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

WEEK 12 - QUICK NEWS AND NOTES

It is Week 12 and that means we have Arizona, Kansas City, LA Chargers, and Minnesota all on bye weeks. Now with the bye weeks our player pool is left with 11 games to choose from on the main slate. DRAFT has excluded the Indianapolis vs Houston, Green Bay vs San Francisco, and Baltimore vs LA Rams games because they are not on the main Sunday slate. That still leaves us 11 games and 22 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 Atlanta (52.0 O/U), Seattle vs Philadelphia (49.0), and Carolina vs New Orleans (47.0). 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 12. 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 ten 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. Alvin Kamara RB2
3. Michael Thomas WR1
4. Nick Chubb RB3
5. Julio Jones WR2 -- Questionable
6. Mike Evans WR3
7. Saquon Barkley RB4 (or Ezekiel Elliott)
8. Chris Godwin WR4 (or Odell Beckham)
9. Jameis Winston QB1
10. Matt Ryan QB2 (or Russell Wilson)

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. Alvin Kamara RB2
3. Michael Thomas WR1
4. Nick Chubb RB3
5. Julio Jones WR2 -- Questionable
6. Mike Evans WR3
7. Saquon Barkley RB4
8. Ezekiel Elliott RB5
9. Chris Godwin WR4
10. Odell Beckham WR5
11. Derrick Henry RB6
12. Amari Cooper WR6
13. Jameis Winston QB1
14. Matt Ryan QB2
15. Russell Wilson 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. Alvin Kamara RB2
3. Michael Thomas WR1
4. Nick Chubb RB3
5. Julio Jones WR2 -- Questionable
6. Mike Evans WR3
7. Saquon Barkley RB4
8. Ezekiel Elliott RB5
9. Chris Godwin WR4
10. Odell Beckham WR5
11. Derrick Henry RB6
12. Leonard Fournette RB7
13. LeVeon Bell RB8
14. Josh Jacobs RB9
15. Amari Cooper WR6
16. Chris Carson RB10
17. Julian Edelman WR7
18. Calvin Ridley WR8
19. Kenny Golladay WR9
20. DJ Chark WR10
21. Jameis Winston QB1
22. Matt Ryan QB2
23. Russell Wilson QB3
24. Jaylen Samuels RB11
25. DJ Moore WR11
26. Dak Prescott QB4
27. Carson Wentz QB5
28. Joe Mixon RB12
29. Tyler Lockett WR12 -- Questionable (I wouldn't mind moving him up if cleared by Friday)
30. Baker Mayfield QB6

In Week 12 it is clear that you have Christian McCaffrey as the top pick overall and can feel safe about it. After him the running backs are pretty strong so with Alvin Kamara, Nick Chubb, Saquon Barkley, Ezekiel Elliott, Derrick Henry, and Leonard Fournette all leading the pack. After those running backs you have the likes of LeVeon Bell, Josh Jacobs, and Chris Carson which are all good options at the position as well. At wide receiver you have Michael Thomas as the clear top option followed by the likes of Julio Jones, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Odell Beckham, and Amari Cooper. The quarterback position is a strange one this week as you don't have any of the big names on the slate and will have to settle for the likes of Winston, Ryan, or Wilson.

10-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Christian McCaffrey RB1
2. Alvin Kamara RB2
3. Michael Thomas WR1
4. Nick Chubb RB3
5. Julio Jones WR2 -- Questionable
6. Mike Evans WR3
7. Saquon Barkley RB4
8. Ezekiel Elliott RB5
9. Chris Godwin WR4
10. Odell Beckham WR5
11. Derrick Henry RB6
12. Leonard Fournette RB7
13. LeVeon Bell RB8
14. Josh Jacobs RB9
15. Amari Cooper WR6
16. Chris Carson RB10
17. Julian Edelman WR7
18. Calvin Ridley WR8
19. Kenny Golladay WR9
20. DJ Chark WR10
21. Jameis Winston QB1
22. Matt Ryan QB2
23. Russell Wilson QB3
24. Jaylen Samuels RB11
25. DJ Moore WR11
26. Dak Prescott QB4
27. Carson Wentz QB5
28. Joe Mixon RB12
29. Tyler Lockett WR12 -- Questionable (I wouldn't mind moving him up if cleared by Friday)
30. Baker Mayfield QB6
31. John Brown WR13
32. Jarvis Landry WR14
33. Phillip Lindsay RB13
34. Devin Singletary RB14
35. Courtland Sutton WR15
36. Sony Michel RB15
37. Miles Sanders RB16
38. Marvin Jones WR16
39. Zach Ertz TE/WR17
40. Allen Robinson WR18
41. Drew Brees QB7
42. Josh Allen QB8
43. David Montgomery RB17
44. Ronald Jones II RB18
45. James White RB19
46. DK Metcalf WR19
47. Tarik Cohen RB20
48. Michael Gallup WR20
49. Derek Carr QB9
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 12 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!