Expert DRAFTing Week 16

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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 16 - QUICK NEWS AND NOTES

It is Week 16 and all the bye weeks are over and the season is winding down. The three Saturday games, Sunday Night and Monday Night games will all be off the 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 now with two weeks left in the season, no tournaments will be offered.

The popular high scoring game to target this week is going to be New Orleans vs Tennessee (51.0 O/U), Arizona vs Seattle (50.5), and Baltimore vs Cleveland (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 16. 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 15 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. Michael Thomas WR1
3. Lamar Jackson QB1
4. Julio Jones WR2
5. Chris Carson RB2
6. Saquon Barkley RB3
7. Keenan Allen WR3
8. Russell Wilson QB2
9. Ezekiel Elliott RB4
10. Courtland Sutton WR4

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. Michael Thomas WR1
3. Lamar Jackson QB1
4. Julio Jones WR2
5. Chris Carson RB2
6. Saquon Barkley RB3
7. Keenan Allen WR3
8. Russell Wilson QB2
9. Ezekiel Elliott RB4
10. Courtland Sutton WR4
11. Derrick Henry RB5
12. DJ Moore WR5
13. Kenny Golladay WR6
14. Leonard Fournette RB6
15. Dak Prescott 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. Michael Thomas WR1
3. Lamar Jackson QB1
4. Julio Jones WR2
5. Chris Carson RB2
6. Saquon Barkley RB3
7. Keenan Allen WR3
8. Russell Wilson QB2
9. Ezekiel Elliott RB4
10. Courtland Sutton WR4
11. Derrick Henry RB5
12. DJ Moore WR5
13. Kenny Golladay WR6
14. Leonard Fournette RB6
15. Dak Prescott QB3
16. Alvin Kamara RB7
17. Joe Mixon RB8
18. Miles Sanders RB9
19. Nick Chubb RB10
20. Amari Cooper WR7
21. Zach Ertz WR/TE8
22. Drew Brees QB4
23. Darren Waller TE/WR9
24. Tyler Boyd WR10
25. AJ Brown WR11
26. Mark Ingram RB11
27. Matt Ryan QB5
28. Austin Ekeler RB12
29. Terry McLaurin WR12
30. Carson Wentz QB6

10-TEAM DRAFT RANKINGS AND STRATEGY

1. Christian McCaffrey RB1
2. Michael Thomas WR1
3. Lamar Jackson QB1
4. Julio Jones WR2
5. Chris Carson RB2
6. Saquon Barkley RB3
7. Keenan Allen WR3
8. Russell Wilson QB2
9. Ezekiel Elliott RB4
10. Courtland Sutton WR4
11. Derrick Henry RB5
12. DJ Moore WR5
13. Kenny Golladay WR6
14. Leonard Fournette RB6
15. Dak Prescott QB3
16. Alvin Kamara RB7
17. Joe Mixon RB8
18. Miles Sanders RB9
19. Nick Chubb RB10
20. Amari Cooper WR7
21. Zach Ertz WR/TE8
22. Drew Brees QB4
23. Darren Waller TE/WR9
24. Tyler Boyd WR10
25. AJ Brown WR11
26. Mark Ingram RB11
27. Matt Ryan QB5
28. Austin Ekeler RB12
29. Terry McLaurin WR12
30. Carson Wentz QB6
31. LeVeon Bell RB13
32. Jarvis Landry WR13
33. Melvin Gordon RB14
34. Kenyan Drake RB15
35. Phillip Lindsay RB16
36. Tyler Lockett WR14
37. James Conner RB17
38. Devonta Freeman RB18
39. DeAndre Washington RB19
40. Michael Gallup WR15
41. Sterling Shepard WR16
42. DeVante Parker WR17
43. Kyler Murray QB7
44. Philip Rivers QB8
45. Mike Williams WR18
46. Diontae Johnson WR19
47. Ryan Fitzpatrick QB9
48. Marlon Mack RB20
49. Christian Kirk WR20
50. Ryan Tannehill 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 16 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!