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“Have a plan. Follow the plan, and you’ll be surprised how successful you can be. Most people don’t have a plan. That’s why it’s easy to beat most folks.” – Paul “Bear” Bryant, football coach, University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide.

We have arrived at the prime of fantasy football draft season, a heady time when we are thinking about how the draft will unfold, who we are going to target, and how we are going to make our championship team come together in real-time, pitted against a group of live minds.

Preparation is important, but never to the point of rigidity. There will be unexpected picks ahead of you that cause a player you never considered to fall to your pick. You will see key players in your draft plan sniped a pick or two before you are on the clock.

You need to be prepared, but you also have to be flexible. The best way to do that is to understand the alternatives for filling each starting slot on your team.

When you make a pick, you are affecting the decision matrix for your later picks. Sometimes, the answer isn’t who you like better among your early targets when you are on the clock in the early rounds but who you like better later at the positions you are neglecting when you make a pick.

If you feel comfortable about later options, then it’s easy to kick a position down the road a few rounds. If you are staring at your last viable option to fill a starting spot, it’s probably better to avoid the pain of figuring out what to do later.

Know Your League

First, as always, know your scoring and lineups.

• If you start only two wide receivers and running backs without flex positions, then tight end and quarterback become more important.
• If you can start seven WRs/RBs, then quarterback and tight end are less important.
• Know which players/positions are helped and hurt by whether your league is non-PPR, 0.5 PPR, PPR, or tight end premium (1.5 PPR for tight ends).
• Know which quarterbacks are helped and hurt by bonuses for long scores or 300-yard games, and whether your league gives more than 4 points for a passing score or 1 point for each 25 passing yards.
• Look at the average points per game at each position sorted in descending order. Note which positions have the smallest and largest spans between #1 and the last starter based on league size times starting requirements to know where getting an elite option is most important (VBD drafting!).

You get the point. Know the landscape before you get dropped in to conquer it.

Know Your Guys

Next, create a list of players that are your guys.

Using ADP, you can have a reasonable expectation of who will be there in which rounds, and you can start to piece together a plan that will give your lineup balance and upside and create possibilities for improvement on your bench. You should also have clarity on which players you value so much less than the hive mind that you can just cross them off of your list.

Understand the if/then logic of your choices and how they ripple through the later rounds. Then clear your mind, get in the moment, and draft!

As always, fantasy football is a diversion, an escape where we get to call the shots. Do it your way and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with getting lost in a puzzle and forgetting the pressures of everyday life.

Draft Strategy: Cliff's Notes

Overall: There will be multiple right answers at every position, and the right answers will change as the season unfolds. Have clarity on which players you like at each position in each section of your draft so you can piece together a roster of players you want, no matter how your opponents draft.

Quarterback

The elite options at quarterback are not far enough ahead of the pack to justify taking one of the top two options.

The best value is in the QB7-11 range, but there are still ways to hang in at the position if you don’t take a top-12 option.

Running Back

There are worthy options at ADP from the #1 overall pick through the third round, but the best value is in the 6th-8th round range. The value is so good there that you might be able to get away with waiting that long to take your RB1 and RB2.

As always, your late-round picks should focus on speculative running backs.

Wide Receiver

You’ll probably want to take at least two wide receivers in your first four picks and three in your first five. The upside possibilities dwindle around the 6th/7th round, so make sure to fill out your core by then.

The late-round wide receivers don’t have as much potential to hit as the late-round running backs and tight ends.

Tight End

The top four are tightly packed and fall much farther than the top tight ends have gone in recent years. Consider taking TE3 or TE4 at ADP as your Plan A, as long as you think that player is going to finish higher than the top tight ends did in 2023, a down year at the position.

Options that could be the best value pick at the position abound, going as deep as TE10-TE12, including T.J. Hockenson, and there are a lot of promising late-round options.

Reserve two spots for tight ends in your roster build.

Kicker

Take one with your last pick that’s established in a good offense.

Team Defense

Take one with your next-to-last pick that has a good Week 1 matchup. 

Draft Strategy: Quarterback

Again, knowing your scoring system is key here. In leagues with distance touchdowns and 300+ yard game bonuses, or more than four points per pass touchdown, or efficiency scoring that takes points away for incompletions and awards points for completions, Patrick Mahomes II could be #1, C.J. Stroud and Dak Prescott could be top five, and Jared Goff and Brock Purdy could be top 10-12, allowing you to wait longer. In more typical leagues with four-point pass touchdowns and points per 25 passing yards, the quarterbacks with a running dimension remain king.

I get it, late round quarterback is attractive because you can get 15-20 points off of the waiver wire. That was a more compelling argument when the top quarterbacks were in the 24-25 points-per-game range. Enter quarterbacks like Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, and Anthony Richardson, who can score 30 points a game on average in typical scoring systems at their peaks, and the game has changed. A 10 points-per-game advantage is the largest that any player at any position will give you over replacement value except Christian McCaffrey, who was the runaway #1 overall pick in previous years and will still go #1 in a lot of leagues this year. The object of fantasy football is to score more points than your opponent, and it sure seems like getting an elite fantasy quarterback is the shortest line between A and B to achieve that result. Who is the best target if you want an elite fantasy quarterback but don’t want to pay the premium for Josh Allen or Jalen Hurts? Anthony Richardson or, a few rounds later, Jayden Daniels.

Richardson was on his way to a big fantasy season if the tiny sample size from last year is a valid indicator. Of course, his inability to stay healthy in the few games he did play could end up being the more valid piece of information from his first season. Daniels is going multiple rounds later and also has a high injury risk factor, but Justin Fields has shown us how low the bar is for a running quarterback to be a fantasy QB1.

Target: Anthony Richardson
Round: 5-6

Target: Jayden Daniels
Round: 8-9

If you’re more conservative or just prefer avoiding the unknown/injury-prone quarterbacks, Murray and Prescott are both quality picks at ADP. Prescott was the #2 overall quarterback behind Josh Allen after the Cowboys' bye-week adjustments. Murray will be two years clear of his ACL injury, and his offense should be improved with the addition of Marvin Harrison Jr. He’ll also be much better prepared to run Drew Petzing’s offense, which was a pleasant surprise with Joshua Dobbs at the helm last year. 

Target: Kyler Murray, Dak Prescott
Round: 7-8

There’s indoor Jared Goff and there’s outdoor Jared Goff. In 2024, you will only have to use outdoor Jared Goff once in the first 15 weeks of the season. You read that correctly. Week 16 at Chicago is a bear, weather wise, but even his Week 17 date outdoors with the 49ers promises big fantasy points after a successful NFC Championship game performance last season.

Target: Jared Goff
Round: 10-11

What if I wait and miss out on Goff? 

It will be ok. 

Lots of quarterbacks outside the top 12-15 - Kirk Cousins, Aaron Rodgers, Deshaun Watson, Geno Smith - even Will Levis or Sam Darnold could flirt with low QB1 production, especially if you have two and can pick the better matchup each week. The depth at quarterback will also make most teams happy with their QB1, giving you less competition on the waiver wire. 

Do I need a QB2?

Only if you take Anthony Richardson or Jayden Daniels as your QB1, and maybe Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray. Those quarterbacks' injury risk profile means you need to plan for a rainy day. Still, you might get away with not carrying a QB2 simply because teams will start dropping their QB2 options as we get to the waiver wire gauntlet, so you just need them to stay healthy through midseason to get away with only rostering one quarterback at the end of your draft. The QB2 options don’t have compelling enough season-long upside to hold on your bench if you are satisfied with your QB1 choice. Last year showed us that surprise options like Joshua Dobbs and Jake Browning can emerge as viable bye/injury/emergency options, so there are probably more viable options to save your season if your QB1 goes down than you expect at first.

A note for Superflex/2QB players

The top 10-12 quarterbacks fly off of the board in Superflex/2QB leagues. You should probably take your QB1 in the first or second round. If you have an early draft slot, it is almost imperative to take a quarterback first because you will likely still find a top 10-12 RB/WR/TE available at your second pick, but the top 10-12 quarterbacks should be gone. Typically, in a Superflex/2QB draft, you can get RB/WR/TE a round or more later than their ADP in 1QB leagues. Alternatively, that makes taking an RB/WR/TE come with a penalty of taking them in the same round they usually go in if you take one in the first round. You can employ a strategy of waiting on your second quarterback and taking RB/WR/TE as long as you can until you feel forced to take your QB2 because the supply is drying up. Kirk Cousins, Matthew Stafford, Aaron Rodgers, Baker Mayfield, Deshaun Watson, and Geno Smith will be available after your top 50 or so RBs/WRs/TEs are gone, so you won’t be assessed as big an opportunity cost when you take them as you would if you take an early QB2. Going quarterback in two of your first 3-4 picks can still work out, but you have to be almost flawless on your early RB/WR/TE picks if you don’t take your QB1 early.