Expert DRAFTing Week 1

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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, Sunday Night, and Monday Night games and only focus on the main slate on DRAFT, which is the Sunday games.

WEEK 1 - QUICK NEWS AND NOTES

It is Week 1 and that means we have no bye weeks and a loaded player pool. DRAFT has excluded the Green Bay vs Chicago, Pittsburgh vs New England, Houston vs New Orleans, and Denver vs Oakland games because they are not on the main Sunday slate. That still leaves us 12 games and 24 teams worth of players to choose from this week. This will be a good week to try all the different sized formats on DRAFT and to play in the five different tournament options that they have available.

• For The People - 12-man $1(12 max)
• Third and Short - 6-man $3 (6 max)
• Hype Train - 6-man $5 (6 max)
• NFL Kickoff - 8-man $10 (8 max)
• Five Wide - 4-man $55 (4 max)

The popular high scoring games to target this week are going to be Kansas City vs Jacksonville (52.5 O/U), LA Rams vs Carolina (50.5 O/U), and San Francisco vs Tampa Bay (50.0 O/U). It will be hard to not focus only on the Kansas City vs Jacksonville game as there are so many big-name players in that game especially on the Chiefs side of the game. 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 three games as they all seem to ones that will have some high scores and lots of fantasy points from all the star players involved.

With Ezekiel Elliott now signing he will vault himself into the top three plays this week alongside McCaffrey and Barkley. It looks like a week that you will want to go running back early and follow it up with your wide receivers and then take your quarterback last trying to pair him with one of your receivers to help give you that extra shot in tournaments.

HEAD-TO-HEAD DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Christian McCaffrey RB1
2. Saquon Barkley RB2
3. Ezekiel Elliott RB3
4. Julio Jones WR1
5. Mike Evans WR2
6. Patrick Mahomes II QB1
7. Odell Beckham WR3
8. Tyreek Hill WR4 (or Allen/Thielen/Diggs)
9. Dalvin Cook RB4 (or Bell/Chubb)
10. Jameis Winston QB2 (or Jackson/Wentz/Newton)

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 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 you will find others that like to draft their favorite team, maybe they just follow DRAFT's 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 Jameis Winston at the end of the H2H draft and feel pretty good about it.

I feel like the top three running backs and wide receivers and Mahomes at quarterback are obvious picks this week but your fourth RB or WR is more of a toss-up and you could even say the same about the quarterbacks behind Mahomes.

3-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Christian McCaffrey RB1
2. Saquon Barkley RB2
3. Ezekiel Elliott RB3
4. Julio Jones WR1
5. Dalvin Cook RB4
6. Patrick Mahomes II QB1
7. Mike Evans WR2
8. LeVeon Bell RB5
9. Odell Beckham WR3
10. Tyreek Hill WR4
11. Keenan Allen WR5
12. Jameis Winston QB2
13. Nick Chubb RB6
14. Adam Thielen WR6
15. Carson Wentz 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 Jameis Winston or Carson Wentz at the end of the draft is still 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. Christian McCaffrey RB1
2. Saquon Barkley RB2
3. Ezekiel Elliott RB3
4. Julio Jones WR1
5. Dalvin Cook RB4
6. Mike Evans WR2
7. LeVeon Bell RB5
8. Odell Beckham WR3
9. Tyreek Hill WR4
10. Patrick Mahomes II QB1
11. Nick Chubb RB6
12. David Johnson RB7
13. Leonard Fournette RB8
14. Keenan Allen WR5
15. Chris Carson RB9
16. Kerryon Johnson RB10
17. Adam Thielen WR6
18. Stefon Diggs WR7
19. Jameis Winston QB2
20. Todd Gurley RB11
21. Travis Kelce WR/TE8
22. Tyler Lockett WR9
23. Carson Wentz QB3
24. Lamar Jackson QB4
25. TY Hilton WR10
26. Tyler Boyd WR11
27. Brandin Cooks WR12
28. Joe Mixon RB12
29. Cam Newton QB5
30. Jared Goff 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 McCaffrey, Barkley, Elliott, Cook, Bell, and Chubb and build your team from there. The top three backs stick out this week and getting a top-three pick looks to be of benefit this week as you can lock anyone of them up and feel good about the start of your draft.

The wildcard this week is Ezekiel Elliott as he just signed his contract extension on Wednesday morning and now we wait and wonder if he will see his normal amount of carries/touches for Week 1. Wide receiver is deep this week and also has plenty of big names at the top with Jones, Evans, Beckham, Hill, Allen, Thielen, Diggs, and Kelce who all have very good matchups. I think Mahomes is the top quarterback play on the week with Jameis Winston, Carson Wentz, and Lamar Jackson behind him 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 six 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 David Johnson, Fournette, Carson, Kerryon Johnson, Gurley, or Mixon 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 Lockett, Hilton, Boyd, Cooks, Cooper, Godwin, Golladay, and Woods 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. Christian McCaffrey RB1
2. Saquon Barkley RB2
3. Ezekiel Elliott RB3
4. Julio Jones WR1
5. Dalvin Cook RB4
6. Mike Evans WR2
7. LeVeon Bell RB5
8. Odell Beckham WR3
9. Tyreek Hill WR4
10. Patrick Mahomes II QB1
11. Nick Chubb RB6
12. David Johnson RB7
13. Leonard Fournette RB8
14. Keenan Allen WR5
15. Chris Carson RB9
16. Kerryon Johnson RB10
17. Adam Thielen WR6
18. Stefon Diggs WR7
19. Jameis Winston QB2
20. Todd Gurley RB11
21. Joe Mixon RB12
22. Derrick Henry RB13
23. Travis Kelce WR/TE8
24. Mark Ingram RB14
25. Devonta Freeman RB15
26. Tyler Lockett WR9
27. TY Hilton WR10
28. Tyler Boyd WR11
29. Brandin Cooks WR12
30. Carson Wentz QB3
31. Lamar Jackson QB4
32. Austin Ekeler RB16
33. Marlon Mack RB17
34. Damien Williams RB18
35. Tevin Coleman RB19
36. Amari Cooper WR13
37. Chris Godwin WR14
38. Kenny Golladay WR15
39. Robert Woods WR16
40. Cam Newton QB5
41. Jared Goff QB6
42. Alshon Jeffery WR17
43. DJ Moore WR18
44. Calvin Ridley WR19
45. Christian Kirk WR20
46. Miles Sanders RB20
47. Dak Prescott QB7
48. Kirk Cousins QB8
49. Baker Mayfield QB9
50. Kyler Murray QB10

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 are always full of quality players even in the last couple of rounds at the start of the season. There are more games to choose from, players are healthy, and we have known the news for weeks leading up to the games. Week 1 is a great time to play 10-man drafts as you can find an edge in the 31-50 player rankings and find that perfect QB/WR stack you like to take you over the top.

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.

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