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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 8 - QUICK NEWS AND NOTES
We have come to our fifth week where we have teams on bye weeks which this week we have four teams on bye with Atlanta, Dallas, LA Chargers, and Tennessee. Excluding those teams takes a dip into the overall player pool and you will have to dig deep at the end of drafts. We also can disregard the Thursday Night game between Miami and Houston, along with Philadelphia vs Jacksonville 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 8 they are starting to pile up. We have big names such as Leonard Fournette, Dalvin Cook, Sony Michel, LeSean McCoy, Marlon Mack, Royce Freeman, Peyton Barber, and Giovani Bernard all at running back that are either out already or that have their status up in the air. At wide receiver, we also have some question marks now with Cooper Kupp, Golden Tate, Larry Fitzgerald, Randall Cobb, Allen Robinson, Jamison Crowder, Pierre Garcon, and Rob Gronkowski (TE). 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 Green Bay vs LA Rams (56.5 O/U), Tampa Bay vs Cincinnati (54.5 O/U), Denver vs Kansas City (53.5 O/U), New Orleans vs Minnesota (52.0 O/U) and Indianapolis vs Oakland (50.5 O/U). It will be hard to not focus only on the Green Bay vs LA Rams 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 Miami vs Houston and Philadelphia vs Jacksonville are not included this week in the rankings.***
HEAD-TO-HEAD DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY
- Todd Gurley RB1
- Saquon Barkley RB2
- Kareem Hunt RB3
- Adam Thielen WR1
- Odell Beckham WR2
- Patrick Mahomes II QB1
- Antonio Brown WR3
- Davante Adams WR4
- James Conner RB4
- Aaron Rodgers 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 II 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 I feel you can still safely select Aaron Rodgers at the end of the H2H draft and feel pretty good about it.
3-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY
- Todd Gurley RB1
- Saquon Barkley RB2
- Kareem Hunt RB3
- James Conner RB4
- Adam Thielen WR1
- Odell Beckham WR2
- Patrick Mahomes II QB1
- Antonio Brown WR3
- Davante Adams WR4
- Michael Thomas WR5
- David Johnson RB5
- Aaron Rodgers QB2
- Joe Mixon RB6
- Tyreek Hill WR6
- 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 Aaron Rodgers 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
- Todd Gurley RB1
- Saquon Barkley RB2
- Kareem Hunt RB3
- James Conner RB4
- Adam Thielen WR1
- Odell Beckham WR2
- Patrick Mahomes II QB1
- Antonio Brown WR3
- Davante Adams WR4
- Michael Thomas WR5
- David Johnson RB5
- Aaron Rodgers QB2
- Joe Mixon RB6
- Tyreek Hill WR6
- Alvin Kamara RB7
- Christian McCaffrey RB8
- James White RB9
- A.J. Green WR7
- Robert Woods WR8
- Kirk Cousins QB3
- Mike Evans WR9
- JuJu Smith-Schuster WR10
- Kerryon Johnson RB10
- Stefon Diggs WR11
- Mark Ingram RB11
- Nick Chubb RB12
- Travis Kelce WR/TE12
- Jameis Winston QB4
- Drew Brees 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 backs this week in Gurley, Barkley, Hunt, and Conner and build your team from there. This week feels like you can get either Todd Gurley or Saquon Barkley at the top and feel really good about your start as both are on par this week and both should score high. Both Kareem Hunt and James Connor are excellent options if you happen to land the 1.03 or 1.04 pick. Wide receiver is deep this week and also has plenty of big names at the top with Thielen, Beckham, Brown, Adams, Thomas, Hill, and AJ Green who all have very good matchups. I think Mahomes is the top quarterback play on the week with Aaron Rodgers 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 four running backs and almost think that gives you an advantage over the competition. After those top four running backs, there are also some other good alternatives with the likes of David Johnson, Joe Mixon, Alvin Kamara, Christian McCaffrey, and James White 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 seven wide receivers, you still have some big names in Woods, Evans, Smith-Schuster, Kelce, and Diggs 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
- Todd Gurley RB1
- Saquon Barkley RB2
- Kareem Hunt RB3
- James Conner RB4
- Adam Thielen WR1
- Odell Beckham WR2
- Patrick Mahomes II QB1
- Antonio Brown WR3
- Davante Adams WR4
- Michael Thomas WR5
- David Johnson RB5
- Aaron Rodgers QB2
- Joe Mixon RB6
- Tyreek Hill WR6
- Alvin Kamara RB7
- Christian McCaffrey RB8
- James White RB9
- A.J. Green WR7
- Robert Woods WR8
- Kirk Cousins QB3
- Mike Evans WR9
- JuJu Smith-Schuster WR10
- Kerryon Johnson RB10
- Stefon Diggs WR11
- Mark Ingram RB11
- Nick Chubb RB12
- Travis Kelce WR/TE12
- Jarvis Landry WR13
- Brandin Cooks WR14
- Emmanuel Sanders WR15
- Golden Tate WR16
- Jordan Howard RB13
- Jameis Winston QB4
- Adrian Peterson RB14
- Julian Edelman WR17
- T.Y. Hilton WR18
- Isaiah Crowell RB15
- Latavius Murray RB16
- Drew Brees QB5
- Phillip Lindsay RB17
- Tyler Boyd WR18
- Ben Roethlisberger QB6
- Tom Brady QB7
- Jared Goff QB8
- Demaryius Thomas WR19
- Tarik Cohen RB19
- Marlon Mack RB20 (Questionable)
- Kenny Golladay WR20
- Andrew Luck QB9
- Cam Newton QB10
The 10-man contests become more and more difficult as bye weeks and injuries start to pile up and in Week 8 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 8.
As always best of luck in this week's DRAFTs!