Transcription
In drafts, you have to be responsive to the rest of the board and your leaguemates, right? We can't go in and say, "This is the only draft strategy that is going to work." You have to see what the board gives you and then make your adjustments.
So, what I want to do is I want to talk about every draft strategy, show you the historical data over the past five years, over two million draft samples of what's worked, what hasn't, and we will talk about what you should be aiming to do, and then obviously your backup plans, and then what's a complete disaster class.
Now, starting off with the complete disaster, the worst ranked strategy we are going to have is going to be the bully tight end draft strategy. Now, how we are going to quantify bully tight end is this is you deciding to draft two tight ends inside the first six rounds. Now, the argument some people may make with this is, well, Mason, I took Bowowers in round two and Trey McBride is a better points projection than any wide receiver in round three. Or maybe, well, Mason, I took Trey McBride in round three and Coulson Lovelin is a better points projection than any other wide receiver in round four. There are a couple different faults that we have here, but I do want to at least show you an example of what a draft looks like. And lucky for you, I've already done about 200 fantasy football drafts this off seasonason. So, you can better believe that I personally have tested out every single one of these strategies in drafts this year. And I decided in this one to try taking Brock Bowers at 20, Trey McBride at 29. And what ended up happening was I just didn't have enough points at either running back or wide receiver, right? Because when you invest this much into the tight end position, you are getting an opportunity cost of having to sacrifice um Rasheed Rice in round three at wide receiver or having to sacrifice Jeremiah Love in round two at running back. This is going to leave you underpowered at both of those critical positions, which it is going to be very important to note if you were to take say Trey McBride here in round three and you're saying the only way that he hits my starting lineup is if he's going in the flex because I took Brock Bowers in round two. Well, the wide receiver with that selection instead, say I would have taken Rasheed Rice, he could have slid into my wide receiver one, my wide receiver two, my wide receiver three, or my flex spot. So honestly, it doesn't even matter if McBride outscores him when I already have Bowers. I am immediately limiting my roster flexibility within the first three rounds of fantasy drafts.
The historical data backs this up. If we look at the past 2 million teams drafted in basketball mania, 54,000 teams have taken two tight ends inside the first six rounds. And on average, those teams only make the playoffs in 13% of drafts. Even in your reddraft leagues on ESPN, Sleeper or Yahoo, you have to be realistic. If you were to take McBride at round three with the plans of trying to trade one of the tight ends after the draft, every single leaguemate that you approach is going to take a little peek at your roster and go, "Hey buddy, I know you need to sell one of these tight ends, so I'm going to need a discount to buy one of them." So that's why in underdog drafts this year, I have no interest in taking two tight ends this early. And in the Flock League draft, I'm also not going to take Lovelin if I draft Bowers. I'm not going to draft Tyler Warren if I draft Trey McBride because I understand my league mates aren't idiots. They're not going to go through and give me a really good wide receiver and allow me to sell a tight end to off my team.
Now, the second to worst draft strategy we are going to have is going to be very similar. We're going to be looking at Bully quarterback. Now, in underdog drafts, Bully quarterback has only had 14% of teams make the playoffs when they've selected two quarterbacks through the first six rounds. And obviously, in your regular reddraft leagues, if you're only able to start one quarterback, if you take your second quarterback in round six, you're not able to get them in your lineup at all. And again, you'll go back to that situation where maybe you'll be trying to sell one of these players and your league mates are going to be laughing at you as you try to send them offers. An example of a draft that I tried implementing this strategy with was this team in which I selected Josh Allen at 33 and then Dak Prescott at 81. And the big issue that I ran into here is I just simply didn't have enough running back points at the end of the draft. My running back room consisted of Devon Aan, Aaron Jones, Katon Mitchell, Jonah Coleman, Alvin Kamara, and Emit Johnson. For this reason, if I'm in an underdog fantasy draft, obviously after I take Josh Allen, I still understand, yeah, I need to go through, I need to take a second quarterback, but I'm probably not going to do so until the very earliest, round eight. And then same thing, if I were to draft Lamar Jackson in round five, I'm not taking Caleb Williams in round six. And then with your regular reddraft leagues, if you take one of those elite quarterbacks like Josh Allen, like Lamar Jackson, Burrow, Daniels, Caleb, Jaylen Herd, Straight May, I would advise you don't even draft a second quarterback until maybe the last round of your draft if you're in a league in which everybody takes two.
Now, the third worst draft strategy that we have seen over the past 5 years is zero running back. We're going to define this as no running backs inside the first five rounds. These teams have only made the playoffs in 13.5% of drafts over the past two million Basketball Mania teams. And if we're looking at example of me trying to go through and implement this draft strategy, this draft here, I got Lovelin falling to me at 53. So I thought it was too good of a value to pass up on. Then I got Jaylen Herdz at 68 to pair up with Devont Smith. And then I didn't get my first running back until Raandre Stevenson at 77. And this led to me being forced to actually draft seven running backs with Raadre, Dow, Dobbins, Aaron Jones, Singleton, Kamara, and Katron Allen. Now, at least in underdog baseball drafts, I can tell myself like, "Oh, okay. Maybe Dobbins has a random spike week and slides into my starting lineup." But especially in your regular reddraft leagues, if you went into week one with this being your running back core where you had no idea who to start, you're just simply going to be getting stomped on by the teams that started off their draft with Jonathan Taylor and Amari and Hampton. Now, the only way that this draft strategy would be interesting in the slightest is if you were playing in a full PPR league where you started at least three wide receivers and two flexes because in that scenario, you could put five wide receivers into your starting lineup and it wouldn't matter that much if you were underweight at running back. But most of your ESPN leagues, I already know you only start two running backs and one wide receiver. So, if you were to implement this, you would be absolutely cooked.
Now, your starting lineup requirements are going to be very important in determining if you want to be using this next strategy, which is drafting an elite tight end. I'm going to define that as taking a tight end with one of your first three picks. If we look at the past 2 million teams drafted in Basketball Mania over the past 5 years, there are only 14.8% of teams that make the playoffs after selecting an elite level tight end. But I want to put an asterisk on this. This is underdog baseball data which I think we can 100% use to learn valuable insights for our reddraft leagues. However, we always have to make sure that we are taking into account the context of your exact league. I actually believe that taking a Brock Bowers in round two or Trey McBride in round three would be advantageous for those leagues in which you only start two wide receivers and one flex because in that instance you're going to see the tight end position make up a very high percentage of your starting lineup output as opposed to a league where you have to start three wide receivers or maybe a league in which you start multiple flex spots. So, I'm going to put an asterisk on this one in specific league settings. It will be interesting, but it is very important to make sure you understand what league settings that applies to, which is why yet again, we are going to have over 50 custom draft sheets for y'all on flockfantasy.com this year, so you can tailor to the exact league settings that you play in with the exact platform that you are on, whether it's ESPN sleeper or Yahoo. And we'll have realtime draft assistants that are able to help you through those drafts so you can account for your scoring changes, your starting lineup details, and then your overall league settings. You're going to get all the reddraft access with only a $34 purchase of the flockfantasy.com 2026 season pass. And we use code flock when you sign up. I'm going to be answering your questions during the season for free. The links in the description as well as the comment section.
Now, here's where we begin to get into some draft strategies that I think you could actually consider, right? Because it's easy to laugh off the bully tight end, the bully quarterback strategy, but anchor wide receivers, I thought would be interesting this year until I've tried it out. Anchor wide receiver, I'm going to define as you taking two wide receivers inside your first two picks and then not drafting a third wide receiver for quite some time, right? So, here's an example of me taking Jackson Smith and Jigba, AJ Brown, and then I grab an elite tight end with McBride. Then I catch up on running back with Jacobs and Trevon Henderson. And the issue that you run into with this type of draft strategy is the wide receiver position, which historically has a higher hit rate and a lower injury risk in the early to middle rounds. You're not coming away with enough firepower at this spot. Like my wide receiver three in this ended up being Romeo Dobs. My wide receiver four ended up being Jaylen Coker. Now maybe if you're in a league where you only have to start two wide receivers in one flex, you can get away with this. But if you are drafting in an underdog baseball style contest, it just doesn't work. If we look at the historical numbers, you actually see only 16.4% of teams that implemented this strategy making the playoffs over the past 5 years.
Now, moving over to an elite quarterback draft strategy. I would say that the reason this has worked better than elite tight end in the past is one. Quarterbacks are cheaper in general in the top end. Josh Allen is going at the 34 turn in drafts right now. Lamar Jackson's a round five pick. You have Caleb Williams, Jaden Daniels, Joe Burrow, Jaylen Herz all going off the board in round six as opposed to Bowers going in round two as opposed to McBride going in round three and Lovelin in round four. Right? So, the elite quarterbacks are cheaper than the elite tight ends. And the second thing is they're just way more predictable. You can look at Josh Allen finishing as the number one overall quarterback in fantasy year after year after year, playing 17 games every season, year after year after year, and go, "Okay, well, I know what I'm getting in that round four selection, in that round three selection." So, I like elite quarterback more than I like elite tight ends. If we look at the historical numbers, it backs it up as well where you actually have 16.3% of teams that selected a quarterback inside the first four rounds finishing as a team that made it to the playoffs in those underdog drafts. And I will put a side note, if you are drafting an elite quarterback in an ESPN sleeper Yahoo league, you don't take another, right? You draft Josh Allen as your QB1. I mean, hell, if Allen goes down, you go to the waiverwire during his by-week, you go to the waiverwire. And if you're drafting in an underdog baseball draft, you're only going to take one other guy. Very rarely would you want to take three. The historical numbers do back that up.
Now, a draft strategy that a ton of people are implementing this year is going to be the robust running back draft strategy. I'm going to qualify this as your first three picks being the running back position. And a big reason why people are implementing this draft strategy heavily this season is over the past two years, it's been what you wanted to do. Over the past two seasons, running backs have gotten injured at a significantly lower rate than they historically do, while at the same time, the top guys drafted actually ended up finishing as the top guys in fantasy. And there were almost no notable running backs coming off the waiverwire and no big-time injuries at the position, vaultting up a late round league winner. Right? So now, a lot of people are looking over the past two seasons and thinking that this is the number one draft strategy that you need to implement. And I'm not going to lie, you can do it. Like here's an example where I drafted Ashton Genty at 12, James Cook at 13, and then I got Kirn Williams at pick 37. And that kind of value with Kairen, I was like, you know what, I just simply have to take him. Now, when you decide to go down this path, it's going to be very important that you immediately pivot and you start playing catch-up at the wide receiver position. You can't afford taking an elite quarterback. You can't afford taking an elite tight end when you implement that robust running back draft strategy because you're going to be falling too far behind if you're not able to follow your early running back picks up with T. Higgins, Roma, say Carnell Tate, Courtland Sutton because by the time you get to the Michael Pitman Jr., your Romeo Dobs, um, Stefon Diggs range of drafts, you're just going to be too far behind at wide receiver and you're not going to be able to find the consistency off the waiver wire at the wide receiver position. So remember, if you start off your draft heavily with RBs, I would advise you playing catch-up at wide receiver quickly.
But this isn't my number one draft strategy. My number three in the pecking order is going to be just going through with a balanced team. And you can define this in a multitude of different ways, right? How I'm deciding to do this is your first eight picks consist of three running backs as well as four wide receivers. And the reason why I think that this has been such an effective draft strategy over the past five seasons, resulting in 18.4% of teams making the playoffs is it allows you to deviate and take values in the later rounds. Right? Because a big issue that you have with a lot of these draft strategies, you can see that we went over earlier, whether it's a bully tight end, whether it's a zero RB strategy, is the draft has to fall perfectly for you in the second half for you to be able to catch up at the other positions. Right? If you were to go with the zero running back build, taking no running backs inside the first five rounds, yes, your team can end up being good, but only if running backs fall to you in rounds six, seven, and eight. If the running backs don't fall, you might as well just be straight up cooked.
Now, if you are a balanced drafter, right, what you're able to do is you're able to sit there in round 10 and go, I don't have to take any given position, but if there's a tight end there that I like, I'll take him. If there's a quarterback there that I like, I'll take him. If there's a running back, if there's a wide receiver, and you can let the board fall to you. So, I don't think you should be implementing any extreme draft strategy this season. If you can help it, I would just go with the balance strategy early. Grabbing a running back round one, wide receiver rounds two and three, maybe following it up with an elite quarterback in round five, but making sure you consistently build out your wide receiver and running back core. That way, in round 10, you're not sitting there like I am so many times in the live stream every night going, "Oh my gosh, I need a wide receiver. Please give me a wide receiver or I'm screwed."
Now, our S tier of draft strategies is going to be led off with late round quarterback and late round tight end. This is selecting your QB1 and tight end one after round eight. Now, this has worked incredibly well with 19.5% of teams doing this, making the playoffs over the past five years. I will say I think that this is maybe a little bit skewed to the underdog league settings. Obviously with it being baseball and on top of it on underdog fantasy you are starting three wide receivers every week as opposed to a lot of your ESPN leagues you're only starting two wide receivers and one flex. So, if you're in that shallower reddraft style format, I would actually maybe knock this down a peg or two, but it can still 100% be a viable draft strategy because you can go through and you can look at the flock league draft from this past year or maybe even the year prior and see there were league winning quarterbacks, league winning tight ends that were selected either at the very end of drafts or that you got off the waiver wire, right? because you are always going to be able to go to the waiverwire and find a quarterback that is starting that you can go through and plug into your starting lineup.
Now, it's also going to be very important to understand your league mates when you implement this draft strategy because in some casual leagues, you may have the team that selects Josh Allen still taking a quarterback to like with Dak Prescott, right? You may have the team that takes Lamar Jackson still thinking that they need a draft like Brock Party in round eight, which of course we already went over that when you take your elite quarterback. You're not taking another guy until maybe the last round. But understand what your league mates are going to do because if you're drafting with smart fantasy football players like I'm going to be in the flock league this year, I know, oh, okay, if Avery takes Josh Allen, he's not going to draft a second quarterback, right? He would rather spend that spot on an RB. So, you can look around and you can look at your draft room and go, "Oh, okay. Well, all eight elite quarterbacks are off the board. That means there are only like three other teams besides myself that can even take a QB." So, you could maybe push like Bo Knicks until the last round of your fantasy draft. But, make sure you understand your league settings and make sure you understand your league mates before you implement whether or not you want to go elite quarterback, elite tight ends, or late round at either position. Again, we'll have those custom draft sheets made for you so you can take those to your exact league and make sure that you're implementing the correct strategy for your format.
Now, our number one draft strategy over the past five years and also specifically for draft rooms this year is going to be double anchor running back. Now, this is going to be you going with running backs in the first two picks of your draft and then not taking your running back three until after round six. Now, the reason why I think that this has been not only my preferred strategy this year, but also the most optimal strategy up to date is this season running backs are more expensive in drafts than we've ever seen them. And obviously, you can only push up guys like Ashton Genty so far, right? Maybe if it was a cheap running back year, he would have been a 15th overall pick, but instead an expensive running back season. He's going to cost you the 11th overall pick or the 12th overall pick. But the delta and him being quote unquote overdrafted at running back isn't that large, right? You can take him know that you're getting the guaranteed touches, know that you're getting the guaranteed points at the beginning of your draft. But as we go further down draft boards, we get bigger question marks at the running back position being vaulted up. A great example of this is Javvante Williams potentially getting drafted ahead of Rasheed Rice in your fantasy draft. Right? So, if you go with the double anchor running back strategy and you start your draft off as I did with this one where I decided to take Jonathan Taylor and Saquon Barkley, what that allowed me to do is it allowed me to avoid the running back landmines in the middle rounds where then I get Tedoa McMillan, Garrett Wilson, Lamar Jackson, Christian Watson, Tucker Craft, um Jackson Dart, Matthew Golden, JK Dobbins is my next running back pick in the 10th round. So honestly, regardless of if you're in an underdog draft at the moment or if you're in your regular ESPN reddraft league, I think that the double anchor running back approach is going to be the most ideal draft strategy for you this season. Unless you can get like Jamar Chase, Pukanua, Jackson Smith, and Jigba, which obviously in that case, maybe you're going to have to pivot over to one of these other strategies. But I really hope I was able to help you out with this. I'm going to be drafting using these strategies, testing them out every single night in the live stream. I would love to draft with you. I'd love to draft against you. And if you wanted to make sure that you are implementing the correct draft strategy for your exact league format, you can get the custom Flock draft sheets, the draft assistants down in the description in the comment section on flockfantasy.com. If you use code flock, not only you're going to get access to myself and all your favorite creators you watch on YouTube, but you're also going to get to ask me free questions during the season in our live streams as well. But I really appreciate you and I really hope we get to see you out in the live stream later.