What is the best spot to draft from?

Question

This is in a 12 person fantasy football league.

Answer 1

The scoring system does matter with respect to the selection of quarterbacks this year.

If your league heavily favors QBs, then that moves Brady and probably Manning higher than they might normally be selected in standard format scoring.

I am a strong advocate of having a high selection.  Having 3 of the top 25 players is a major asset, and builds a strong core.

Last season I took LT first overall, and wrapped around to Brady and Terrell Owens.  Needless to say, I was crushing teams.

Having a top three pick gives you at least one feature back, and this year all of the true feature backs also happen to be excellent receivers out of the backfield.

In all cases, regardless of where you draft the key is getting VALUE with every pick.  Value Based drafting optimizes your lineup, regardless of where you select.

Answer 2

A LOT of this has to do with your league's scoring system and the tendencies of the owners in your league.  I am the commissioner of a 12-team league that's been going on for 7 years.  The first 3 years, a lot of owners took RB early (like most leagues nowadays), and the picks that seemed to have the most success were at the ends (1-3 and 10-12).  During the last 4 years we've played with Point-per-Reception scoring, owners have taken a lot less RB early on in the draft, and the best draft positions were from 8-12.

This doesn't mean that these positions aren't the ONLY good places to draft from, or that you're going to get screwed if you draft somewhere else.  You can succeed in fantasy football drafting from anywhere, as long as you know your scoring system and plan based on where you will draft from.

Answer 3

Typically in this year's draft the best spots are 1-5 (where you can get one of the top 5 RBs) or 10-12 (where you can get 2 good RBs).

6-9 are difficult spots where people have been taking guys like Randy Moss and Tom Brady, something you don't want to be forced to do in the first round IMO.

I just did a draft where I got the 10th spot.  My first 6 picks were:

1. Frank Gore

2. Marshawn Lynch

3. Marques Colston

4. Plaxico Burress

5. Calvin Johnson

6. Lendale White

I was very happy with this draft and now see this position as pretty valuable.  I feel that as long as you aren't in the middle spots you can do really well this year.

My dream spot is #2 this year.  You don't have to choose between LT and Peterson (you get whichever one is left) and you choose in the late 2nd/early 3rd where there seems to be a ton of value (I could have gotten Larry Johnson and Larry Fitzgerald there).