When You Draft RB's is the Key to Victory in Fantasy Football
Take Them Early and Often or Pay the Price
Fantasy football draft strategy for RB's is simple to me, draft them early and often and keep on drafting them. In most fantasy football drafts, even in keeper leagues, I will draft a RB with my 1st three picks, sometimes my first four picks.
Why such emphasis on one position? Let's do a little math. There are 32 teams in the NFL. Each team has basically one starting RB that you want. If there are 10 teams in your fantasy football league that is only 3 starting RB's available for each team. If you have 4 or 5 starting RB's on your roster you are shrinking the talent pool available and getting a decided edge on your opponents.
With 4 or 5 or more starting RB's on your roster you will probably never have to worry about having to pick up a waiver wire RB who might give you a lucky TD in any given week. Injuries and bye weeks will not affect your team that much. But by cutting the talent pool down at RB you will be creating serious problems for some of your opponents.
Everybody has to deal with injuries and the bye weeks in fantasy football and the one position that is the problem is RB. With 32 starting QB's available and only one playing each week, depth is rarely a problem. The WR position is also always available on the waiver wires because each NFL team has at least two starting WR's you can use, or 64 total.
The RB position is the key to your building a winning fantasy football team. In 9 years of playing fantasy football I have won 5 Super Bowl fantasy football championships playing in 21 different leagues. My RB draft strategy has been the key to winning those championships. My very first draft pick in a keeper league was Marshall Faulk. Over the years I have also drafted Shaun Alexander and Larry Johnson. While Faulk was already a starting RB when I drafted him, Alexander and Johnson were not. How did I draft them?
Before each fantasy football draft season I will write down the starting RB's for each of the 32 NFL teams. In keeper leagues I will then cross off the RB's not available. I will then decide which RB's I would like to have on my team and rank them. When it's my turn to draft I will select the RB that's still left atop my draft board.
After I have ranked the starting RB's I will also write down the likely backup RB for each team. Then I will decide which backups have the best chance of getting serious playing time and possibly giving me meaningful fantasy points. Then I will target those RB's in my drafts as soon as all the starters are gone. The more RB's you draft the better your chances of getting the next stud RB.
It also helps if you like to watch college football on TV. Where I live Penn State football used to be available all the time and I used to watch Larry Johnson wreak havoc on opposing defenses. While Alabama Crimson Tide football was not as readily available, Shaun Alexander always played great when it was and anybody who scores 50 TD's in a college career has loads of talent. From this year's draft both Adrian Peterson of Oklahoma and now the Minnesota Vikings, and Marshawn Lynch of California and now the Buffalo Bills have the talent and are likely to get the playing time this year in the NFL to have a fantasy football impact.
If you want to compete successfully and possibly win your fantasy football league Super Bowl this year your draft must center around the RB position. Draft them early and often and keep on drafting them!
Published by Statsman
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9 Comments
Post a CommentThe only problem is when you convince yourself Shaun Alexander has a softer run D schedule than LT and you draft him with the #2 pick (LJ went #1). Then you take Ronnie Brown and round 2 and he never works out. Thankfully Torry Holt and the rest of the roster kept it close, but yea... Wish I woulda gone LT... good article. My first two picks are ALWAYS RBs regardless ... even Peyton is still around in round 2
Good article. I'm not a fan of fantasy football, but still enjoyed the article.
another good one
RB's are by far the most important part of FF. good article
Interesting article!
Again, lots of info in this article that I did not know! Great job!
I so tried to play Fantasy Football this year and did not understand a bit of it!
Sounds like a well-thought-out strategy, smoke the opponents by taking all the good RBs.
Sounds like a well-thought-out strategy, smoke the opponents by taking all the good RBs.