not (use our DPA (Draft Position Availability) Cheat Sheets to help!). These rounds are often referred to as the RB dead zones (where few RBs taken return their expected value) and that very much can be true….but it is also where certain players can be big difference makers for value if you can identify them (Last Year: Josh Jacobs, Akers, Waddle, Amon Ra St.Brown, etc)
So, what should you look for in these rounds?
Round 3 should still allow you to pick the best talent at a position of need. From Round 4 on you need to balance finding a few solid “floor” guys to solidify your roster coupled with a few high “Ceiling” potential breakouts that could be the surprise difference makers. Rarely do you get true “Value” picks in these rounds, those you will look for later. Here you want to lock in some solid 10+ point-a-week players you can count on (J.Conner, T. Lockett, T. McLaurin) coupled with a few places where you strategically roll the dice for some potential big wins (J. Fields, D. Swift, C. Watson). Depending on your risk tolerance you could use all of the rounds between 4 thru 6 for upside breakouts knowing you will not hit on them all. But that will push you hard to find and create the “floor” dependable players in Rounds 7 and 8.
Bottom Line for Rounds 3 through 6: We tend to prefer finding 2 ceiling plays in these rounds coupled with 1 solid floor play and the best talent you can get in Round 3.
Rounds 7+
Don’t fade in these deeper rounds. This is exactly when the value starts to come towards you and where you can find the occasional rookie, breakout, or broken-down older player who might still be able to deliver. And no matter what you do—-DO NOT draft a K or DST before the last 2 rounds. No matter how much you think it will give you a meaningful advantage it reduces your chance of finding the breakout.
What else to think about here?
Handcuffs at positions? Possibly. If a RB has a very clear and talented handcuff you can start looking for them in Rounds 9 and beyond but be careful here. Handcuffs lock up a spot on your roster and decrease your ability to be flexible in making acquisitions in the season, which can be more valuable to you.
Are you building depth at a Position? Possibly. If you are not confident in your starters at a particular position now, you might add more depth in hopes of finding a surprise diamond in the rough or at least giving you streaming options based on matchups each week.
VALUE and LONG-SHOTS—-YES! This is the top approach we prefer in these rounds. Find Value and Find your long-shot calls. Look for the high-quality players that have dropped too far in your draft and then take your shots with them. Did someone drop due to a small injury in the preseason? Grab them. Did contract negotiations force someone to sit out of camp? Grab them. Rookies people are sleeping on? Grab them. Look at our sleepers' posts for ideas on some of these players.
Once you have completed your draft your work is done…but not for long. Hopefully, you crushed it and built a Championship Roster, but roster construction never stops and early in-season acquisitions will be important to win your league.
In the meantime…
Go to our Premium Tool and grab our DPA (Draft Positional Availability) Cheatsheet Table which will help you crush it in your draft
Jump in and do some of your own mock drafts on your league site
Stay tuned in to our content during the season to help you navigate the acquisitions 1 to 2 weeks in advance.
Happy Drafting.
-The Ring Factory Team
www.FFRINGFACTORY.com
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