Expert DRAFTing Week 6

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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 6 - QUICK NEWS AND NOTES

It is Week 5 and that means we have Buffalo, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Oakland all on bye weeks. Now with four bye weeks our player pool is left with 10 games to choose from on the main slate. DRAFT has excluded the NY Giants vs New England, Carolina vs Tampa Bay (London), Pittsburgh vs LA Chargers, and Detroit vs Green Bay games because they are not on the main Sunday slate. That still leaves us 10 games and 20 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 - 8-man $5 (8 max)
• First and Ten- 4-man $10 (4 max)
• Five Wide - 4-man $55 (4 max)

The popular high scoring game to target this week is going to be Houston vs Kansas City (55.0 O/U). The next two highest over/under is Atlanta vs Arizona (52.0), and San Francisco vs LA Rams (50.0). 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 6. 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 five 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. Alvin Kamara RB1
2. Ezekiel Elliott RB2
3. Dalvin Cook RB3
4. DeAndre Hopkins WR1
5. Michael Thomas WR2
6. Julio Jones WR3
7. Patrick Mahomes II QB1
8. LeVeon Bell RB4
9. Amari Cooper WR4
10. Deshaun Watson 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 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. This week we have some high end running backs at the top of the draft so it might be ideal to try to get two early and build around them.

3-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Alvin Kamara RB1
2. Ezekiel Elliott RB2
3. Dalvin Cook RB3
4. DeAndre Hopkins WR1
5. Michael Thomas WR2
6. Julio Jones WR3
7. Patrick Mahomes II QB1
8. LeVeon Bell RB4
9. Amari Cooper WR4
10. Deshaun Watson QB2
11. Leonard Fournette RB5
12. Cooper Kupp WR5
13. Nick Chubb RB6
14. Odell Beckham WR6
15. Matt Ryan 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 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. Alvin Kamara RB1
2. Ezekiel Elliott RB2
3. Dalvin Cook RB3
4. DeAndre Hopkins WR1
5. Michael Thomas WR2
6. Julio Jones WR3
7. Patrick Mahomes II QB1
8. LeVeon Bell RB4
9. Amari Cooper WR4
10. Deshaun Watson QB2
11. Leonard Fournette RB5
12. Cooper Kupp WR5
13. Nick Chubb RB6
14. Odell Beckham WR6
15. Matt Ryan QB3
16. Chris Carson RB7
17. Derrick Henry RB8
18. Joe Mixon RB9
19. Mark Ingram RB10
20. Travis Kelce WR/TE7
21. Phillip Lindsay RB11
22. Adam Thielen WR8
23. Tyler Lockett WR9
24. Tyler Boyd WR10
25. Lamar Jackson QB4
26. Dak Prescott QB5
27. Robert Woods WR11
28. Devonta Freeman RB12
29. DJ Chark WR12
30. Kyler Murray QB6

This week is mixed at the top with both running backs and wide receivers with no real star at the top that stands out above the rest. Kamara, Elliott, or Cook all make equally great plays so getting a top 3 pick can land you one of these and help you build around them. At wide receiver it is similar with Hopkins, Thomas and Jones at the top as they are all great options and not one jumps off the page more than another.

10-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Alvin Kamara RB1
2. Ezekiel Elliott RB2
3. Dalvin Cook RB3
4. DeAndre Hopkins WR1
5. Michael Thomas WR2
6. Julio Jones WR3
7. Patrick Mahomes II QB1
8. LeVeon Bell RB4
9. Amari Cooper WR4
10. Deshaun Watson QB2
11. Leonard Fournette RB5
12. Cooper Kupp WR5
13. Nick Chubb RB6
14. Odell Beckham WR6
15. Matt Ryan QB3
16. Chris Carson RB7
17. Derrick Henry RB8
18. Joe Mixon RB9
19. Mark Ingram RB10
20. Travis Kelce WR/TE7
21. Phillip Lindsay RB11
22. Adam Thielen WR8
23. Tyler Lockett WR9
24. Tyler Boyd WR10
25. Lamar Jackson QB4
26. Dak Prescott QB5
27. Robert Woods WR11
28. Devonta Freeman RB12
29. DJ Chark WR12
30. Kyler Murray QB6
31. Michael Gallup WR13
32. Will Fuller WR14
33. George Kittle WR/TE15
34. Matt Breida RB13
35. Jordan Howard RB14
36. Stefon Diggs WR16
37. Calvin Ridley WR17
38. Zach Ertz WR/TE18
39. David Johnson RB15 (or Chase Edmonds if Johnson is OUT)
40. LeSean McCoy RB16
41. Tevin Coleman RB17
42. Carlos Hyde RB18
43. Kenyan Drake RB19
44. Russell Wilson QB7
45. Jared Goff QB8
46. Carson Wentz QB9
47. Todd Gurley RB20 (or Malcolm Brown if Gurley is OUT)
48. Larry Fitzgerald WR19
49. Alshon Jeffery WR20
50. Kirk Cousins 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 6 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!