Expert DRAFTing Week 12

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DRAFT offers weekly snake draft contests with 5-man rosters (1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR/TE) with 0.5-point PPR scoring (the same as FanDuel). There is no salary cap on DRAFT which makes it unique to how you play compared to the other daily fantasy sites. Teams are built through live snake drafts that have 30-second timer per pick. The most common contest sizes are Head-to-Head, 3-Team, 6-Team, and 10-Team.

We will explore both the rankings and draft strategies for each of these four DRAFT sizes. To understand why players are ranked where they are, be sure to check out the overall rankings where I will have in-depth breakdowns of some of the top options and some personal favorites down the list. When developing these rankings we will be excluding the Thursday Night games and only focus on the main slate on DRAFT, the Sunday and Monday games.

If you want to follow me on DRAFT my username is "Eaglezzz" as I sometimes will post contests and would love to play along with fellow Footballguys like yourselves. Please feel free to contact me on Twitter with any questions or if you would like to discuss this article or draft strategies. I welcome constructive feedback on the article and as always best of luck in this week's contests.

WEEK 12 - QUICK NEWS AND NOTES

This is a week full of question marks with six teams not included because of the Thanksgiving Day games with Chicago, Detroit, Washington, Dallas, Atlanta, and New Orleans all off the main slate. With those six teams you also have the LA Rams and Kansas City on bye weeks so you will be without a lot of fire power at the top of all the position ranks. Taking away eight teams this week that all have some good options at all the positions will make for a tougher roster construction on DRAFT this week. Another critical area to look at is injuries as the weeks go by and in Week 12 they are starting to pile up. We have very little names to worry about at the running back position this week as Kenyan Drake, Doug Martin, and Ronald Jones are really the only names to worry about and Drake and Martin are both probable to play if you wanted to draft them late in your drafts but not likely. At wide receiver A.J. Green, Julian Edelman, Randall Cobb, Robby Anderson, DeVante Parker, Jordy Nelson, and Rob Gronkowski are the names to keep an eye on. These are all big names to watch as we go into the weekend and with only having to roster five players it makes it hard to draft these guys with comparable options out there. It is almost better to see your opponents selecting these players with the questionable tag as it could give you a slight edge on the week.

The popular high scoring games to target this week are going to be San Francisco vs Tampa Bay (55.0 O/U), Miami vs Indianapolis (51.0 O/U), Seattle vs Carolina (47.5 O/U), and Cleveland vs Cincinnati (47.5 O/U). There is no real marque type of game to target this week as we have had in the past. I can see looking at an Andrew Luck and T.Y. Hilton stack or maybe doing the same with Jameis Winston and Mike Evans out of these games but nothing is standing out as must plays.

HEAD-TO-HEAD DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Melvin Gordon RB1
2. Saquon Barkley RB2
3. Christian McCaffrey RB3
4. Davante Adams WR1
5. Odell Beckham WR2
6. Antonio Brown WR3
7. James Conner RB4
8. DeAndre Hopkins WR4
9. Cam Newton QB1
10. Andrew Luck QB2

For a head-to-head contest you need to look for the top 2 quarterbacks, 4 running backs, and 4 wide receivers/tight ends - For a total of 10 players. The main key to look at when drafting in H2H contests is to know what your opponent is doing. You want to watch if he takes WR/WR to start out the draft you know that you can draft your WR positions with your last two picks. Same goes if he drafts a QB or RB/RB, you know that you can leverage that information and wait at those positions.

In H2H drafts I typically come in with a game plan and like to stick closely to it, and let the other drafter I am up against decide what type of team I will build depending on their picks. Often times you will find others that like to draft their favorite team, maybe they just follow DRAFT's own projections/ADP and stick to those numbers just going down the list. I feel like this week you can almost just go with any of the top running backs with your first pick and follow it up with WR/RB depending on who you like with your top four picks. This week at quarterback all the options are equal at the top so drafting one above round 5 feels foolish. I like either Cam Newton or Andrew Luck as the top options at the position this week.

3-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Melvin Gordon RB1
2. Saquon Barkley RB2
3. Christian McCaffrey RB3
4. Davante Adams WR1
5. Odell Beckham WR2
6. Antonio Brown WR3
7. James Conner RB4
8. DeAndre Hopkins WR4
9. David Johnson RB5
10. Adam Thielen WR5
11. Joe Mixon RB6 (or Nick Chubb/Leonard Fournette)
12. Mike Evans WR6 (or Keenan Allen)
13. Cam Newton QB1
14. Andrew Luck QB2
15. Carson Wentz QB3

For the 3-man contests, you will need to look at ranking 15 total players consisting of 3 quarterbacks, 6 running backs, and 6 wide receivers/tight ends. The priority here is the RB and WR spots as quarterbacks will often fall and getting any of the quarterbacks at the end really doesn't matter much as their projections are all right in line with each other.

The best advice for drafting in 3-mans would be to come up with your solid 15 player ranking list that you feel most comfortable with and don't get frustrated if the top players that you have on that list get taken right before your pick. If you have picks 1.01 or 1.03 you will be picking at the turn and can have an advantage in following your league mates roster construction closely and be able to know when to take certain positions or if you wanted to stack players you will have an easier time doing so with back to back picks.

6-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Melvin Gordon RB1
2. Saquon Barkley RB2
3. Christian McCaffrey RB3
4. Davante Adams WR1
5. Odell Beckham WR2
6. Antonio Brown WR3
7. James Conner RB4
8. DeAndre Hopkins WR4
9. David Johnson RB5
10. Adam Thielen WR5
11. Joe Mixon RB6
12. Mike Evans WR6
13. Keenan Allen WR7
14. Nick Chubb RB7
15. Leonard Fournette RB8
16. Marlon Mack RB9
17. Aaron Jones RB10
18. Cam Newton QB1
19. T.Y. Hilton WR8
20. JuJu Smith-Schuster WR9
21. Matt Breida RB11
22. Zach Ertz WR/TE10
23. Tyler Boyd WR11 (A.J. Green Questionable)
24. Andrew Luck QB2
25. Carson Wentz QB3
26. James White RB12
27. George Kittle WR/TE12
28. Aaron Rodgers QB4
29. Ben Roethlisberger QB5
30. Deshaun Watson QB6

The running back position is weak at the top of the board this week as you have three big names in Saquon Barkley, Melvin Gordon, and Christian McCaffrey are the names that you want to target if you have a top three pick. After that it takes a drop to guys like David Johnson, James Connor, Joe Mixon, Leonard Fournette, and Nick Chubb. These are all nice options but nothing seems like a clear cut play this week so I feel if you miss out on one of the top three guys I might want to switch over and target the wide receiver position. At wide receiver I like Davante Adams, DeAndre Hopkins, Odell Beckham, Antonio Brown, Adam Thielen, Mike Evans, and Keenan Allen. At quarterback I am a hard wait to round 5 this week and will not even consider selecting one before that.

After the big names at the top at running back you have some nice options at players who have been considered more of RB2 types this season but are in great matchups this week with the likes of Marlon Mack, Aaron Jones, Matt Breida, James White, and Phillip Lindsay. The drop off at wide receiver is also there and the next tier of players to target is the likes of Zach Ertz, Tyler Boyd, T.Y. Hilton, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Stefon Diggs, and Corey Davis. The key this week will be going heavy on the running back and wide receiver positions and relying on your player rankings and hoping some of your favorite plays fall to you.

10-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Melvin Gordon RB1
2. Saquon Barkley RB2
3. Christian McCaffrey RB3
4. Davante Adams WR1
5. Odell Beckham WR2
6. Antonio Brown WR3
7. James Conner RB4
8. DeAndre Hopkins WR4
9. David Johnson RB5
10. Adam Thielen WR5
11. Joe Mixon RB6
12. Mike Evans WR6
13. Keenan Allen WR7
14. Nick Chubb RB7
15. Leonard Fournette RB8
16. Marlon Mack RB9
17. Aaron Jones RB10
18. Cam Newton QB1
19. T.Y. Hilton WR8
20. JuJu Smith-Schuster WR9
21. Matt Breida RB11
22. Zach Ertz WR/TE10
23. Tyler Boyd WR11 (A.J. Green Questionable)
24. Andrew Luck QB2
25. Carson Wentz QB3
26. James White RB12
27. George Kittle WR/TE12
28. Phillip Lindsay RB13
29. Lamar Miller RB14
30. Julian Edelman WR13 (Rob Gronkowski/check status)
31. Stefon Diggs WR14
32. Emmanuel Sanders WR15
33. Corey Davis WR16
34. Jarvis Landry WR17
35. Alshon Jeffery WR18
36. Dalvin Cook RB15
37. Dion Lewis RB16
38. Chris Carson Rb17
39. Sterling Shepard WR19
40. Aaron Rodgers QB4
41. Ben Roethlisberger QB5
42. Deshaun Watson QB6
43. Sony Michel RB18
44. Peyton Barber RB19
45. LeSean McCoy RB20
46. Tyler Lockett WR20 (or Doug Baldwin)
47. Kirk Cousins QB7
48. Jameis Winston QB8
49. Russell Wilson QB9
50. Philip Rivers QB10

The 10-man contests become more and more difficult as bye weeks and injuries start to pile up and in Week 12 we are dealing with both of those issues. The drop off is bigger than normal at the running back position so you are going to want to make sure you have that position filled by the end of round three if possible. At wide receiver, you can always seem to be able to find value late in these drafts so choosing a second receiver over your second running back seems foolish in the 10-man format. Also look to pair your final receiver spot with a quarterback in the last round to give your team a little boost.

Stacking is something you will want to look at in these 10-man leagues as you will be looking for advantages to put up big points and get on top of the leaderboard. You can look to stack a QB/WR from the same team or if you are attacking a certain game you can try to draft players from both teams. In the 10-man leagues, you are shooting to win it of course but these leagues offer top-three prizes to land in the money. Even finishing in third place out of 10 teams can be a very profitable outcome so building a team with a high floor with a couple of high ceiling type players and a possible stack can help you get there.

The 10-mans look like strong options to play this week as there is plenty of depth to go around this week at the RB and WR positions and you should expect to be able to build some solid rosters because of the depth. Even with eight teams on bye week it should not effect your ability to build a very competitive 10-man team this week. Follow the news closely this week if you are playing 10-mans and fine tune those 31-50 player rankings as we lead up to the start of the week.

As always best of luck in this week's DRAFTs!