Hey there Razzballers,
I’m back and refreshed after a grueling mock draft season and a nice offseason on the beach. But it’s time to hit the ground running and those fantasy football drafts are coming back up for everyone. In my column this week, I plan on breaking down what to do when you own the 10th pick in a 10-man league.
I know. It’s frustrating when you draw the draft order out of a hat and your name is literally the last one called. But guess what? I actually prefer to be picking last. I love it. And in fact, I think it gives you an advantage over the opposition. Let’s take a look at a hypothetical mock draft and see what you can get at picks 10 and 11:
- Â Todd Gurley (RB)
- Â Le’Veon Bell (RB)
- Â David Johnson (RB)
- Â Ezekiel Elliott (RB)
- Â Antonio Brown (WR)
- Â Saquon Barkley (RB)
- Â Leonard Fournette (RB)
- Â Alvin Kamara (RB)
- Â Odell Beckham Jr (WR)
Ok. So this might be how a lot of your drafts will start off.
Do you feel nervous?
You should be jumping for joy. Let me tell you why. If you have the 10th and 11th picks in this hypothetical draft, are you really going to complain with coming away with DeAndre Hopkins (WR) and either Michael Thomas (WR) or Dalvin Cook (RB) with your first two picks?
The beauty of picking at the end of the draft is that it sets up a ton of flexibility for you in your next four picks.
So let’s say you go with Hopkins and Thomas in your first two picks. You shouldn’t start freaking out over not having RB’s. If we’ve learned anything from the past three seasons in the NFL, it’s that you can assault your waiver wire before Week 1 or right after an injury to pick up that undrafted RB who takes over the starting gig.
Even if you don’t want to rely on that, you could just grab RB’s with your next three picks (In theory, Alex Collins in the 3rd, Derrius Guice in the 4th, and then Ronald Jones Jr in the 5th. I mean hell, Ty Montgomery from Green Bay is currently going in the middle of the 9th round. For PPR leagues, that would be a massive steal.
Now I’m going to keep this article short here and give you a my own spicy take on what I would do if both Hopkins and Thomas are off the board: Take Dalvin Cook and Jerick McKinnon with the 10th and 11th pick respectively. I know I know. Sounds like a hot take, right? That’s why I’m saving the explanation of my hot takes for next week when I post my first Hot Take Tuesday article.
Enough of the sidetracking. Back to the topic of picking at the end of the first round. The final point I’m going to make is a common stereotype with fantasy football that the smarter players know how to work around and those who usually finish in the basement fall victim for. Everyone by now knows what Zero-RB is and how to draft it.
Wrong.
Well, the second part of that statement is wrong. People actually do know of it.
But a lot of people don’t have the patience to know when to pull the trigger on such a strategy.
So let me cut right to the chase. If you’re picking 7th or later in the first round, you can roll with a Zero-RB plan this year. If you’re the holder of a top-6 pick, I HIGHLY advise against the Zero-RB approach. The way the board falls if you go for it doesn’t play out well. Your WR2 ends up being nowhere near value and I will end my post with my fantasy sports drafting motto.
“You can’t win your league with your first two picks, but you can sure as hell lose your league with them”
Thanks for reading everyone. I’ll be back on Tuesday with my Hot Take segment to ruffle some feathers and hash out some ideas for the upcoming season.
