Fantasy Football Draft Confusion

As draft day approaches, it seems like every "Fantasy Football Expert" crawls out from under the woodwork to give their opinion on the best way to draft. It's Quarterbacks first and Defenses last, no wait a minute, it's Running Backs first and kickers last, no it's ...

Example. Conventional wisdom tells you that you should draft your RBs in the first round since you generally need starting 2 RBs and only 1 starting QB. This is because the drop off from the top tier RBs to the second tier is much more significant than the drop off from the first tier QBs to the second.

An extreme case:

• You have the #1 and #20 draft picks in a 10-team league. Conventional wisdom says take the #1 RB with your first pick and wait on your QB until at least your second.

• Looking at last year's best point earners in the ESPN Fantasy Football LM Standard game, the top RB was Shaun Alexander with 278 points. If everyone else (picks #2 through #19) chose QBs than means the absolute best QB pick you would be left with would be Drew Bledsoe who gathered in 173 points. Your total for the two players = 451 points.

• Now, same league, same drafting positions but you get Peyton Manning (369 points) with your #1 pick. Assuming picks #2 through #19 are all running backs you would end up with the 19th best remaining Running Back, Emmitt Smith (145 points). Total points = 514. (Yes, we know Peyton had an outstanding year but he still only finished 1 point ahead of Daunte Culpepper.)

The fact is that there is some validity to the draft your RBs first philosophy. However, you have to know when to apply it, and how. The StatLeader member's draft package will help you get the true picture of how players rank under your league specific scoring system and help you have the best draft possible. Remember a wise person once said "Knowledge is Power". They were right.