Expert DRAFTing Week 4

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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, Sunday Night, and Monday Night games and only focus on the main slate on DRAFT, which is the Sunday games.

WEEK 4 - QUICK NEWS AND NOTES

It is Week 4 and that means we have our first week of bye weeks with both NY Jets and San Francisco off this week. With only two bye weeks we still have a large player pool with 12 games to choose from on the main slate. DRAFT has excluded the Philadelphia vs Green Bay, Dallas vs New Orleans, and Cincinnati vs Pittsburgh games because they are not on the main Sunday slate. That still leaves us 12 games and 24 teams worth of players to choose from this week. This will be a good week to try all the different sized formats on DRAFT and to play in the four different tournament options that they have available.

• Third and Short - 6-man $3 (6 max)
• Hype Train - 6-man $5 (6 max)
• First and Ten- 4-man $10 (4 max)
• Five Wide - 5-man $55 (5 max)

The popular high scoring game to target this week is going to be Kansas City vs Detroit (54.0 O/U). The next highest over/under is Tampa Bay vs LA Rams (50.0) which is four points lower and next up would be Washington vs NY Giants (48.5). Whenever you are in a position to choose between two players you feel have similar upside you might just want to choose the one that is from the highest total on the week as they all seem to ones that will have some high scores and lots of fantasy points from all the star players involved.

The running back and wide receiver depth this week is strong so you might not see as much edge in the smaller sized leagues such as H2H, 3-man, or 4-man. Anything above a 4-man I feel like you can use your rankings and draft skills to give you a nice edge over your competition in Week 4. Even in H2H, 3-man, and 4-man you will always have others that will just side with DRAFT's projections and you can use that to your advantage.

Injuries are more in play now with players getting banged up after two weeks of action. You will want to be monitoring news leading up to kickoff and be ready for any last minute swaps if necessary.

HEAD-TO-HEAD DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Christian McCaffrey RB1
2. Austin Ekeler RB2
3. Keenan Allen WR1
4. Patrick Mahomes II QB1
5. DeAndre Hopkins WR2
6. Julio Jones WR3
7. Dalvin Cook RB3
8. Odell Beckham WR4
9. Deshaun Watson QB2
10. Nick Chubb RB4 (or David Johnson)

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 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 you will find others that like to draft their favorite team, maybe they just follow DRAFT's projections/ADP and stick to those numbers just going down the list. If you have the first pick this week you get an advantage with the opportunity to draft Christian McCaffrey who looks to be in the best spot this week. After that I think you can target against the Dolphins with either one of Austin Ekeler or Keenan Allen. Also just like any other week at quarterback it is Patrick Mahomes II that you want to draft as the drop off to QB2 always feels big.

3-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Christian McCaffrey RB1
2. Austin Ekeler RB2
3. Keenan Allen WR1
4. Patrick Mahomes II QB1
5. DeAndre Hopkins WR2
6. Julio Jones WR3
7. Dalvin Cook RB3
8. Odell Beckham WR4
9. Nick Chubb RB4
10. David Johnson RB5
11. Mike Evans WR5
12. Deshaun Watson QB2
13. Lamar Jackson QB3
14. Sammy Watkins WR6 (or Travis Kelce)
15. Mark Ingram RB6 (or Derrick Henry)

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 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. Christian McCaffrey RB1
2. Austin Ekeler RB2
3. Keenan Allen WR1
4. Patrick Mahomes II QB1
5. DeAndre Hopkins WR2
6. Julio Jones WR3
7. Dalvin Cook RB3
8. Odell Beckham WR4
9. Nick Chubb RB4
10. David Johnson RB5
11. Mike Evans WR5
12. Sammy Watkins WR6
13. Mark Ingram RB6
14. Travis Kelce WR/TE7
15. Derrick Henry RB7
16. Deshaun Watson QB2
17. Lamar Jackson QB3
18. Kerryon Johnson RB8
19. Marlon Mack RB9
20. Leonard Fournette RB10
21. Tyler Lockett WR8
22. Chris Godwin WR9
23. Cooper Kupp WR10
24. Todd Gurley RB11
25. Brandin Cooks WR11
26. Russell Wilson QB4
27. Jared Goff QB5
28. Kenny Golladay WR12
29. Josh Jacobs RB12
30. Philip Rivers QB6

This week feels somewhat different with only one of the big name running backs at the top with Christian McCaffrey. If you get the top pick I think he is an autopick there and if you are lucky to have him drop to you if you don't get the top pick your team will be in even better shape.

This looks more like a week where the top wide receivers are in play after both McCaffrey and Ekeler are off the board. I like Allen, Hopkins, Jones, and Beckham here and if I can build a team with two of them I feel like I can have a big advantage as the drop off at the wide receiver position feels bigger than that of the running back position.

10-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Christian McCaffrey RB1
2. Austin Ekeler RB2
3. Keenan Allen WR1
4. Patrick Mahomes II QB1
5. DeAndre Hopkins WR2
6. Julio Jones WR3
7. Dalvin Cook RB3
8. Odell Beckham WR4
9. Nick Chubb RB4
10. David Johnson RB5
11. Mike Evans WR5
12. Sammy Watkins WR6
13. Mark Ingram RB6
14. Travis Kelce WR/TE7
15. Derrick Henry RB7
16. Deshaun Watson QB2
17. Lamar Jackson QB3
18. Kerryon Johnson RB8
19. Marlon Mack RB9
20. Leonard Fournette RB10
21. Tyler Lockett WR8
22. Chris Godwin WR9
23. Cooper Kupp WR10
24. Todd Gurley RB11
25. Brandin Cooks WR11
26. Russell Wilson QB4
27. Jared Goff QB5
28. Kenny Golladay WR12
29. Josh Jacobs RB12
30. Philip Rivers QB6
31. Devonta Freeman RB13
32. Adam Thielen WR13
33. Evan Engram TE/WR14
34. Chris Carson RB14
35. Phillip Lindsay RB15
36. Allen Robinson WR15
37. David Montgomery RB16
38. Matt Ryan QB7
39. Kyler Murray QB8
40. Robert Woods WR16
41. Daniel Jones QB9
42. Josh Gordon WR17
43. Sterling Shepard WR18
44. DJ Moore WR19
45. Sony Michel RB17
46. LeSean McCoy RB18 (Questionable)
47. Wayne Gallman RB19
48. James White RB20
49. Terry McLaurin WR20
50. Tom Brady QB10

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 are always full of quality players even in the last couple of rounds at the start of the season. There are more games to choose from, players are healthy, and we have known the news for weeks leading up to the games. Week 4 is a great time to play 10-man drafts as you can find an edge in the 31-50 player rankings and find that perfect QB/WR stack you like to take you over the top.

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.

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