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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 7 - QUICK NEWS AND NOTES
It is Week 7 and that means we have Carolina, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Tampa Bay all on bye weeks. Now with four bye weeks our player pool is left with 11 games to choose from on the main slate. DRAFT has excluded the Kansas City vs Denver, Philadelphia vs Dallas, and New England vs NY Jets games because they are not on the main Sunday slate. That still leaves us 11 games and 22 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 LA Rams vs Atlanta (54.0 O/U). The next two highest over/under is Baltimore vs Seattle (50.5), and Arizona vs NY Giants (50.0). 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 7. 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 five 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
- Dalvin Cook RB1
- Saquon Barkley RB2 -- Questionable
- Leonard Fournette RB3
- Julio Jones WR1
- Michael Thomas WR2
- Cooper Kupp WR3
- Lamar Jackson QB1
- David Johnson RB4 -- Game Time Decision (Can late swap with Chase Edmonds)
- DeAndre Hopkins WR4
- Jared Goff 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 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
- Dalvin Cook RB1
- Saquon Barkley RB2 -- Questionable
- Leonard Fournette RB3
- Julio Jones WR1
- Michael Thomas WR2
- Cooper Kupp WR3
- Lamar Jackson QB1
- David Johnson RB4 -- Game Time Decision (Can late swap with Chase Edmonds)
- DeAndre Hopkins WR4
- Chris Carson RB5
- Keenan Allen WR5
- OUT -- Alvin Kamara RB6 -- OUT
- TY Hilton WR6
- Jared Goff QB2
- Josh Allen 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 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
- Dalvin Cook RB1
- Saquon Barkley RB2 -- Questionable
- Leonard Fournette RB3
- Julio Jones WR1
- Michael Thomas WR2
- Cooper Kupp WR3
- Lamar Jackson QB1
- David Johnson RB4 -- Game Time Decision (Can late swap with Chase Edmonds)
- DeAndre Hopkins WR4
- Chris Carson RB5
- Keenan Allen WR5
- OUT -- Alvin Kamara RB6 -- OUT
- TY Hilton WR6
- Jared Goff QB2
- Josh Allen QB3
- Aaron Jones RB7
- Derrick Henry RB8
- Marlon Mack RB9
- Kerryon Johnson RB10
- Robert Woods WR7
- DJ Chark WR8
- Kenny Golladay WR9
- Adam Thielen WR10
- Tyler Lockett WR11
- Devonta Freeman RB11
- Stefon Diggs WR12
- Russell Wilson QB4
- Deshaun Watson QB5
- Josh Jacobs RB12
- Matt Ryan QB6
This week is mixed at the top with both running backs and wide receivers with no real star at the top that stands out above the rest. Cook, Barkley, and Fournette all make equally great plays so getting a top 3 pick can land you one of these and help you build around them. At wide receiver it is similar with Jones, Thomas, Kupp, and Hopkins at the top as they are all great options and not one jumps off the page more than another.
10-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY
- Dalvin Cook RB1
- Saquon Barkley RB2 -- Questionable
- Leonard Fournette RB3
- Julio Jones WR1
- Michael Thomas WR2
- Cooper Kupp WR3
- Lamar Jackson QB1
- David Johnson RB4 -- Game Time Decision (Can late swap with Chase Edmonds)
- DeAndre Hopkins WR4
- Chris Carson RB5
- Keenan Allen WR5
- OUT -- Alvin Kamara RB6 -- OUT
- TY Hilton WR6
- Jared Goff QB2
- Josh Allen QB3
- Aaron Jones RB7
- Derrick Henry RB8
- Marlon Mack RB9
- Kerryon Johnson RB10
- Robert Woods WR7
- DJ Chark WR8
- Kenny Golladay WR9
- Adam Thielen WR10
- Tyler Lockett WR11
- Devonta Freeman RB11
- Stefon Diggs WR12
- Russell Wilson QB4
- Deshaun Watson QB5
- Josh Jacobs RB12
- Matt Ryan QB6
- Kyler Murray QB7
- Joe Mixon RB13
- Melvin Gordon RB14
- Mark Ingram RB15
- Matt Breida RB16
- David Montgomery RB17
- George Kittle WR/TE13
- Brandin Cooks WR14
- Tyler Boyd WR15
- Allen Robinson WR16
- Tevin Coleman RB18
- John Brown WR17
- Calvin Ridley WR18
- Larry Fitzgerald WR19
- Carlos Hyde RB19
- Jimmy Garoppolo QB8
- Aaron Rodgers QB9
- Austin Ekeler RB20
- Terry McLaurin WR21
- Daniel Jones 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 6 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!