Fantasy Football Draft Strategy #1

I've been working on a recent idea that would allow you to select each and every pick (most importantly...the early round picks) based on some very simple mathematics. It essentially works like this: fantasy football tends to go with 6 positions (QB, RB, WR, TE, K, Def) and half the battle is usually trying to figure out which position you should draft each round. Pretty much every so-called expert will tell you to go RB in the first round and either RB or WR in round 2. It's also pretty much universally touted that Peyton Manning should not go in the first round. But how can we quantify that this is the correct strategy? Or better yet, is it even possible that we can?

My method is not purely mathematics. It involves two key things:

1.) Assigning a predicted points total to each player. This is essentially totally up to you and how you feel a player will produce over the entire season. A good start would be to look at three year averages and then add or deduct production based on age, team changes, personnel changes, injury proneness, etc. What you essentially want is to have an assigned points total (using your league's scoring rules) for each player.

2.) Having a list of each players Average Draft Position (ADP). The ADP is calculated by compiling data on a large number of fantasy football drafts each year. What it essentially does is tell us where each player in the draft is going on average.

So how do you use these to calculate which pick you should take? It's really simple math, actually. When it comes to your turn to pick, take a look at the top player at each position. Let's say you have the first overall pick. You have LaDanian Tomlinson pegged for 375 points, Peyton Manning for 300 points, Chad Johnson for 200 points, Antonio Gates for 130 points, Chicago DEF for 200 points and Adam Vinatieri for 150 points.

What you want to do next is go to your ADP and take a look at what would normally still be available with the last pick in the 2nd round (assuming this is a snake draft, that would be your next pick). You then compile a quick list of the top player in your points projections at each position that should still be available according to the ADP. Using the most current data, those players would be Carson Palmer, Clinton Portis, Marvin Harrison, Antonio Gates, Chicago DEF and Adam Vinatieri.

The next step is to take the projected points from the top player at each position in Round 1 and subtract from that your projected points for the top player at each position in Round 2. Let's say, for example, we project Carson Palmer for 280 points, Marvin Harrison for 178 points, and Clinton Portis for 175 points. According to our method we'd get the following point differentials at each position:

QB - 300-280 = 20 points
RB - 375-175 = 200 points
WR - 200-178 = 22 points
TE - 130-130 = 0 points
DEF - 200-200 = 0 points
K - 150-150 = 0 points

You would then select the top player at the position that represents the biggest points differential. With the first overall pick you would be a complete idiot not to draft the top RB on the board (LaDanian Tomlinson). However, as we move through the first round you'll see that points differential begin to equalize to the point that perhaps WR or QB becomes the best position for you to pick.

What this method does is that it helps quantify position scarcity. You'll find that you don't need a top WR in Round 2 because there are so many equally good WRs available in Round 3. It also helps prevent us from reaching at a position. There is nothing worse than grabbing a top TE, DEF, or K too early. Our method shows us that you'd give away 200 points to the rest of the league if you took Antonio Gates with the first pick.

My method is not bullet proof (but then again, no method is). Alot of this method's success depends on your ability to project player's point totals, which is always a hard thing to do. My advice would be to take projected totals from a few respected sources and use an average (while adjusting for injury prone players, etc.) It also might lose some of its potential when people start reaching for various players and the ADP might be totally different than the players that are actually being drafted. But if we use averages across the board, this method should be pretty successful in the long run.