The wisest fantasy managers know that the fantasy football draft strategy you use early is not the same as the one that you should use later in a draft. They also know that without a solid strategic approach to both early and late rounds can either leave a squad short of top-flight starters or give you a very thin bench that will require a lot of in-season work to shore up.
This overview shows you how the fantasy football draft assistant available through the RotoWire fantasy football draft kit can guide you through this process. We'll go over strategy adjustments for both early and late round draft picks, tell you how to manage tier breaks and positional runs, provide guidance on leveraging ADP and projections by draft position and detail how to use mock drafts to prepare for your specific draft slot.
Strategy Adjustments for Early Draft Picks
The early rounds are usually when fantasy leagues are won. This is a time when you should prioritize elite positional advantages in fantasy football ADP to secure high floor, high ceiling cornerstone players.
"Using RotoWire's Fantasy Football Draft Assistant, as part of building your draft plan, you can choose to 'play it safe' or 'aim for upside' in the early rounds," RotoWire fantasy football expert Jake Letarski said. "Since the first-round pick often makes or breaks your draft, some users like to play it safe with a consistent, multi-year contributor that comes with little-to-no injury history.
"Choosing to play it safe will gear the software's fantasy football rankings recommendations towards players who fit that profile, as opposed trying to hit home runs with rookies or breakout candidates that don't have the same track record."
Strategy Adjustments for Late Draft Picks
The later rounds of a fantasy draft require a much different fantasy football cheat sheet approach than the early rounds. Later rounds afford you opportunities such as stacking, handcuff picks and pairing upside players such as home-run wide receivers with their quarterbacks. You'll find that using the RotoWire fantasy football projections during these rounds will help you track tiers and avoid reaching beyond realistic fantasy football ADP.
"Once a manager fills out their starters and is comfortable with their depth at each position, they are ready to take more risks in the later rounds," Letarski said. "Instead of a mediocre player who you know what to expect from, it may be more prudent to take riskier players, such as rookie running backs or other unproven talent that, while they come with no guarantees, may offer a higher ceiling.
"To gear the software's recommendations toward these types of high-ceiling players, select 'Aim for Upside' in the Late Rounds section when building your Draft Plan."
Managing Tier Breaks and Positional Runs
The RotoWire fantasy football draft assistant is built to help you identify positional tier drop offs. It will also greatly assist in your ability to predict positional runs. If you adopt a flexible approach here, you can stock up value picks before the NFL depth charts options thin out.
"On the player cards in the RotoWire Draft Assistant, under Notes From Your Assistant GM, our back-end tiering system will often identify when a player is 'the last of his tier,'" Letarski said. "This may push fantasy managers to potentially get ahead of a positional run by getting the last player in a specific tier, knowing they likely won't be available before their next pick. Managers can also use the Roster view to see when it may not be necessary to take that player (i.e. you pick No. 10, but teams 11 and 12 already have their starting TE, so you can wait)."
Leveraging ADP and Projections by Draft Position
When you use the fantasy football draft assistant, available via your subscription to RotoWire, you can get a fantasy draft 1-2 punch by combining projections with ADP trends. This will allow you to maximize value in every round of a fantasy football draft. For example, if you see that a running back has RB2 upside potential in the RotoWire projections, but is falling to the RB3 tier, you can feel more comfortable making a reach pick than you might otherwise.
Your leveraging approach will change throughout the draft. You'll likely want to focus on stability with early picks, but with later picks you can take players who might be moving down the draft board to an unfavorable history of showing up on the NFL injury report. RotoWire has the most comprehensive injury and news aggregation in the industry, so you will know you are ahead of the curve in this area when making your picks.
Using Mock Drafts to Prepare for Your Specific Draft Slot
You should never go into any draft without having run multiple simulations for how that draft might play out. These simulations should be run from your exact draft position so that you can have the best contingency plans in place.
There is no better way to run simulations than through the RotoWire fantasy football mock draft tool. Connect your league's settings to make these simulations even more accurate. You should also consider practicing multiple builds to familiarize yourself with those contingency plans in advance.
