Perfect Draft: 9th in a 12-Team Yahoo Half-PPR League

Aug 09, 2024

Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

I want to tell you that you can have it all from the nine spot this year. Unfortunately, that would be a lie. But as you’ll see, you can have a lot.

What you can’t have from the nine spot is one of the three RBs with the most obvious league-winning profiles. Those three RBs are Christian McCaffrey, Breece Hall, and Bijan Robinson. They are the RBs we’re the most confident about regarding talent, efficiency, rushing volume, and crucially, receiving volume.

The challenge with not getting one of those RBs is it will be more difficult to take advantage of the massive WRs values available in your home league. If you fail to take an RB in the first four rounds, you’re going to be tempted to take someone like Rhamondre Stevenson or Najee Harris instead of Malik Nabers to ensure you get stability at the position. And friends don’t let friends draft Najee Harris in Round 6.

In this article, I walk through my favorite likely available targets each round based on Yahoo ADP via 4for4’s Multi-Site ADP tool with a discussion on strategy from the 9 spot.

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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 from the 9th Position

Roster Settings: 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex (WR/RB/TE), 1 Kicker, 1 DEF, 7 bench spots

Here is my shopping list for the first 10 rounds. In the first three rounds, I want two WR profiles with the mix of talent, efficiency, volume, and offensive environment that simply aren’t available to us later in the draft. My other pick in the first three rounds is an RB with a feasible path to league-winning upside. That anchor RB is crucial because it allows us to turn away from RB in the next few rounds. By doing that, we can get both an elite QB and an elite TE at relatively inexpensive prices versus last year. Finally, I’ll turn my attention to a mix of rookie WRs that are too cheap on Yahoo and efficiency- and receiving-based RB plays.

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