USA TODAY International Edition
Recognizing trends will help you ace your league draft
There are two reliable facts about fantasy football. First, most people will draft like the previous season is going to repeat. Second, that leads to drafts being similar from league to league. Different scoring rules account for minor variations, but overall, the drafting trends will hold true in most leagues. Creating an optimal fantasy team is easier when armed with the knowledge of what to expect.
Here’s how 2018 is treating each fantasy position.
QUARTERBACK
In leagues that start two quarterbacks, they will fly off the shelf and all but the worst or riskiest ones are gone before the middle rounds. For all other leagues, you can wait. Expect Aaron Rodgers to go in the fourth or fifth round and then the position is silent for another full round. Russell Wilson and DeShaun Watson should be next, and then the run starts in the eighth or ninth round.
There is no reason to reach for a particular quarterback as their overall scoring won’t vary that much. This is why a high-scoring position still ends up being a mid-draft feature.
One interesting difference is that the total passing yards by the top 10 fantasy quarterbacks has fallen to a decade-long low. And yet the rushing yardages by those top 10 have never been higher. Elite quarterbacks supplement their fantasy points with rushing yardage and touchdowns.
Trend Advantage: Wait until the seventh round or later and just get a top-10 quarterback. Lean more toward those who add value with their running ability.
RUNNING BACK
A decade ago you likely wore a smaller belt, drove a faster car and drafted running backs in the first two rounds of your fantasy draft. This year, one out of three is back! The first round of a 12-team draft will see at least seven and as many as 10 running backs selected. By the end of the second round, you’re lucky if Jordan Howard or Jerick McKinnon is still on the board.
If you don’t get your second back by the end of the third round, you’ll be starting committee backs or untested rookies. By the sixth round, the quality drops significantly and the players are the lesser part of committees. After the position is raided heavily in the first two rounds, expect the fifth round to likely be heavy with running backs since some teams are grabbing their second while others are taking their third as a flex starter.
Notable, too, is that running backs remain near their lowest point in rushing yardage but yet have never had more receptions and yardage as a receiver. The top 10 running backs last year averaged 536 receiving yards on 63 catches. Running backs are fantasy stars again, but it’s due to their receiving, not rushing, abilities.
Trend Advantage: Take two running backs in your first three picks or you’ll be at a disadvantage that is very hard to make up. Place extra value on backs who catch passes.
WIDE RECEIVER
We have climbed the mighty mountain of wideouts and found a cliff on the other side. After peaking in 2015, the decline in fantasy points for the position has been steep. Overall, yardage dropped 11% last year. There were only 13 with over 1,000 yards, the lowest ever in a 32-team NFL. By comparison, 23 wideouts had more than 1,000 yards in 2016.
Those top 10 fantasy wideouts scored 70 touchdowns last season but fared no better than the rest of the position with a 12% dip in yardage from their peak in 2015. (2016 witnessed 96 scores by the top 10, and the three previous years produced at least 106 touchdowns.)
The top 10 wideouts will be drained by the end of the second round. Previous years had a healthy batch of productive wideouts later in the draft, but don’t expect that to be the case. Many fantasy owners are drafting two running backs to start, and there ends up a big run on the wide receivers in the fourth round. After that, they’ll go consistently with three to five in each round. After the eighth round, it is hard to find a weekly starter at wideout.
Trend Advantage: The fantasy scoring might have declined but that only makes owning a difference-making top-10 receiver more beneficial. You can fill out your starters through the eighth round, but taking your first wideout during the first three rounds makes great sense.
TIGHT END
While the decline in overall offensive production held true with tight ends as well, the top 10 remains just as productive as in recent years. Owning a top-six tight end yields an advantage, though less than at most positions. Owning the sixth- through 10th-best tight end means the position is not a liability. Starting any tight end after that means you’ve waited too late.
Rob Gronkowski and Travis Kelce are usually taken in the late second to early third rounds. Reception points tend to make them more valued. Zach Ertz, Evan Engram, Greg Olsen and Jimmy Graham are always the next four and the end of any difference-making tight ends. They usually last out until the sixth round. Otherwise, drafters consider the position a waste and begrudgingly grab one in the ninth or 10th round.
Trend Advantage: Kelce and Gronkowski are big benefits, but at a high cost — weight the bang for the buck in your scoring. Drafting Ertz, Engram, Olsen or Graham offers nearly as good results at a far cheaper price.
KICKER
There is a movement to eliminate kickers in some leagues and contests. Moving the extra points to the 25-yard line resulted in two or three misses for most kickers. That’s inconsequential. And the fantasy point differential among the top 10 is less than a point per game. The final round is just fine to get a kicker. Chances are you’ll drop him for someone else anyway.
Trend Advantage: If you are rewarded for field goal distance, reach a little and draft the cannon legs of Greg Zuerlein, Jake Elliott, Justin Tucker or Matt Bryant. Otherwise, just wait.
DEFENSE/SPECIAL TEAMS
In most leagues, defenses don’t score enough to merit much consideration. Regardless, someone in your league will take the Jaguars in the middle of the draft. Then one to two rounds later, the Rams go off the board. The rest are taken in the second to third round from the end.
Trend Advantage: Unless your scoring significantly favors defenses, there is just very little value in taking one early. Every year, two or three teams surprise and are taken as free agents. The Jaguars and Rams should end up as the best defenses, but in most leagues that’s only one or two points a week more than any other defense.