Redraft Strategy, Pre-Draft Planning

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The Re-Draft Roundtables Series

The Footballguys staff looks at various strategies to help you in redraft leagues.

Participating in a redraft league is a process that starts with the draft and hopefully ends with a championship. The Footballguys staff has answered several questions about various strategies to help you achieve your championship dreams. From the beginning to the end and everything in between, we've got you covered to give you the tools and knowledge needed to dominate your redraft league.

How locked in is your pre-draft strategy? Do you plan out your first few picks? If so, how in-depth -- down to the player? If you don't plan pre-draft, how do you approach a draft?

JASON WOOD

I'll have strong inclinations about which players in a given round (based on ADP) are my preferred targets. That comes from doing projections and rankings for the site and participating in a boatload of mock drafts with other active managers. But I think since you only control 1/10th or 1/12th of the outcomes in any draft, you need to have Plans B, C, D, and E in case your Plan A goes out the window.

Nothing is more valuable than knowing the tendencies of your league mates. Again, sometimes that's not possible if it's a league where your placement is randomly assigned (e.g., The Footballguys Players Championship). However, in your long-standing local leagues, be sure to go back and look at prior drafts. You'll be surprised how quickly you see patterns emerge.

SAM WAGMAN

My draft strategy is not locked in for the most part. I may think I want to do something with my first and second-round pick and then completely change my thinking about how the players roll off the board. “No plan survives first contact with the enemy” is a common thought here. You always have to be prepared for a change in your process throughout a draft because you can’t control the other 11 teams in your draft. That said, I do have ideas on the positions I like to target and the tiers that go along with it, and pretty much stick to those tiers when drafting.

BEN CUMMINS

Knowing what draft slot I have ahead of time, I map out my player targets round by round. Then, I adjust as the draft unfolds, considering players falling later than expected and roster construction.

CRAIG LAKINS

If you have the luxury of knowing your draft position before the draft, you can create a solid strategy with a contingency plan. Many drafts, however, don't offer much notice, and you have to be ready to shift your strategy on the fly. This is where having a solid understanding of different strategies can be used to your advantage. Your first two rounds will be the biggest indicator of the direction your draft will take. Truthfully, there is merit to any strategy you roll with, but you need to be prepared to shift depending on how your league-mates pick ahead of you.

ANDY HICKS

Ideally, you want a strong idea of how your first three selections go and then sort the rest of your roster around it. You have some drafts where good players fall in your lap and others where the guy you want is taken the pick before round after round. Planning roster construction is important, but adapting on the fly is vital. If there is a run on a position earlier than expected, do you cave in and join or sit tight and grab value elsewhere? You know your draft slot and the range of players available. Mapping the first three rounds gives you a strong base to build on. It needs to be planned very carefully.

DAN HINDERY

My strategy is not locked in at all for the first few rounds. In the early rounds, I generally have my board stacked in order and simply take my highest-ranked player. That said, I usually have a pretty good idea of a few guys in the first three rounds who are my most likely options. It helps to spend some time in advance thinking about exactly how I want to stack my board so the decision is made before I am on the clock. For example, I know if I am drafting 1.06 that Jonathan Taylor, Christian McCaffrey, and Cooper Kupp are likely to be gone. I don’t need to worry about the order I stack that trio in. I can narrow my pool down to a few players (JaMarr Chase, Justin Jefferson, Derrick Henry, and Austin Ekeler) and decide in advance exactly which order to rank them. That way, I have already weighed the pros and cons in advance when I am on the clock at 1.06 and deciding between whichever two of this group remain.

GARY DAVENPORT

When you're a fantasy analyst, pre-draft preparation takes care of itself—we make a living doing pre-draft legwork and research. I have a pretty good idea of where players are going on average when a draft begins. But sometimes, the best plan is no plan at all. Every draft is its own animal, and you must be willing to abandon a strategy if the flow of the draft dictates you should. If the value lies with wide receivers in Round X, don't take a running back just because that was the plan. Flexibility is one of the most important components of a successful draft. Don't jam square pegs into round holes just so you use a hammer. Let value be your guide.

RYAN WEISSE

I'll typically look ahead to Round 5 with specific players in mind. I do a lot of mock drafts and study ADP, so I can usually guess which round I need to take someone to get my guy. Of course, if a great player falls, I'll adjust, but for the most part, I'll leave the first five rounds with three good running backs, an elite tight end, and a wide receiver most wouldn't want as their top option.

CHAD PARSONS

I stay agnostic on positions in the early rounds but focus on high-volume running backs or strong pass-catchers from quality quarterback combinations. I am more open to an early tight end this year than typically with my projection for Travis Kelce compared to the field.

DAVE KLUGE

Unless you have the first overall pick, never go into a draft with a set strategy. Too often, people start a draft thinking, “I need two strong running backs.” Well, if everyone goes into a draft with that same strategy, there will be a considerable value at wide receiver. Tier-based rankings will keep you from chasing positional runs. Let the first few rounds fall to you, and then develop your strategy from there. Perhaps everyone in your league is hammering running backs early. Because of that, you could start your draft with Davante Adams, Stefon Diggs, and Keenan Allen. When those middle rounds hit, your league-mates will desperately reach for wide receivers to fill out their lineup while you gobble up mid-round running back value. It’s essential to let the draft come to you without reaching for positional needs early. After the first three rounds, you should know how balanced your team is and can develop a strategy from there.

ADAM HARSTAD

My draft strategy is super locked in. I call it "Draft ADP Fallers." Basically, I... draft ADP fallers. Is a typical second-round pick still on the board in the third? I take him. Is a typical 14th-round pick still on the board in the 17th? I take him.

The great thing about this strategy is I get the same players everyone else does, but I get them at a discount. This means it's a guaranteed winning strategy over a large enough sample size, provided just two things are true.

1. Players drafted earlier tend to outperform players drafted later (they do).
2. Players with a large variance in their draft slots are, at a minimum, not *LESS* likely to become league-winners than players with a small variance in their draft slots (they're not).

For example, imagine that Saquon Barkley is the single most dominant fantasy football player this year. I'm just as likely to get him as anyone else is (because, by definition, all players fall past their ADP ~50% of the time), but I'm more likely to get him in the third and pair him with a player in the second round, while everyone else is more likely to get him in the second and pair him with a player in the third.

And since Saquon Barkley + a random player from the second round is better than Saquon Barkley + a random player from the third round in expectation, if Barkley DOES end up being this year's cheat code, I benefit more from it than nearly every other team that drafted him.

Sigmund Bloom always jokes that I let my leaguemates draft for me. I tell him he's right. But they always give me a pretty good team, so I'm okay with it.

CHRISTIAN WILLIAMS

I've found very little success in incorporating a rigid draft strategy. Attacking a draft with a value-based, tier-centric approach has always been the strategy with which I've built the best teams. Knowing league-mate tendencies is beneficial, but there are too many curveballs within even the first few draft rounds that could drastically alter the plan you've set your sights on. Of course, having targets is essential and mock drafting will allow for a general feel of how a draft may look from a specific draft slot, but each league is different, and failing to adapt on the fly can be harmful to roster construction.

JEFF BELL

Starting a draft and hammering value that slides at ADP is the way to go. Open the draft with value as it falls. Later in a draft targeting, some players you like or positions you need can start to veer off ADP. But hammering the available value is always the path with a blank canvas.

JUSTIN HOWE

Simply put, I go into a draft having narrowed my pool of prospects based on where I'm picking. There's no need to scout Jonathan Taylor if I'm picking eighth. I then project my roster construction for at least the first few rounds. If I know right off the bat that I'm likely to draft WRs with three of my first four picks, then the rest of my strategy tends to fall into place. I now know my running back attention needs to go toward the mid-round guys. And, of course, now I know which quarterbacks to prioritize for stacking purposes.