PPR Draft Strategy

What the poster above me said.

It's OK to go into it with a strategy in mind, but the most important thing is to be flexible and take the draft as it comes. You can mock draft all you want, but there's almost always going to be a couple guys in your draft that go off-script and draft a QB/TE in the 1st round, therefore allowing a better player to drop to you that never did in your mocks. For example, maybe you were planning on taking a RB and WR with your first two picks, but your whole league drafts nothing but RBS ... I'd much rather pivot and take two top 5 WRs if that's what falls to me than to reach for the 13th RB or whatever because you're panicking.

One strategy that I do recommend is draft QB late. There's way more QBs capable of putting up top numbers than there are starting slots in your league. The drop off between a QB3 and QB10 is pretty minimal usually. The drop between a top 3 RB/WR and the 10th RB/WR is much bigger, so you want to stock up on those rare positional guys early. A ton of analysts even recommend streaming QB, meaning, you don't draft a single guy that you start all year, but instead scour the waiver wire every week for a guy with a matchup against a terrible defense. It's a very viable strategy and if you do it right you can get top production at the position without expending high draft capital. Your league will only start 10 QBs and there's way more than 10 guys who will have great games. Whereas, your league will start 50ish RBs/WRs and it's much harder to find guys that far down that you can just plug in.

quote:

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Draft the best player available and dont draft for positional need

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well not necessarily true. More about anticipating runs and position scarcity.

First, know your league format (roster sizes) and scoring. 10 team? 12 team? How many RBs/WRs/Flex etc. Passing TDs are 6 or 4 for example. Points per carry or not and so forth.

Lock down your top 4 picks with elite players that have minimal risk. They have to produce for you to have a shot at a playoff, so don't get cute. Grab the safest, most elite you can get. A Christian McCaffery is a lock for production in his offense for example unless he gets injured. How to tell who has higher risk potentially? Coming off of an injury? Joining a new team? Team gets a new OC? Couple of factors that might create more uncertainly.

Next, go "RB Heavy" as the production drops precipitously after the top 20 or so. The differential in projected PPG between 1-20 is most significant with RBS, then TEs. For example, the projected difference in PPG for RB1 vs. RB20 and on is much higher past 20 then it is for WRs and QBs for example.

So..

This favors grabbing as many of the top 20 RBs as you can as early as you can. There's plenty of value at WR in later rounds (Godwin, Golliday, Pettis etc. types) that could have WR1 production. If you go RB/RB/RB that's fine as you can find value in later rounds at the other positions.

For TEs, there's a significant drop off after the "Big 3". Some have elite production potential that is as good or better than many WR1s. If you can, get a top tier TE in the first 2-3 rounds, consider:

Kelsey
Ertz
Kittle

If not, try and get OJ Howard (around the 5th round). If not, you can wait and roll the dice with the likes of an Austin Hooper or Jack Doyle.

WAIT on QB. You can get significant value in rounds 10-12. It's that deep. You can target the likes of Roethlisberger, Goff, Winston, Jackson and get acceptable QB1 production. Even the likes of Brady/Trubiski, Allen, Prescott can be had in the 12th-14th and you'll be fine.

Personally, I usually play matchups on D and typically carry two on the roster, always looking at the matchup ahead. Target Jameis Winston!

You can wait on kickers to maybe the 13th (say Greg "The Leg" Zuerlein) or just wait. No variation really between K1 and K12. I tend to target one in the 13th and get one of the better ones and use the last two picks on "upside picks" (like RB Kalen Ballage this year for one).

Good luck!