Perfect Fantasy Football Draft: 9th in a 10-Team ESPN PPR League
I enjoy drafting from the slot right before the turn in a 10-team league because you get two of the top 12 players on the board and can tailor your draft on the fly if needed based on what the person in the 10-spot is doing. This draft location allows you to easily go with an Anchor RB approach (one elite RB at the top) or Zero RB, while loading up on pass catchers in a PPR format, with the option to pay up for TE or push it down the draft.
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 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 When Drafting From the 9th Spot
Roster Settings: 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex (WR/RB/TE), 1 Kicker, 1 DEF, six bench spots
Flexibility is important in any draft as there are times when we have to pivot directions based on our league mates. However, going into a full-PPR format on ESPN, my goal is to either draft a pass-catching back like Austin Ekeler first if he’s available and ride with Anchor RB, or double-tap on high-end WRs and go with a Zero-RB approach since PPR scoring tends to enhance a Zero-RB strategy. This being a 10-team league, I have the ability to implement Anchor RB at either the one-two or three-four turns, with a lighter anchor so to speak, like Najee Harris or Jahmyr Gibbs as opposed to one from the elite tier.
Since ESPN defaults to PPR scoring, I aim to have at least three high-end WRs through the first five rounds and possibly four if I miss out on the elite QBs. I tend to wait on the TE position as it’s so volatile after the first few players are off the board, and I find my rosters less appealing when I pass on the top WRs for an elite TE.
Continue reading for a breakdown of my favorite picks through Round 10 and a list of the best late-round targets at each position.
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