Expert DRAFTing Week 9

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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 9 - QUICK NEWS AND NOTES

It is Week 9 and that means we have Atlanta, Cincinnati, LA Rams, and New Orleans all on bye weeks. Now with the bye weeks our player pool is left with 10 games to choose from on the main slate. DRAFT has excluded the San Francisco vs Arizona, Houston vs Jacksonville, New England vs Baltimore, and Dallas vs NY Giants 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 - 8-man $3 (8 max)
• Hype Train - 7-man $5 (7 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 Tampa Bay vs Seattle (51.0 O/U), and Detroit vs Oakland (50.5). 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 9. 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 seven 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. Dalvin Cook RB2
3. Nick Chubb RB3
4. Mike Evans WR1
5. Chris Godwin WR2
6. Russell Wilson QB1
7. Tyler Lockett WR3
8. Aaron Jones RB4
9. Stefon Diggs WR4
10. Aaron Rodgers 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. Christian McCaffrey RB1
2. Dalvin Cook RB2
3. Nick Chubb RB3
4. Aaron Jones RB4
5. Mike Evans WR1
6. Chris Godwin WR2
7. Russell Wilson QB1
8. Tyler Lockett WR3
9. LeVeon Bell RB5
10. Stefon Diggs WR4
11. Kenny Golladay WR5
12. Chris Carson RB6
13. T.Y. Hilton WR6
14. Aaron Rodgers QB2
15. Matthew Stafford 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. Christian McCaffrey RB1
2. Dalvin Cook RB2
3. Nick Chubb RB3
4. Aaron Jones RB4
5. Mike Evans WR1
6. Chris Godwin WR2
7. Russell Wilson QB1
8. Tyler Lockett WR3
9. LeVeon Bell RB5
10. Chris Carson RB6
11. Stefon Diggs WR4
12. Kenny Golladay WR5
13. Marlon Mack RB7
14. T.Y. Hilton WR6
15. Aaron Rodgers QB2
16. James Conner RB8 -- Questionable
17. Josh Jacobs RB9
18. Derrick Henry RB10
19. Keenan Allen WR7
20. Tyreek Hill WR8
21. Allen Robinson WR9
22. Matthew Stafford QB3
23. Melvin Gordon RB11
24. JuJu Smith-Schuster WR10
25. Kirk Cousins QB4
26. Jameis Winston QB5
27. Odell Beckham WR11
28. Alshon Jeffery WR12
29. Jordan Howard RB12
30. Josh Allen QB6

In Week 9 it is clear that you have Christian McCaffrey at the top of your rankings followed by Dalvin Cook. After those two powerhouse running backs you have Nick Chubb, LeVeon Bell, and Aaron Jones grouped together. These are your priority players that you want to get exposure to at the top of your drafts. Wide receiver is much different this week as there is no real standout at the top of the board. You have the likes of Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Tyler Lockett, Stefon Diggs, and Kenny Golladay at the top and not one really stands out above the rest. Russell Wilson looks like the top quarterback on the week with a great matchup against a bad Tampa Bay secondary in what could be a back and forth high scoring game.

10-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Christian McCaffrey RB1
2. Dalvin Cook RB2
3. Nick Chubb RB3
4. Aaron Jones RB4
5. Mike Evans WR1
6. Chris Godwin WR2
7. Russell Wilson QB1
8. Tyler Lockett WR3
9. LeVeon Bell RB5
10. Chris Carson RB6
11. Stefon Diggs WR4
12. Kenny Golladay WR5
13. Marlon Mack RB7
14. T.Y. Hilton WR6
15. Aaron Rodgers QB2
16. James Conner RB8 -- Questionable
17. Josh Jacobs RB9
18. Derrick Henry RB10
19. Keenan Allen WR7
20. Tyreek Hill WR8
21. Allen Robinson WR9
22. Matthew Stafford QB3
23. Melvin Gordon RB11
24. Jordan Howard RB12
25. JuJu Smith-Schuster WR10
26. Odell Beckham WR11
27. Alshon Jeffery WR12
28. Austin Ekeler RB13
29. Phillip Lindsay RB14 -- Questionable
30. David Montgomery RB15
31. Adam Thielen WR13 -- Questionable
32. Kirk Cousins QB4
33. Travis Kelce WR/TE14
34. Marvin Jones WR15
35. Jameis Winston QB5
36. D.J. Moore WR16
37. Courtland Sutton WR17
38. John Brown WR18
39. Royce Freeman RB16
40. Devin Singletary RB17
41. Josh Allen QB6
42. Mark Walton RB18
43. Frank Gore RB19
44. Carson Wentz QB7
45. Philip Rivers QB8
46. Derek Carr QB9
47. Terry McLaurin WR19
48. LeSean McCoy RB20
49. Davante Adams WR20 -- Questionable
50. Jacoby Brissett 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 9 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!