An Expert's Cheat Sheet to Dominating ESPN Fantasy Football Drafts

As September approaches, the majority of fantasy football drafts will take place over the next couple of weeks. Tailoring your draft strategy to your platform of choice is an essential part of preparing for your league with some universal truths:

• Know your league
• Know your scoring format
• Site ADP should not prevent you from getting ‘your guy’
• Use 4for4 for everything draft-related

More Exploiting ADP Articles & Helpful Tools: Yahoo! | CBS | NFL | Sleeper | 4for4 Rankings | Hot Spot Tool

Every draft will have unique nuances but many leagues will follow some general trends based on the platform and that site's ADP and default rankings. This draft guide will focus on the ESPN platform where the default settings use a roster of one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, one tight end, one flex (RB/WR/TE), one defense/special teams, and one kicker with seven bench spots. The default scoring system uses full-point PPR (point per reception), a setting that should be a major consideration when preparing for your ESPN fantasy football draft.

Quarterbacks Are Insanely Overvalued on ESPN

The quarterback market in fantasy football has become incredibly efficient and, consequently, the effectiveness of streaming the position has diminished. In recent years, 4for4 has put an emphasis on prioritizing efficient, dual-threat quarterbacks but on ESPN this year, quarterbacks are going far too early with Josh Allen going in the second round and four quarterbacks leaving the board by the middle of the fourth round. My favorite quarterback to draft this year is Jalen Hurts but an ADP in the middle of the fifth round is too high.

If a top six or seven quarterback doesn’t fall to Round 6 or later—where I would be comfortable drafting a player such as Hurts or Kyler Murray—there are still some ADP inefficiencies to exploit. Joe Burrow and Russell Wilson are going off the board as the QB10 and QB11 on ESPN but are ranked as the QB8 and QB9 by 4for4. Those that still want to load up on position players in the middle rounds have an out in the form of Trey Lance. 4for4’s QB11, Lance is going off the board as ESPN’s QB13. This means that in many 12-team leagues, fantasy managers can wait until the double-digit rounds to grab a potential plug-and-play, dual-threat quarterback if you trust your league mates won’t pounce on backups at the position too early.

Don’t Be Afraid to Fade Running Back in the First Round (Unless You Have a Top-2 Pick)

Fantasy football can often be boiled down to a race to win the flex and in PPR leagues, wide receivers simply dominate scoring. Christian McCaffrey is my favorite player to draft with a top-three pick and Jonathan Taylor is the consensus 1.01, but after that ESPN offers a ton of options for those that opt for a top-tier wide receiver in the first round. 4for4 gives RB1 grades to players such as Aaron Jones, D’Andre Swift, Leonard Fournette, Saquon Barkley, and Javonte Williams but all of those players are available in the middle to late second round on ESPN with Barkley not going off the board until the third.

As I laid out in my last ESPN draft, one of my favorite strategies in this format is a Hero-RB approach, where I start with a running back in the first round or two and then hammer pass-catchers throughout the middle rounds. This strategy can fully exploit the PPR scoring system as well as ESPN’s ADP. When comparing players in 4for4’s top-200 to their overall ESPN ADP, wide receivers jump off the screen. Values such as Michael Pittman Jr., A.J. Brown, Diontae Johnson, Mike Williams, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Courtland Sutton, and Gabriel Davis—just to name a few—are being drafted a full round to two later than suggested by the top-200.

Another reason you can be confident if you come away with one or fewer running backs in the early rounds is there are a plethora of capable backs that are undervalued on ESPN. A.J. Dillon is ranked as a top-24 PPR back on 4for4 but is barely being drafted as a top-100 player. The same can be said for Chase Edmonds. Elijah Mitchell and Cordarrelle Patterson are also valued a round or two too low on ESPN. At the back end of drafts, running backs such as Brian Robinson and Isiah Pacheco are climbing up the ranks seemingly by the day but aren’t even being drafted as top-200 players.

Consider a Barbell Strategy at Tight End

Dominating at tight end in a PPR league can offer one of the biggest positional advantages in fantasy football and the top players at the position—Travis Kelce and Mark Andrews—are fairly valued by ESPN drafters. Although Kyle Pitts is going quite a bit earlier than 4for4 would suggest, he’s a potential league-winner I am targeting.

After that trio, ESPN fantasy managers are forcing the issue on mid-round tight ends but there is a ton of value at the position later in drafts. Dawson Knox, Cole Kmet, and Albert Okuegbunam are ranked in the TE10–TE13 range on 4for4 and all have paths to big target or touchdown numbers but are undervalued on ESPN.

Dominate Your League in the Final Rounds

Nearly every draft strategy article on 4for4 suggests waiting until the final two rounds to draft your defense and kicker—if you aren’t required to fill those positions and are drafting before the preseason is over or final cuts, I’d suggest not drafting them at all, instead throwing darts at positional players and filling the positions with early waivers.

Fantasy starters and legit league-winners are found in the late rounds and ESPN drafters miss out on a ton of those opportunities by either taking defenses and kickers too early or by not even having valuable players on their draft board. Plug ESPN settings into 4for4’s top-200 tool and then compare that list to ESPN ADP and you will see a plethora of usable fantasy players that aren’t even being drafted on ESPN. Isaiah Mackenzie is just one example of a likely starting wide receiver in arguably the best passing attack in football who won’t even show up in your ESPN queue unless you remember to tag him.

The Bottom Line

As ADP changes, some of these nuances will change but 4for4 will be updated daily with the latest news and subsequent rankings. When it’s time to draft, 4for4’s Draft Hero and ADP Bargain Tool can help you pinpoint the most exploitable spots in your ESPN league.

The chart below shows some of my favorite targets in each round based on the strategies mentioned above. Each player listed is where I want to take them, not necessarily where they are being drafted on ESPN. Move late-round players up a round or two if you feel there could be a late positional run or you know a homer in your league who could snipe one of your targets.