by C.H. Herms
Share
If You’re Here, it’s Because You Want to Win a Fantasy Football Title
To that end, what most of the general public understands as “fantasy football” is played in a format referred to as redraft. Essentially, you and however many of your friends or work colleagues band together to form a league that selects a brand new team on a yearly basis. It’s also typical practice in many of these leagues that each team only starts one quarterback (QB) at a time, just as a real-life NFL team would. In the fantasy biz, we like to call this the “1QB redraft” format.
The Optimus Fantasy team is here to help inform and advise folks embarking on a 1QB redraft journey this upcoming season. Together, let’s discuss some tactics you can employ to ensure you leave 2024 with a league championship.
*For an in-depth glossary of frequently used fantasy football terms, check out Richard Sickel’s Optimus Fantasy article.*
Dominating Your Redraft League in Five Easy Steps
There’s an old adage in many different forms that states that while you cannot win your league on draft day, you can certainly put yourself at a significant disadvantage by mishandling your picks.
The last thing anyone wants to do is bury themselves before the first games of the NFL season even get played.
So, how can we avoid this massive pitfall? It starts with a few actions on the part of the manager:
1.) Know Your League Settings Ahead of Time
Yes, reading the instruction manual can be tedious, but no one likes the person playing Monopoly who thinks they can buy a property after every turn. That’s not how the game works, and it’s tough to win without that understanding to begin with!
It is imperative that you understand your league’s scoring system (PPR, half-PPR, standard), roster requirements, and any unique rules from the jump.
Quality Examples
Any league, for example, that requires managers to play three wide receivers (WRs) in a starting lineup will inherently value the position more than a league that only requires two WRs at a time. How early and/or frequently you select players at that position in your draft will be heavily informed by the prerequisites outlined in your league’s settings.
Additionally, those participating in a PPR (or point-per-reception) format should keep in mind that any player who frequently catches passes in large quantities will be a more significant asset than an athlete who may put up gaudy receiving yardage totals but only see four or five passes come their way in a given game.
This format explicitly rewards one point for every catch a player makes, so do your research in identifying which NFL ballers see large quantities of targets in their offense(s) year over year. These guys will pay great dividends in PPR.
It’ll be wise to avoid the terminology above if you’re unfamiliar with it since we won’t be getting too deep into defining anything for the rest of this article.
2.) You’re Only Chasing Safety: Be Cautious Early in Drafts
There are plenty of ways a redraft manager can assemble a roster. It’s not particularly important whether a team begins a draft by selecting a running back (RB) or WR in the grand scheme of things.
Granted, where your draft slot is in the first round will influence that decision, but the point is that if a team is to survive, it must be built on a foundation of well-established NFL players with successful track records. Indeed, you don’t get points for what a player has done in the past, but history is typically a good indicator of what is to come in the future.
Assuming there’s no glaring reason, like age, that a player should halt being good, they can be considered a good early bet.
Now, there are times when extremely noteworthy rookies with ample opportunity on their depth chart(s) can make their way up high on draft boards, too, though the cardinal rule to remember here is that you should be risk-averse through the early rounds.
Trust What The Past Has Told Us
When considering this strategy point, it’s helpful to remember the title of the legendary post-hardcore band Underøath’s 2004 album, ‘They’re Only Chasing Safety.’’
An excellent fantasy team that wins a league rests on the shoulders of players deemed “safe” picks, such as Dallas Cowboys WR CeeDee Lamb or San Francisco 49ers RB Christian McCaffrey.
Trendy players with minimal prior success in the NFL will undoubtedly work their way into the conversation of consideration within the first few rounds of a draft. There’s nothing wrong with taking swings on such players either, but if you want to avoid some of the risk involved with taking those guys, go ahead and chase the safety of known superstars early.
Our Dave Stewart outlines Early RB ADP Values here.
3.) Catching Snowflakes: Identify Value Opportunity in Mid-To-Late Rounds
The foundation of your team is set once you’ve made the first three of four picks for your 1QB redraft roster. So, where should a manager go from here?
By the time a draft rolls around to the middle portion, a savvy manager’s primary objective should be to find opportunities to scoop players who’ve fallen down the board for various reasons. Some players are perceived to have injury issues, be too inexperienced to trust with a high selection, or have any other explanation that influences their average draft position (or ADP).
What Is ADP?
ADP can be simply described as an aggregation of data compiled through a particular website’s draft results gathered through both mocks and actual drafts of consequence. Through this data, players are assigned an average value or expectation of where prospective managers should see their name come off the board.
For example, let’s say the esteemed boyfriend of Taylor Swift and Chiefs tight end (TE) Travis Kelce holds an ADP of 2.12. That means that in a 12-team league, a manager can expect Kelce to be taken sometime around the last pick of the second round, hence the “2” and the “.12” denotations.
Using ADP to Identify Value
Should you be on the clock with the ninth choice of the third round, hypothetically, that would make drafting Kelce a wise choice should he be available for selection. At that point, you’ll have taken the 2.12 player on average at the 3.09 in your 12-team league.
Simply put, ADP is akin to a weather forecast predicting snowfall. By the time a draft ends, the vast majority of expected players will be rostered in some combination by the various managers in a league. However, not every snowfall or draft goes precisely according to prediction.
Any time you can catch a rare snowflake, a.ka. a player with a higher value dropping past expectation, an alarm should go off in the noggin that says, “Hey, taking this player here seems to make a lot of sense!”
By building out a team’s depth in this manner, any manager can feel comfortable with the decisions they’ve made and be the envy of league mates who cannot possibly believe so much good fortune came their way.
4.) Drafting a QB Using The Goldilocks Principle
In the 1QB redraft format, the QB a manager picks is a highly impactful decision. If chosen correctly, this player can prove to be a differentiator, particularly since each team only starts one at a time.
There are many prevalent strategies for finding the right player, but recent trends in the NFL and fantasy football as a whole have made utilizing these approaches more complicated.
For instance, renowned fantasy football analyst JJ Zachariason popularized the “late-round QB strategy” in the early 2010s. This approach dictates that it makes statistical sense to wait until toward the end of a draft to choose a starting QB for your lineup.
This theory still absolutely holds some weight, as evidenced by the fact that the gap in average fantasy points per game between the second-best QB (Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles) and the 15th-best QB (Jared Goff of the Detroit Lions) was 4.2 points in four-point per passing touchdown (TD) scoring in 2023.
It’s not a huge difference, but it’s sizeable enough that there’s an entire passing TD difference between the two on an average weekly basis.
Running QBs > “Traditional” QBs
What helps a player like Hurts and serves as a disadvantage to someone like Goff is that the former is known for compiling rushing yards on top of his passing performances. As such, it’s the perspective of Optimus Fantasy that managers should seek to find QBs who are also good rushers since you’ll get points for that statistical output as well.
Because of this trend and a general uptick in QBs who can run effectively, however, the QB position is skewing toward being drafted higher in 1QB redraft leagues than when this late-round strategy was first brought to the forefront.
Find Your Comfort Zone
At this point, managers should exercise as much judgment as possible and measure their comfort level regarding how early they want to select a quarterback. A reliable general rule of thumb is that picking a quarterback any time before the fifth round is considered too early.
Any time after that, however? That’s up to you. Embody your inner Goldilocks and identify whatever feels “just right” for your team. Just try to find a quarterback who can run the ball well, too, if possible.
5.) Bad Stuff Will Happen: Don’t Stop Being Active Post-Draft
1QB redraft managers should feel confident in themselves, assuming they’ve successfully executed these steps in their draft(s). Unfortunately, the quest toward the championship doesn’t stop after this point.
Look… you’re going to be wrong about some stuff. Players you perceived as safe might suffer a season-ending injury. The slam-dunk sleeper TE you snagged in the ninth round might’ve turned into a pumpkin before the calendar turned to Halloween. The fact of the matter is that bad stuff will happen.
The good news is that there are ways to fix these mistakes!
Always Make Deals
Trying to make trades with your league mates and being active on your league’s waiver wire on a weekly basis are the best ways to remedy the errors made on draft day. Plus, just think about it: did you really expect everyone you picked on draft day to be a bonafide star and be in your lineup every week?
Hell, the most experienced fantasy managers in the world will tell you that at least one-third of their original team is gone by the time the playoffs roll around every year. The team here at Optimus has been playing in 1QB redraft leagues for decades, and none of us could say with a straight face that we’ve won a league without making a single waiver transaction.
Conclusion
Be willing to accept failure, and don’t stop building your team once the season is underway. The vast majority of fantasy football leagues allow trading and boast a waiver wire feature so that you can be flexible and pivot as time goes along.
If you can be mindful of the rules, be strategic in your approach, and have fun along the way, you can be a fantasy football champion.
C.H. Herms is a co-founder & Senior Managing Editor for Optimus Fantasy Football. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CH_Herms for more fantasy football insights
by C.H. Herms
Share
If You’re Here, it’s Because You Want to Win a Fantasy Football Title
To that end, what most of the general public understands as “fantasy football” is played in a format referred to as redraft. Essentially, you and however many of your friends or work colleagues band together to form a league that selects a brand new team on a yearly basis. It’s also typical practice in many of these leagues that each team only starts one quarterback (QB) at a time, just as a real-life NFL team would. In the fantasy biz, we like to call this the “1QB redraft” format.
The Optimus Fantasy team is here to help inform and advise folks embarking on a 1QB redraft journey this upcoming season. Together, let’s discuss some tactics you can employ to ensure you leave 2024 with a league championship.
*For an in-depth glossary of frequently used fantasy football terms, check out Richard Sickel’s Optimus Fantasy article.*
Dominating Your Redraft League in Five Easy Steps
There’s an old adage in many different forms that states that while you cannot win your league on draft day, you can certainly put yourself at a significant disadvantage by mishandling your picks.
The last thing anyone wants to do is bury themselves before the first games of the NFL season even get played.
So, how can we avoid this massive pitfall? It starts with a few actions on the part of the manager:
1.) Know Your League Settings Ahead of Time
Yes, reading the instruction manual can be tedious, but no one likes the person playing Monopoly who thinks they can buy a property after every turn. That’s not how the game works, and it’s tough to win without that understanding to begin with!
It is imperative that you understand your league’s scoring system (PPR, half-PPR, standard), roster requirements, and any unique rules from the jump.
Quality Examples
Any league, for example, that requires managers to play three wide receivers (WRs) in a starting lineup will inherently value the position more than a league that only requires two WRs at a time. How early and/or frequently you select players at that position in your draft will be heavily informed by the prerequisites outlined in your league’s settings.
Additionally, those participating in a PPR (or point-per-reception) format should keep in mind that any player who frequently catches passes in large quantities will be a more significant asset than an athlete who may put up gaudy receiving yardage totals but only see four or five passes come their way in a given game.
This format explicitly rewards one point for every catch a player makes, so do your research in identifying which NFL ballers see large quantities of targets in their offense(s) year over year. These guys will pay great dividends in PPR.
It’ll be wise to avoid the terminology above if you’re unfamiliar with it since we won’t be getting too deep into defining anything for the rest of this article.
2.) You’re Only Chasing Safety: Be Cautious Early in Drafts
There are plenty of ways a redraft manager can assemble a roster. It’s not particularly important whether a team begins a draft by selecting a running back (RB) or WR in the grand scheme of things.
Granted, where your draft slot is in the first round will influence that decision, but the point is that if a team is to survive, it must be built on a foundation of well-established NFL players with successful track records. Indeed, you don’t get points for what a player has done in the past, but history is typically a good indicator of what is to come in the future.
Assuming there’s no glaring reason, like age, that a player should halt being good, they can be considered a good early bet.
Now, there are times when extremely noteworthy rookies with ample opportunity on their depth chart(s) can make their way up high on draft boards, too, though the cardinal rule to remember here is that you should be risk-averse through the early rounds.
Trust What The Past Has Told Us
When considering this strategy point, it’s helpful to remember the title of the legendary post-hardcore band Underøath’s 2004 album, ‘They’re Only Chasing Safety.’’
An excellent fantasy team that wins a league rests on the shoulders of players deemed “safe” picks, such as Dallas Cowboys WR CeeDee Lamb or San Francisco 49ers RB Christian McCaffrey.
Trendy players with minimal prior success in the NFL will undoubtedly work their way into the conversation of consideration within the first few rounds of a draft. There’s nothing wrong with taking swings on such players either, but if you want to avoid some of the risk involved with taking those guys, go ahead and chase the safety of known superstars early.
Our Dave Stewart outlines Early RB ADP Values here.
3.) Catching Snowflakes: Identify Value Opportunity in Mid-To-Late Rounds
The foundation of your team is set once you’ve made the first three of four picks for your 1QB redraft roster. So, where should a manager go from here?
By the time a draft rolls around to the middle portion, a savvy manager’s primary objective should be to find opportunities to scoop players who’ve fallen down the board for various reasons. Some players are perceived to have injury issues, be too inexperienced to trust with a high selection, or have any other explanation that influences their average draft position (or ADP).
What Is ADP?
ADP can be simply described as an aggregation of data compiled through a particular website’s draft results gathered through both mocks and actual drafts of consequence. Through this data, players are assigned an average value or expectation of where prospective managers should see their name come off the board.
For example, let’s say the esteemed boyfriend of Taylor Swift and Chiefs tight end (TE) Travis Kelce holds an ADP of 2.12. That means that in a 12-team league, a manager can expect Kelce to be taken sometime around the last pick of the second round, hence the “2” and the “.12” denotations.
Using ADP to Identify Value
Should you be on the clock with the ninth choice of the third round, hypothetically, that would make drafting Kelce a wise choice should he be available for selection. At that point, you’ll have taken the 2.12 player on average at the 3.09 in your 12-team league.
Simply put, ADP is akin to a weather forecast predicting snowfall. By the time a draft ends, the vast majority of expected players will be rostered in some combination by the various managers in a league. However, not every snowfall or draft goes precisely according to prediction.
Any time you can catch a rare snowflake, a.ka. a player with a higher value dropping past expectation, an alarm should go off in the noggin that says, “Hey, taking this player here seems to make a lot of sense!”
By building out a team’s depth in this manner, any manager can feel comfortable with the decisions they’ve made and be the envy of league mates who cannot possibly believe so much good fortune came their way.
4.) Drafting a QB Using The Goldilocks Principle
In the 1QB redraft format, the QB a manager picks is a highly impactful decision. If chosen correctly, this player can prove to be a differentiator, particularly since each team only starts one at a time.
There are many prevalent strategies for finding the right player, but recent trends in the NFL and fantasy football as a whole have made utilizing these approaches more complicated.
For instance, renowned fantasy football analyst JJ Zachariason popularized the “late-round QB strategy” in the early 2010s. This approach dictates that it makes statistical sense to wait until toward the end of a draft to choose a starting QB for your lineup.
This theory still absolutely holds some weight, as evidenced by the fact that the gap in average fantasy points per game between the second-best QB (Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles) and the 15th-best QB (Jared Goff of the Detroit Lions) was 4.2 points in four-point per passing touchdown (TD) scoring in 2023.
It’s not a huge difference, but it’s sizeable enough that there’s an entire passing TD difference between the two on an average weekly basis.
Running QBs > “Traditional” QBs
What helps a player like Hurts and serves as a disadvantage to someone like Goff is that the former is known for compiling rushing yards on top of his passing performances. As such, it’s the perspective of Optimus Fantasy that managers should seek to find QBs who are also good rushers since you’ll get points for that statistical output as well.
Because of this trend and a general uptick in QBs who can run effectively, however, the QB position is skewing toward being drafted higher in 1QB redraft leagues than when this late-round strategy was first brought to the forefront.
Find Your Comfort Zone
At this point, managers should exercise as much judgment as possible and measure their comfort level regarding how early they want to select a quarterback. A reliable general rule of thumb is that picking a quarterback any time before the fifth round is considered too early.
Any time after that, however? That’s up to you. Embody your inner Goldilocks and identify whatever feels “just right” for your team. Just try to find a quarterback who can run the ball well, too, if possible.
5.) Bad Stuff Will Happen: Don’t Stop Being Active Post-Draft
1QB redraft managers should feel confident in themselves, assuming they’ve successfully executed these steps in their draft(s). Unfortunately, the quest toward the championship doesn’t stop after this point.
Look… you’re going to be wrong about some stuff. Players you perceived as safe might suffer a season-ending injury. The slam-dunk sleeper TE you snagged in the ninth round might’ve turned into a pumpkin before the calendar turned to Halloween. The fact of the matter is that bad stuff will happen.
The good news is that there are ways to fix these mistakes!
Always Make Deals
Trying to make trades with your league mates and being active on your league’s waiver wire on a weekly basis are the best ways to remedy the errors made on draft day. Plus, just think about it: did you really expect everyone you picked on draft day to be a bonafide star and be in your lineup every week?
Hell, the most experienced fantasy managers in the world will tell you that at least one-third of their original team is gone by the time the playoffs roll around every year. The team here at Optimus has been playing in 1QB redraft leagues for decades, and none of us could say with a straight face that we’ve won a league without making a single waiver transaction.
Conclusion
Be willing to accept failure, and don’t stop building your team once the season is underway. The vast majority of fantasy football leagues allow trading and boast a waiver wire feature so that you can be flexible and pivot as time goes along.
If you can be mindful of the rules, be strategic in your approach, and have fun along the way, you can be a fantasy football champion.
C.H. Herms is a co-founder & Senior Managing Editor for Optimus Fantasy Football. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CH_Herms for more fantasy football insights
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