The NFL season kicks off in less than two weeks, so it’s crunch time for fantasy football drafts.
There are countless lists and strategies out there for you to pour over before you’re on the clock, so let’s keep things simple with this one.
Here’s a breakdown of a first-round mock draft for a 12-team, standard-format league, followed by three simple strategies to follow in regard to how you draft at some difficult positions in the later rounds. Everyone wants to look smart and find the steal of the draft, but if you remain patient with these strategies, you’ll find yourself benefiting from others’ mistakes.
Strategy for Later Rounds
Finding a Quarterback
Don’t be the owner in your draft room who reaches for Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton or Green Bay Packers signal-caller Aaron Rodgers. Someone will do it, and you can sit back and enjoy the benefits of the other top players falling down the board.
Sure, it would be nice to have one of the top quarterbacks leading your team, but there will be better value in the middle rounds of the draft.
ESPN.com’s fantasy rankings place only three quarterbacks in the top 50, and two of them come in just under the mark at Nos. 49 and 50. But eight quarterbacks are grouped tightly together between Nos. 61 and 90.
There is little separating the quarterbacks in the second tier from Newton and Rodgers at the top, so you should feel confident while stacking value at other positions and snagging a quarterback later in your draft.
Targeting a Tight End
Unlike the quarterback position, there is an obvious tight end target at the top of the draft.
New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski is one of the premier fantasy players, regardless of position, and will give you a significant advantage in an area that will be a position of weakness for some teams in your league.
However, Gronkowski hasn’t played 16 games in a season since 2011. If you don’t want to mess around with his injury history, that’s understandable. There will still be solid options later in the draft.
If you pass on Gronk, don’t wait too long before snatching a tight end. It might not feel like great value to land a guy such as New Orleans Saints tight end Coby Fleener in the sixth round, but it’s probably better than getting stuck with the bottom tier of tight ends.
When to Go for a Defense
There will probably be a run on defenses at some point in the middle rounds of the draft.
The Denver Broncos, Seattle Seahawks, Arizona Cardinals and Panthers have set themselves apart at this position. Depending on when the run happens, it might be a good idea to grab one of the elite units.
Don’t be the owner who drafts a defense in the fourth round, but if one of the Big Four is still on the board in the eighth round, it’s probably time to snatch it up.
If you miss out on that group, you might as well wait it out. There are 15 defenses coming off the board within the top 150 picks in ESPN.com drafts, so one worth owning will be around late.
If you end up drafting a defense late, it’s worth taking a look at its schedule. Sometimes, you can strategically pick a mediocre defense with an easy early-season slate and then do the same late in the season with a waiver-wire pickup.
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