Gridiron Experts

Fantasy Football Draft Strategy: “The Gambler” -DC

One of the first pieces of advice anyone will tell you when joining a Fantasy Football League is that running backs are valuable and should be drafted early and often. On average most fantasy pools have close to 70-75% of the first 3 rounds dedicated to RB’s. Although the real strength of a fantasy team is built in the middle rounds, typically because everyone’s first three picks look fairly similar (RB, RB, QB or WR)

Why not corner the market?

This strategy is called The Gambler, and for good reason. This strategy is not for people joining keeper a league, nor people that are conservative in nature, but if you’re patient enough you can dominate the draft board by swimming against the current. The idea behind this draft strategy is to help yourself to the top players of other categories after the first round. Your goal is to build a power attack through the air.

Depending on where you pick in the first round, your goal is to either draft a running back that you have little doubts about or the best wide receiver available. After which your immediate goal is to draft a top quarterback and two wide receivers (one if you were forced to take a WR in the first round).

This is crazy talk for most Fantasy Football fans, but the fact of the matter is many people over value the running back position after the 1st round. The going consensus is that you need 2 or even 3 excellent RB’s to excel in Fantasy Leagues. =False
If you can corner the market and obtain the top QB and snag a couple great WR’s, the second running back position can be filled anywhere, from a goal line powerback to a receiving halfback.

Drafting RB’s heavy early on usually leaves other areas of your team light or unequipped, typically because everyone is drafting in waves and around the 4th round you see a complete flip in trends as now people address their glaring needs at Wide Receiver and Quarterback. If you were able to get your hands on say Chris Johnson from the Titans in the first round, and then add Brees and two excellent WR’s to your team would be more of a threat than two RBs and a couple tier two Receivers.

Say what you want about depth at receiver in the league, but when you’re stuck with inconsistent weapons that let you down week after week you’ll wish you had drafted better. Remember there are 32 NFL teams; chances are you are going to get 2 starting Running Backs, and while people kill each other for RB’s early on you can quietly come away with a starting line up that will have little to no line-up guessing week after week. One of the best parts of this strategy is if you are successful in drafting a solid RB and the top Quarterback and two Receivers early on, you can then burn as many late round picks on sleeper running backs as you like, guilt free. Knowing you’re strong at all key positions, as opposed to trying to fill holes late in a pool, is always easier.

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