It’s never too early to start preparing for your fantasy football drafts! Do you have the first overall pick in your fantasy football draft? Well, then you’ve come to the right place. I’ll be breaking down exactly how the draft might go and some basic advice and strategies that you should follow.
In this article, I will be doing a 12-Team, 18-round, PPR mock draft on our sponsor’s website Fantrax! New to Fantrax? Sign up here and start today! Need help creating a league? We too got you covered there. Let’s get right into fantasy football draft strategy and advice on drafting from the 1.01.
Draft Strategy
When it comes to having the 1.01 or the top spot in your fantasy football draft, you will have to do a little thinking. Here are some things to think about while coming up with a strategy to attack your draft with.
Scoring
With it being PPR, it gives advantages to wide receivers and pass-catching backs.
What will be there at 2.12?
Great question here. As soon as your pick is made, you have to wait for 23 more picks. However, you get back-to-back picks with the 2.12 and 3.01.
What’s the best way to handle the turns?
Well now, here’s where it gets tricky. You can either start a run or end a run. Although, it’s always good to have a queue made to see what players fall back to you.
Is there such a thing as a reach?
Not really, if you like a player better than others, take your guy. If you could get him in the next round or two, well then yeah that’s a reach.
PPR mock draft roster settings are 1QB, 2RB, 3WR, 1TE, 1FLEX, K, and DST. Along with eight bench spots for an 18-round draft.
For this article, we’ll be using the official up-to-date Fantrax ADP.
Picking First Overall
1.01 Ja’Marr Chase, WR, Cincinnati Bengals
2.12 Tony Pollard, RB, Dallas Cowboys
3.01 Chris Olave, WR, New Orleans Saints
4.12 Christian Watson, WR, Green Bay Packers
5.01 J.K. Dobbins, RB, Baltimore Ravens
6.12 Mike Evans, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
7.01 Deshaun Watson, QB, Cleveland Browns
8.12 Evan Engram, TE, Jacksonville Jaguars
9.01 Courtland Sutton, WR, Denver Broncos
10.12 Rashod Bateman, WR, Baltimore Ravens
11.01 Damien Harris, RB, Buffalo Bills
12.12 Skyy Moore, WR, Kansas City Chiefs
13.01 Devin Singletary, RB, Houston Texans
14.12 Kendre Miller, RB, New Orleans Saints
15.01 Jared Goff, QB, Detroit Lions
16.12 Zamir White, RB, Las Vegas Raiders
17.01 Broncos DST
18.12 Jason Sanders, K, Miami Dolphins
Take the Best Wide Receiver
Kicking off my draft, it takes a lot of thinking of how to start. You may have heard the term “You can’t win the draft in the first round, but you can lose it”. While it may sound intimidating, don’t let it get to you.
Here when you have the first pick, everyone is available to you. After all, it’s all about how you want to start. With Justin Jefferson, Ja’Marr Chase, and Christian McCaffrey all available to me I went with Chase. Now, you can’t go wrong here with any of these three players. All are good and have their reasonings.
In most cases, the average drafter will grab whoever is listed at the top. However, the reason I went with Chase was because McCaffrey is aging. So he was off my list. Next, comparing Chase to Jefferson and Chase’s trajectory going into year three should have him surpassing Jefferson.
Grab an RB1 If Possible
Coming back at the end of the second, there were many players available. Yet, I like Dallas Cowboys running back Tony Pollard quite a bit as he has no Ezekiel Elliott and no threats behind him. Solid RB1 to start my team out with Chase.
Draft Another Wide Receiver
Here at the top of the third round, this is where you have to start looking. There will be 23 picks made again before you pick again. With it being a three-wide receiver league, I went with Chris Olave. Grabbing another high-end receiver was my priority. Surprisingly, Christian Watson fell to me at the end of the fourth round, further bolstering my wide receiver core.
Solidify Your RB2 Slot
After taking Pollard in the second round, now was the time to add another running back. If you don’t take one here, look at the running backs that could be available if you pass on them. If the pool looks to dry up, take one here.
I think the Baltimore Ravens will be a powerhouse offense and JK Dobbins should be a beneficiary of this offense. Adding him as an RB2 is exciting as he has an RB1 upside.
Deciding Your Next Move
Now your wide receiver and running back slots are filled, you can either go to another position or add a flex. You can go that way if you’re looking at running backs. With this league being PPR I like to target the flex position with a wide receiver. Many are low on him, but getting Mike Evans as a WR4 is fantastic. Four wide receivers and two running back starters are coming together.
Waiting on a Quarterback
For one thing, waiting on a quarterback this year seems like a no-no. However, if I don’t get one of the top quarterbacks, I will wait for one of my top-8 to be available. Being at the turn here, I was able to get my QB8 in DeShaun Watson.
Although you can or should get a quarterback earlier, I played chicken here and was able to land Watson. After missing a year and a half of football, Watson didn’t look so well in his first four games. However, the rust started to come off at the end where he averaged 24.8 fantasy points in Week 17 and 18.
Provided that the offseason rumors are true of the Browns’ offense taking a step forward in the passing game, we could see Watson take off. Remember how good he was in Houston? My hope here is he returns to top-3 form.
Need help choosing a quarterback? Check out our up-to-date fantasy football rankings.
If You Can’t Get Kelce or Andrews, Then What?
My plan going into every draft is to get either Travis Kelce or Mark Andrews. If I can’t land one of those two, I punt the tight end position until I see a value point. Hence why I took Evan Engram at the end of the eighth round. Engram just signed a three-year extension coming off of his statistical career-best season. Although the Jacksonville Jaguars may have a lot of mouths to feed, Engram will get his. Let’s not forget he finished as a top-5 fantasy tight end last season.
Building Up Depth
Now that I have my starting lineup built, I am all about adding depth at both the running back and wide receiver positions. While many are low on Courtland Sutton, landing him in round 9 is a value I can’t pass up. Not to mention getting Rashod Bateman at the end of round 10. A former first-round pick whose career has been injury riddled could have a lot of potential.
Let’s not forget that Damien Harris is one year removed from a 15-touchdown season. I see him taking some of Josh Allen’s goal-line carries. I love the upside that Skyy Moore has in the Chiefs’ offense. Outside of Travis Kelce, Moore is the wide receiver I see taking a step forward in his career.
Looking further, Devin Singletary is “one injury away” from starting. The same can be said for Kendre Miller. As of this writing, Alvin Kamara has not been suspended and Jamaal Williams doesn’t scare me too much. Although most will tell you not to take a second quarterback in a 1QB league Jared Goff finished as a back-end QB1. Yes, I have faith in Watson, but if he doesn’t play as most expect, I can easily put Goff in my lineup.
Josh Jacobs is looking to hold out and who is their running back? Zamir White here late is a great pick-up as he could be the RB1 as long as Jacobs is out. Late-round value who could become a starter on my team? The potential upside is worth it.
Defenses and Kickers
Finally, we come to my last two picks in a DST and a kicker. Year after year, these two positions fluctuate the most over any other position. However, it’s hard to claim them as a bust since they are more than likely late-round picks. For those of you who keep taking defenses early, please stop! There is no need to do this with both defenses and kickers.
Unlike most positions, defenses are the easiest to stream. What does streaming mean? It means playing the matchups week in and week out. Pick your defense for Week 1, and then drop them for Week 2 for another favorable matchup defense. Sometimes though, you strike gold and have a starting defense for the majority of the season.
In this draft, I took the Broncos’ defense. They get the Arizona Cardinals in Week 1 and I don’t expect Kyler Murray to play. The Broncos are an up-and-coming defense and I hope their Week 1 performance pops.
Lastly, I drafted my kicker. Now kickers are kickers, but I want one that is attached to a high-powered offense that should be able to move the ball down the field. I like what the Miami Dolphins have going into the season and see lots of scoring opportunities. Selecting Jason Sanders here made that easy. But, if he doesn’t pan out, kickers are easy to get off the waiver wire as all teams should draft no more than one.
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