Expert DRAFTing Week 5

James Brimacombe Published 10/03/2019

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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 5 - QUICK NEWS AND NOTES

It is Week 5 and that means we have both Miami and Detroit on bye weeks. With only two bye weeks we still have a large player pool with 12 games to choose from on the main slate. DRAFT has excluded the LA Rams vs Seattle, Indianapolis vs Kansas City, and Cleveland vs San Francisco 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 four different tournament options that they have available.

Third and Short - 6-man $3 (6 max)
Hype Train - 8-man $5 (8 max)
First and Ten- 4-man $10 (4 max)
Five Wide - 4-man $55 (4 max)

The popular high scoring game to target this week is going to be Atlanta vs Houston (48.5 O/U). The next two highest over/under is Arizona vs Cincinnati (48.0), and Tampa Bay vs New Orleans (47.0). 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 the highest total on the week as they all seem to ones that will have some high scores and lots of fantasy points from all the star players involved.

The running back and wide receiver depth this week is strong so you might not see as much edge in the smaller sized leagues such as H2H, 3-man, or 4-man. Anything above a 4-man I feel like you can use your rankings and draft skills to give you a nice edge over your competition in Week 5. Even in H2H, 3-man, and 4-man, you will always have others that will just side with DRAFT's projections and you can use that to your advantage.

Injuries are more in play now with players getting banged up after two weeks of action. You will want to be monitoring news leading up to kickoff and be ready for any last-minute swaps if necessary.

HEAD-TO-HEAD DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

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. This week we have some high end running backs at the top of the draft so it might be ideal to try to get two early and build around them.

3-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

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 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

This week is heavy with the big names up top at running back and at wide receiver but after the top four at each position there is a pretty significant drop-off. You have your superstars in McCaffery, Elliott, Cook, and Kamara with Jones, Hopkins, Evans, and Allen also at the top.

10-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

Christian McCaffrey RB1
Ezekiel Elliott RB2
Dalvin Cook RB3
Alvin Kamara RB4
DeAndre Hopkins WR1
Julio Jones WR2
Keenan Allen WR3
Mike Evans WR4
David Johnson RB5
Deshaun Watson QB1
Michael Thomas WR5
Lamar Jackson QB2
Amari Cooper WR6
Chris Godwin WR7
Leonard Fournette RB6
Le'Veon Bell RB7
Derrick Henry RB8
Aaron Jones RB9
Joe Mixon RB10
Julian Edelman WR8
Carson Wentz QB3
Dak Prescott QB4
Adam Thielen WR9
Tyler Boyd WR10
Alshon Jeffery WR11
Matt Ryan QB5
Melvin Gordon RB11
Austin Ekeler RB12
Allen Robinson WR12
Aaron Rodgers QB6
Zach Ertz WR/TE13
Mark Ingram RB13
Devonta Freeman RB14
David Montgomery RB15
Phillip Lindsay RB16
Larry Fitzgerald WR14
JuJu Smith-Schuster WR15 -- Questionable
Marquez Valdes-Scantling WR16 (assuming Adams is Out)
James White RB17
Sony Michel RB18
Jordan Howard RB19
Tom Brady QB7
Kyler Murray QB8
Andy Dalton QB9
Evan Engram WR/TE17
Marquise Brown WR18
Stefon Diggs WR19 -- Questionable
Calvin Ridley WR20
James Conner RB20 (or J.Samuels if Conner is inactive)
Kirk Cousins QB19

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 5 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!

Photos provided by Imagn Images