Fantasy Football Auction Drafting for Beginners

This guide to Fantasy Football Auction Drafting For Beginners was authored by Adam Segal. You can follow him on Twitter @AlwaysAuctions.  

Greetings! If you’ve never heard of or tried Auction drafts before, believe me, you’re not alone. I, myself, only started using the auction format as my primary draft type for two years. As I was preparing for an upcoming snake draft, I stumbled upon an article that mentioned auction drafting.

Only a few sentences in and my interest was immediately piqued. I read a couple more articles and there was one thing, one glaring, completely obvious thing that made me say, “OK, I have to try this!” More on that in a bit. But if you’ve found your way here, I imagine you may be interested in learning how auction drafts work.

In this article, I think you’ll gain a basic understanding of auctions and I will try to prove to you just how superior they are to snake drafts.

How an Auction Draft Works

If you were participating in an actual, real-life auction, you have a budget you must follow–you can’t exceed the amount you start with. That is the most underlying, fundamental difference between an auction draft and a snake draft.

Though snake drafts don’t operate with budget restrictions, I hope you’ll see, that you are, in fact, more tightly bound. In a typical auction draft, you will have $200 to spend to fill your entire roster. Players, one at a time, get nominated and bid on and each team owner has to decide how to allocate their funds.

Whichever team has the highest bid when the clock runs out, that team will be awarded that player. The process repeats itself until each team’s roster is full.

Financing Your Team

I alluded to this already but one of the main advantages to auction drafting is that you have much more control over the makeup of your team. It’s a real opportunity to play GM, something all fantasy football players have dreamt about.

If you’re someone who doesn’t value a particular player as much as someone else, you simply don’t have to spend as much. It’s your choice. In a snake draft, you don’t necessarily have that option. You may be forced to select a player at a position earlier than you wanted to, especially if a serious run on that position starts. Scarcity may force your hand. In one auction draft I was in last year, Josh Allen, fantasy’s QB1, one owner spent $45, more than 20% of their total budget.

In that same draft, Tom Brady, who finished as the QB3, went for $24. Kyler Murray, who did miss three games and finished as the QB10, was the most expensive at $49. Yet, Kirk Cousins, who finished the year right behind Murray in terms of points, with one game missed, sold for $19. In auctions, you have much more flexibility and oversight of how you appropriate your budget. 

Shooting Par

I have never played a round of golf in my life, though I did go to a driving range once when I was in high school. The guy at the clubhouse was annoyed that I needed a left-handed driver. While golf and auction drafting don’t have much, if anything, in common, they share one piece of vernacular: shooting par.

The term was developed by Drew Davenport, considered by most to be one of the OGs of auction drafting. Drew has been instrumental in helping to shift auction drafting from the extremely niche to much more commonplace in the fantasy football realm.

Remember the article I came across that I referenced at the start? It was one of Drew’s. Drew came up with an ingenious and simple way to budget your money in an auction draft and that is with a “Par Sheet.”

A very basic par sheet looks something like this:

QB – $40

RB – $45

WR – $35

The dollar amounts above are examples and I am only including the above positions for this exercise. In a real draft, a full par sheet would include your entire team’s roster, including your bench.

The dollar amounts listed next to each position are the amounts you’re “shooting” for. It is up to you to decide how much you want to spend on each position without going over your total budget. Pretend you’re in a mock draft. Someone nominates Patrick Mahomes and you’d like to have him on your team.

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The betting is down to two teams. One team bets $40 and the other team doesn’t bid again. There are two seconds left on the clock and you decide to jump in. So you bid $41. The clock hits zero* and you have your quarterback! Using that example, your par sheet would then look like this:

QB – $40 (41) -1

RB – $45

WR – $35

The “-1” indicates that, for now, you’re one dollar over your total budget. Later on in the draft, someone nominates wide receiver, DJ Moore. Like with the Mahomes example, the bidding is down to two teams. The highest bid is $31. You place a bid, there’s no more action, and end up snagging Moore for $32. Your par sheet would then look like this:

QB – $40 (41) -1 

RB – $45

WR – $35 (32) +2

Now, you’re in a really good spot! You overspent a little on Mahomes but found a good price for Moore relative to what others were spending for wide receivers. You weren’t necessarily targeting Moore, but you felt the value was too good to pass up. Value. It’s what matters most. Some basic math later and the “+2” shows you now have two extra dollars to spend than you normally would and you can use it however you’d like!

Since I began auction drafting, I have used a par sheet in every single draft I’ve been in. It is a great tool and helps you stay within your budget. Staying within your budget is the name of the game when it comes to auction drafting. Some owners like to spend a lot on quarterbacks, while some like to invest heavily in wide receivers and tight ends.

There’s no incorrect strategy for how you spend your money. What you don’t want to do is overspend and leave yourself unable to remain active in the draft. If you end up using too much of your budget on a few positions, you’ll find yourself locked out of bidding if the current bid is too high. Remember, you have $200 to spend and need to fill your entire roster while staying solvent. It’s tricky, it’s strategic, and it’s a lot of fun!

*In auction drafts, each time a bid is placed, the clock resets for a short period of time to allow for more bidding.

Pricing Trends

The strategy and the randomness of auction drafting are what I really enjoy and what I initially found alluring. No two auction drafts are ever the same. In snake drafts, often and with some certainty, you’re able to predict how the beginning of the draft will play out. Unless someone makes a questionable pick, everyone will pretty much know what the first few picks, maybe even the entire first round, will look like.

Auction drafts are erratic. I don’t care what format your draft is, if you have the #9 pick in a snake draft this year, Jonathan Taylor will not be on your team. In auctions, every player is available to you, no matter if you nominate first or last. If you’re willing (and able) to pay the most, you can ensure yourself any player you want.

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Not only in what order players get nominated changes but how much people will spend on those players is always different. Prices can change drastically from one draft to the next.

In the draft I mentioned above where Josh Allen went for $45, in another league draft, he went for $52. Both leagues had similar point settings. A $7 difference is huge. The owner who paid $52 has a lot less in their bank to spend on other positions than the $42 winning owner.

As an additional example, Lamar Jackson had a winning bid of $40 in one of the drafts and $49 in the other. Every position could see huge swings in how much the winning bid was depending on how aggressive teams get. Christain McCaffrey sold for $50 and $60 in those respective leagues. Dalvin Cook, $41 and $54! Auction drafts require strategy and skill. Snake drafts require fortune and luck. 

Going once, Going twice…

When I tried my first auction mock draft, I recognized the format easily had many advantages to snake drafting and a feeling of total management over my team was apparent. As long as I had the funds available, I could mold my team into what I wanted it to look like.

I didn’t need to hope that a certain player would fall to me or that another team owner might make a head-scratching pick when it was their selection. The extremely casual fantasy football fan may consider the additional tactics and approach of auction drafting a bit too arduous.

But to many, myself included, it amplifies the enjoyment of playing fantasy football and adds an extra layer that you just can’t replicate in a snake draft. Give it a try. Join a mock draft. I think you’ll discover that when you have a crack at it, you too, will be SOLD!!!

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