Three Person Drafts: NFL Week 16 (Sun-Mon Slate)
It’s time for another week of DRAFT strategizing for those who love to play one-week daily fantasy games at DRAFT.com. This time of year, fantasy owners who are calling it a season in fantasy leagues, tend to focus more on daily fantasy games like DraftKings or Fanduel. However, I have found that those who couldn’t get enough Mock Drafts and or live to draft in leagues over the summer, really do love the format and awesome app over at Draft.
Last week was a good week, but I’m really excited about 3-person drafts this week. There are so many ways to approach this week’s drafts and they all work. We’re going to be able to get a nice advantage from all the draft positions and some of those advantages are huge! Keep in mind, this is for the Sunday-Monday slate.
- More Info: DRAFT Review: A Detailed Look at Draft.com
Let’s compare some Draft with DailyRoto this week projections:
*Projections may change throughout the week. These projections were pulled on December 21st for the Sun-Mon slate.
Quarterbacks
| Quarterbacks | DailyRoto | Draft | Draft Rank |
| Patrick Mahomes | 24.20 | 20.4 | 1 |
| Russell Wilson | 21.73 | 18.5 | 9 |
| Andrew Luck | 21.22 | 19.9 | 2 |
| Matt Ryan | 18.83 | 19.6 | 3 |
Russell Wilson seems like a great play, but we don’t want to draft him unless Patrick Mahomes and Andrew Luck are drafted early. We want to draft Mahomes or Luck so that one of our opponents gets Matt Ryan who is projected for significantly less. You’ll see how this plays out later.
Running Backs
| Running Backs | DailyRoto | Draft | Draft Rank |
| Ezekiel Elliott | 26.18 | 20.8 | 2 |
| Todd Gurley | 23.45 | 17.2 | 5 |
| Saquon Barkley | 22.39 | 18.0 | 3 |
| Christian McCaffrey | 21.71 | 22.4 | 1 |
| Nick Chubb | 21.02 | 16.2 | 7 |
| Alvin Kamara | 18.78 | 17.9 | 4 |
| Joe Mixon | 15.92 | 16.4 | 6 |
Once again, both sites pretty much agree on the top six RB’s, but the order is changed. Notice that Ezekiel Elliott is projected ahead of everyone else by a fair amount. Since Christian McCaffrey is projected higher on draft, Zeke should be available to us in the second and maybe even third position. There are lots of concerns with Todd Gurley this week. You can draft Saquon Barkley over Gurley without giving too much up if you don’t want to deal with the risk. Nick Chubb will be on a lot of our teams.
See More of Daily Roto’s Projections here.
Wide Receivers/ Tight Ends
| Wide Receivers/TE | DailyRoto | Draft | Draft Rank |
| DeAndre Hopkins | 18.28 | 16.4 | 1 |
| Davante Adams | 17.25 | 16.3 | 2 |
| Michael Thomas | 17.24 | 14.8 | 4 |
| Tyreek Hill | 16.79 | 13.6 | 7 |
| Travis Kelce | 16.77 | 12.8 | 12 |
| JuJu Smith-Schuster | 16.40 | 14.4 | 5 |
| Julio Jones | 15.86 | 16.2 | 3 |
| Antonio Brown | 14.72 | 13.9 | 6 |
Notice that the projection between Davante Adams and Kelce are less than .5 pts. We would like to get DeAndre Hopkins early, but there’s no reason to rush in for a WR. I’d rather draft Mahomes or Luck in the second or third round than Adams or Michael Thomas.
What a difference a day makes. JuJu Smith-Schuster was the top projected WR on DailyRoto until his groin injury knocked him out of practice this week. He’s still up there, but he’s risky and you’ll have to monitor his participation in practice leading up to the game. I’m probably going to just pass on him.
Drafting in First Position
| You | Team 2 | Team 3 |
| Ezekiel Elliott | Christian McCaffrey | Saquon Barkley |
| Patrick Mahomes | Alvin Kamara | Todd Gurley |
| DeAndre Hopkins | Davante Adams | Julio Jones |
| Tyreek Hill | JuJu Smith-Schuster | Michael Thomas |
| Nick Chubb | Andrew Luck | Matt Ryan |
| DR Total: 106.47 | DR Total: 95.36 | DR Total: 97.77 |
| Draft Total: 87.4 | Draft Total: 90.9 | Draft Total: 85.8 |
All the draft positions will work out well this week, but drafting in First Position is one of the biggest edges we’ve had in weeks. I took a little creative license and had Team 3 drafting Todd Gurley over Alvin Kamara even though Kamara is projected higher on Draft. Either way, I think the first five picks will be RBs. This allows you to draft Mahomes early and wait until the last pick to get Nick Chubb.
Even if Team 2 or Team 3 does something weird, you’re still going to get some combination of Patrick Mahomes, DeAndre Hopkins, Todd Gurley, and Alvin Kamara. As long as Mahomes and Hopkins aren’t picked before getting back to you in the second round, you’re golden.
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Drafting in Second Position
| Team 1 | You | Team 3 |
| Christian McCaffrey | Ezekiel Elliott | Saquon Barkley |
| DeAndre Hopkins | Patrick Mahomes | Todd Gurley |
| Alvin Kamara | Tyreek Hill | Julio Jones |
| Antonio Brown | Travis Kelce | Michael Thomas |
| Andrew Luck | Nick Chubb | Matt Ryan |
| DR Total: 94.71 | DR Total: 104.96 | DR Total: 97.77 |
| Draft Total: 90.5 | Draft Total: 83.8 | Draft Total: 85.8 |
We’ll call this the KC special. You can play around with different options at WR, but pairing Mahomes with Zeke and then drafting Chubb late is such a winning strategy this week. I also played with passing on Mahomes. It still works, but not as well:
| Team 1 | You | Team 3 |
| Christian McCaffrey | Ezekiel Elliott | Saquon Barkley |
| Patrick Mahomes | DeAndre Hopkins | Todd Gurley |
| Alvin Kamara | Davante Adams | Julio Jones |
| JuJu Smith-Schuster | Russell Wilson | Michael Thomas |
| Antonio Brown | Nick Chubb | Andrew Luck |
| DR Total: 95.81 | DR Total: 104.46 | DR Total: 100.16 |
| Draft Total: 89.0 | Draft Total: 88.2 | Draft Total: 86.0 |
Remember I talked about not drafting Russell Wilson? You could draft this way, but it’s more useful to illustrate why we want to draft Mahomes or Luck early. Check out what happens if we change it up a little bit and draft Luck:
| Team 1 | You | Team 3 |
| Christian McCaffrey | Ezekiel Elliott | Saquon Barkley |
| Patrick Mahomes | DeAndre Hopkins | Todd Gurley |
| Alvin Kamara | Davante Adams | Julio Jones |
| JuJu Smith-Schuster | Nick Chubb | Michael Thomas |
| Antonio Brown | Andrew Luck | Matt Ryan |
| DR Total: 95.81 | DR Total: 103.95 | DR Total: 97.77 |
| Draft Total: 89.0 | Draft Total: 89.60 | Draft Total: 85.8 |
Team 1 remains the same and we actually lose about half a point, but Team 3 loses almost 3 points. This is a zero sum game. What hurts our opponents, benefits us.
Drafting in the Third Position
| Team 1 | Team 2 | You |
| Christian McCaffrey | Ezekiel Elliott | Todd Gurley |
| DeAndre Hopkins | Alvin Kamara | Saquon Barkley |
| Patrick Mahomes | Davante Adams | Michael Thomas |
| Joe Mixon | Julio Jones | Tyreek Hill |
| JuJu Smith-Schuster | Andrew Luck | Russell Wilson |
| DR Total: 96.51 | DR Total: 99.29 | DR Total: 101.60 |
| Draft Total: 90.0 | Draft Total: 91.1 | Draft Total: 82.1 |
Meh. Let’s try this:
| Team 1 | Team 2 | You |
| Christian McCaffrey | Ezekiel Elliott | Todd Gurley |
| Alvin Kamara | Saquon Barkley | Patrick Mahomes |
| DeAndre Hopkins | Davante Adams | Michael Thomas |
| Andrew Luck | Julio Jones | Tyreek Hill |
| JuJu Smith-Schuster | Matt Ryan | Nick Chubb |
| DR Total: 96.39 | DR Total: 100.51 | DR Total: 102.70 |
| Draft Total: 91.0 | Draft Total: 90.9 | Draft Total: 82.2 |
Different team, but the projections are about the same.
| Team 1 | Team 2 | You |
| Christian McCaffrey | Ezekiel Elliott | Todd Gurley |
| Alvin Kamara | Saquon Barkley | DeAndre Hopkins |
| Patrick Mahomes | Davante Adams | Michael Thomas |
| Antonio Brown | Julio Jones | Andrew Luck |
| JuJu Smith-Schuster | Matt Ryan | Nick Chubb |
| DR Total: 95.81 | DR Total: 100.51 | DR Total: 101.21 |
| Draft Total: 89.0 | Draft Total: 90.9 | Draft Total: 84.5 |
Alright enough messing around. We want our opponents to draft Julio Jones, Joe Mixon, and Matt Ryan. Here’s how we manipulate the draft from the Third Position so our opponents draft weak players:
| Team 1 | Team 2 | You |
| Christian McCaffrey | Ezekiel Elliott | Todd Gurley |
| DeAndre Hopkins | Alvin Kamara | Saquon Barkley |
| Patrick Mahomes | Davante Adams | Michael Thomas |
| Joe Mixon | Julio Jones | Andrew Luck |
| JuJu Smith-Schuster | Matt Ryan | Tyreek Hill |
| DR Total: 96.51 | DR Total: 96.90 | DR Total: 101.09 |
| Draft Total: 90.0 | Draft Total: 90.8 | Draft Total: 83.5 |
Here’s how the zero-sum game works. We didn’t make our team any better, but we did make our opponents worse. The only problem with this strategy is Joe Mixon. I wouldn’t be surprised if Team 1 takes Chubb over Mixon, which would increase their projection. Even if that happens, it’s a two-team race which is still profitable for us.
Conclusion
You can anticipate these drafts changing as injury updates roll through. I wouldn’t blame you if you flex to some less risky players to avoid the madness. We definitely want to be the first or second team to draft a QB even though Russell Wilson is virtually free. Don’t stress too much about WR/TEs. It would be nice to draft Hopkins, but there’s a huge tier of WR/TEs that we choose from. Good luck this week.
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Good Luck