Mastering Salary Cap Drafts: Part 3, Preparation

Photo: Ron Chenoy, USA Today Sports

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Note: This series is designed to take salary cap drafters of any ability and refine their skills to those of a seasoned veteran. The articles will go from simple concepts to the most advanced salary cap draft theories. Each article is designed to build on the previous articles in the series. For best results, read each article before proceeding to the concepts in the next article.

The first two parts of the series focused on things beginners do and ways to exploit those mistakes in your draft rooms.

Part 1, Beginner Mistakes
Part 2, Attacking Novice Draft Rooms

But before you can capitalize on this knowledge, you need to know how to prepare so that when the moment comes, you have the information in front of you to tell you what to do. You have to take your preparation for salary cap drafts to another level and realize it is completely different from preparing for serpentine drafts. It requires you to be ready with an opinion on every single guy that is nominated because you won't have 20 minutes to think it over while other people make their picks. Get prepared ahead of time, and you'll feel calm and comfortable when bids start flying.

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Tier Sheet

One of the bigger principles in salary cap drafting is the relationship between player scarcity and prices during the draft. This isn't referring to scarcity over a full position group, rather, it refers to scarcity in tiers. This is one of the biggest drivers of price fluctuation in a salary cap draft. For example, if Travis Kelce, T.J. Hockenson, and George Kittle are already on a roster when Mark Andrews comes up for bidding, the price on Andrews will likely be artificially high. That happens because there are no more elite options left, so anyone who wanted a top tight end has to try to land Andrews. That will push his price well past where it should be. On the other hand, you won't see that inflation if someone nominates David Njoku because he isn't in the same tier as Andrews. So if you're going to excel at salary cap drafting, you must master the skill of rostering players before the tiers become scarce. That means having your player rankings broken down into groups of players that have similar price points. As the draft unfolds, when the tiers start to run out of players, it is on you to move quickly to roster someone before you are down to the last player in a tier. This can mean nominating someone so you can bid on them or seeing that a player who was just nominated is about to make a tier scarce so that you can go after them. Without tier sheets, you'll never see this problem developing.

The best way to separate players into tiers is to get a hold of some Average Values, or rankings with salary cap values, instead of rankings with Average Draft Position. You'll notice that at some point, as you go down the price list, there are price breaks that are bigger than at other points. That generally is where you would start with your tiers. Whatever your process may be, it is important to find the natural drop-offs in your rankings to be able to separate players into groups with similar prices. For example, there is a group of running backs that goes at the end of the second or early third round in serpentine formats that includes Nick Chubb, Derrick Henry, Josh Jacobs, Breece Hall, and Tony Pollard. After those guys, there is a drop-off to the next group, and likewise, that group is a drop-off from the group ahead of them that includes Saquon Barkley and Bijan Robinson. When you're drafting and all the running backs above the Chubb-Henry tier are gone and the next best player is Najee Harris, if you want one of those five running backs from the Chubb-Henry tier, then ideally, you want to act when one or two of those five guys are still on the board. Otherwise, if Chubb, Henry, Pollard, and Hall are gone, then if you have to have Jacobs, you are going to pay more than you would, or should, if there wasn't scarcity.

So before you get into your draft room, break down your rankings into tiers, and then erase any mention of prices on your tier sheet. You don't care about what the prices were predicted to be before your draft. That won't hold up when the draft starts; it will only paralyze you. All you care about when you get into the draft is whether you are happy with the player you got for that spot on your roster. If you are happy with Aaron Jones as your RB2 and have allotted $21 for that position, it doesn't matter if his predicted price was $16. Overpaying by $5 is immaterial if you are happy with the player and it fits your price sheet. Getting too hung up on what you should pay for a player can make you rigid and unable to adapt when things don't happen like you thought they would.

Making a Par Sheet

A par sheet is one of the best tools you can have for executing your pre-draft plan. In a salary cap draft, you want to shoot exactly par for your draft, which means that you want to spend exactly $200. You never want to end up with extra money, and you can't go over $200, so you have to hit the number perfectly. The way to do that is to use your par sheet during the draft.

To make a par sheet, you should find your league settings and write down every roster spot on a sheet of paper. Then assign an exact dollar amount to every single position on your roster and make those numbers add up to your salary cap. For example, in a typical league with a $200 cap, you would write down your 16 positions - 9 starters and 7 bench players - and then what you ideally want to spend on each position. For your kicker and defense, you start by assigning them $1, then for a few backups (like your RB5 and WR6), you'll assign $1 as well. Then with the remaining money, you should decide what your strategy will focus on and start weighting and assigning money to the appropriate spots. For example, if you think that you want a top tight end and a top running back, you would start by assigning what you think you can get those players for in the draft. You might start by writing "$55" next to your RB1 and then "$32" next to your tight end slot. Then start giving money to the other spots on your roster. You'll tweak and move the money until you have exact numbers for every spot. Not only does this process tell you what you value while you work through it, but it also shows you how critical every dollar is in a salary cap draft.