Perfect Fantasy Football Draft: 6th in a 10-Team ESPN PPR League

Aug 23, 2023

Perfect Draft: 6th in a 10-Team ESPN PPR League

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The middle of the draft can be a weird spot. You wait for your pick, make your pick, and then face an equally long wait until your next selection. From the sixth spot, you are unlikely to be in a position to dictate terms by starting a run at a certain position, and you also may find yourself gambling that a player you like but do not love will still be around by the time you pick again. But this does not mean that you can't build a championship roster while picking at six. Oh no, and I intend to help prove it.

My plan here is to show you how to dominate your draft on ESPN platforms should you find yourself blessed—and you should count yourself blessed—with the sixth overall pick position in your 10-team leagues.

In this article, I will walk through my favorite players in each round that should be available to me based on ESPN ADP and discuss my overall draft strategy from this draft spot.

More Perfect Drafts

ESPN 12-Team PPR: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |12
ESPN 10-Team PPR: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Yahoo 12-Team Half-PPR: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |12
Yahoo 10-Team Half-PPR: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

The 4for4 staff uses the Draft Hero software for all of our leagues. Draft Hero syncs directly to your league and optimizes each pick using projections and value-based rankings from 4for4. Draft Hero lets you customize your draft experience with settings on which rounds you want to draft a position, how many players you want at each position, and players to target or avoid.

For those new to Draft Hero, be sure to explore this walkthrough of the app.

My Plan of Attack

Roster Settings: 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex (WR/RB/TE), 1 Kicker, 1 DEF, six bench spots

Grab one of the big-name wide receivers in the first round - This sounds a bit obvious, but sometimes a middle-round pick can leave managers overthinking things. The decisions get harder as the draft gets longer, but your first pick doesn't have to be a head-scratcher.
Ignore DST and Kickers until the very end - In a 10-team league, the player pool is much deeper, and there really is no value to spending premium draft capital on these positions until you absolutely have to
No middle-round quarterbacks - If Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, or Jalen Hurts is not sitting there waiting for me early on, then I'm best off waiting until Round 10. Middle-round quarterbacks (Rounds 5-9) are not likely to make too much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, and a late-rounder with upside could tip the balance.

Continue reading for a breakdown of my favorite picks through Round 10 and a list of the best late-round targets at each position.