We had our home league draft last night, and I can say with confidence that your content this offseason has made me better at fantasy football. I went into the draft excited to employ zero RB for the first time, but based on how the draft unfolded, I started with 3 WRs and 3 RB. The line in here that zero RB is more about a draft philosophy than a mandate to avoid running backs is tremendous reassurance that your lessons actually sunk in, because those RBs (Gibson, Swift and Javonte) were the only backs I took all draft and, despite detouring early, I still built a robust WR group full of upside. I've never been more excited about a roster going into the season.
I appreciate that you've taken the time to distill your philosophy on structural drafting and player evaluation into understandable content (both here and on Stealing Bananas), and I'm stoked for you that you've clearly found such a receptive audience. The player-take-centric fantasy advice content that is so prevalent has always felt incomplete, and now your content is proof that there is a better way. I hope you see that you're making the fantasy football community better.
Cheers, Tristen. Really appreciate that. That last sentence is something I've been told a lot and think is a really cool and humbling thing. Would describe it as motivational and I don't take it for granted whenever I hear similar.
Ben, don't worry about how long the articles are. I realize that the vast majority of the public are fans of give me the picks and they better be right. But I'd think that any fans of yours or Rotoviz are going to want to know the why for the strategy we chose to employ. While I do like how all articles are merged into player targets for the year seeing as that's easier to relate to in the midst of draft season, the reason for those players are the main dish. I had shifted away last year and the start of this season into a draft a few stud RBs and fill out from there. That style is just trying to take the easy way out. Dancing around and having to put thought into players and dig deep into the profiles is not only a more fun way to build a team but allows you to hit on those monster win rate players. Thanks for all the effort and passion you put into this and keep up those articles where you let out all the thoughts.
Ben, great stuff…. I’m definitely going to screen shot some of this post to make sure I don’t forget some of these points while I’m caught up in the draft room. Very valuable!!
Awesome article, and I’m looking forward to putting this into practice this year. Wish I’d read something like this last offseason, before I started my main redraft with a couple of “safe” RBs (and added another in the dead zone) and got destroyed all season long.
Question: would this strategy change much in a Best Ball format? I’d expect you’d still want to emphasize WRs in the early and middle rounds, but you’d still want a solid amount of RBs on the bench to maximize the chance of two of them actually hitting from week to week, no? Especially since you’re not finding Robinsons or Gaskins on waiver wires in that format. Do the “safe” pass-catching backs have more value in that format to prop up the floor in those slots, since you don’t get to take advantage of new information during the season to find backs that suddenly gain value?
Best ball is a whole different game and there's some incredible content on it, but a lot of what's been shown this offseason has driven smart drafters away from RBs. Many employ the one anchor RB or modified Zero RB, there's a hyperfragility strategy where you start with several RBs but then you're just done for the draft, and you really load up on WRs and take advantage of the weekly volatility of scoring at that position in the best ball format to capture all the highs and none of the lows. And then Zero RB has also had good success rates. But broadly, I think most of the work is showing too much RB capital to be a structural loss — that you have to just make your bets at RB and assume them to be right, not try to build in redundancy, since you're already a longshot at the start of the draft.
Pass-catching backs are, interestingly enough, more volatile week to week than other RBs, because (much like WRs) their volume comes on targets but those targets can come in bunches, especially for these backs who see their roles expand in negative game scripts when teams trail. In other words, when you go look at game logs, pass-catching backs will have 8-catch games some weeks and be great for best ball and then not actually have a very safe floor the next week when the team wins by two scores and they lean on their other "rushing" RBs and the pass-catcher only has 1-2 catches and a couple carries. At RB, it's the rush attempts that guarantee a safe floor, so guys like Gus Edwards are pretty stable floor guys, whereas the pass-catchers are volatile. And that volatility does make them more valuable in best ball where you don't have to pick and choose when their offense might trail and use them a bunch.
No notes from me on anything missed. I think you summarized the league size and league type questions really well, which is something I had to talk to myself about after binging Ship Chasers and drafting so many Puppy teams on Underdog that I essentially have exposure to the entire field.
Knowing your league, knowing the platforms ADPs, and knowing all of the historical data regarding draft structuring that you, Pat, and many others have so graciously shared should have anyone in a place to have a really, really solid team. It's my first time entering my home leagues with this mindset and I'm excited to put it to practice.
New subber here: This was a great article and really laid out for me how to actually do Zero RB. I tried it last year after reading about it (but didn't understand it) and totally panicked in the dead zone and botched it.
I'm in a 0.5 PPR home league. Start 2 RB/3WR/1TE, no flex. Currently keeping Ekeler in Rd 2 and McLaurin in Round 9. Have 1.02 pick and also 2.10 in addition to 2.11 (using to keep Ekeler). I'm missing my Assuming CMC goes #1, do you think there's any value in trading back in round 1 to gain a 3-5th rounder (similar to the one other guys comment above?) and starting WR/WR/TE with with a later round 1 pick, 2.10, 3.02?
I'd almost exclusively be fine with trading back from 1.02 to the back of the first round to pick up another high-level pick, but this one might be kind of tricky with keepers. I'm fine with the outline of the trade but you might need to get more value than it seems if the 1.10 or something is a lot weaker pick with keepers removed. Every league has diff keeper rules. Also, who do you expect to be the 1.02? There's a lot of guesswork I'd do here on expectations of leaguemates' decisions.
1.01 just traded his 5th round keeper of Antonio Gibson for 1.05. I'm assuming he's gonna go CMC at 1.01 and a top WR at 1.05 (likely Davante) but i have a slight seed of doubt because he had CMC last year and was burned on his injury. 1.04 also kept two RBs so I'm assuming 1.04 and 1.05 are gonna go WR/WR which would like start a small RB run at 1.06
Kelce went 1.12 LY but 1.08-1.11 were all top WRs. You can't keep anyone who was picked top 3 rounds LY so a decent amount of the top talent pool is returned each year but that's usually RB heavy so bunch of top WRs are already gone. Maybe the play is to stay put but offer the trade during the draft if Hill/Diggs/Ridley are available at 1.10.
Here's who is available at RB/WR going into the draft. Rank is ETR's
Amazing stuff as always Ben, I loved everything you did on here last year and this year is starting off phenomenal. My favorite aspect is how you “teach a man to fish,” the concepts and learning will transcend any one draft and help rewire how to look at fantasy. One question I had for you is, with your philosophy on RB vs. WR, if you were in a standard snake re draft 12 team league are you looking to trade down in the draft if you aren’t at #1 or #2? I know you are in on CMC and have Cook higher than the other backs but how are you handling that 3-7 range? Curious as to the strategy you employ in that spot
When you say standard do you mean non-PPR? In that format I would probably just bite the bullet and take Derrick Henry or maybe try to move down a bit to get Jonathan Taylor (or just draft Taylor third). If you're talking PPR, I'm definitely open to moving down from the 3-6 range. I tend to prefer the 7-9 range to moving all the way to 11 or 12, because that little gap can provide some better Round 3 and Round 5 targets.
Thanks for the reply! I should have phrased that differently I just meant a typical snake draft. For PPR or Half PPR I feel like the trade down makes sense, since most people won’t pull the trigger on WR or TE in the 3-6 range you increase the value like you had said of future picks. If you can’t trade down will you just take Diggs or Kelce 3-6? Thanks again!
If I was in one must-win league, I would probably take Diggs. I like the Diggs-RB builds over Kamara-WR in the first two rounds this year, because RB stays solid into the late 2nd round. But if you're in a bunch of leagues, it doesn't hurt to mix up exposures.
Really appreciate the comments on auction and Superflex leagues, of which my home league is both (and 6 points per TD pass). Spent big on McCaffrey last year and got wrecked. Planning to invest heavily on QB and WR this year and try to get by with like Jonathan Taylor + Giovani Bernard as starters as well as the AJ Dillon and Etienne type players at RB.
I would say even planning to spend on Taylor + Etienne + Dillon is a pretty solid RB investment for an auction in a SuperFlex league. I would probably not grab Taylor in this format and just roll with something like Etienne + Dillon + someone cheap like Bernard if I could make all that happen with a reasonably small percentage of my budget. And then I'd use that extra money to be even stronger at QB/WR/TE.
Appreciate the reply! Gives me a lot to think about. The league is only 8 teams full PPR Superflex with 2 extra Flex positions in addition to the Superflex, and it scares me to go that thin at RB, but I guess that's the magic of Zero RB is just dominating the other positions with your auction dollars like you said.
Great read. In auction drafts, is it more advantageous to build depth at the position (pursuing 6 of the top 15-20 WRs) as you've written here or use 70-75% of our budget to target 3 of the top 6 WRs as you and Shawn discussed on Stealing Bananas? I feel like the latter gives you an explosive advantage but are you putting yourself in a fragile build if one of the three doesn't pan out for some reason? Thanks!
This is an issue I've grappled with across seasons, because I do think the studs and duds model is pretty great in an auction. I think you should go in with multiple potential structures and play the room. I do the same in redraft. You have to understand there are various ways to get there that all more or less accomplish the same things and you let the values dictate which route you choose.
How did you let me sign up for this for the price of a single puppy? Amazing work.
Do have a question for whenever you have time. Thinking of trading the 1.02 for the 1.10 and the 4.03 with the idea of using that extra 4th round pick to have 6 top 50 picks and to hopefully come out of it with at least 5 WRS. Is it crazy to give up on Cook to just draft structurally like that?
I think that's a coup. I mean I don't think that would be crazy any season — adding an extra 4.03 is a pretty massive move — but this year especially there are some concerns about first rounders that may or may not start with Cook, but I tend to think it's a lot flatter this year from 1.02 down to 1.10 (in part bc the WRs often fall down there and probably shouldn't). I'm perfectly fine with the caliber of player you can get at 10 relative to Cook, is what I'm saying, especially when the payoff is the 39th overall pick which could be like a DJ Moore. That, to me, is a great trade even if it's not considering structure.
How did you know I wanted DJ Moore at pick 39! Thanks man. Hope this trade goes through. The other guy won’t pull the trigger until draft day so we’ll see. Appreciate all you’re doing on here for sure.
Great insights as always. After reading this, I’m hoping for less detours, and more straight ahead drafting the rest of the way. I know i’ll be taking a few swings at upside towards the end of my drafts.
Phenomenal article, Gretch. Up there with Kerrane’s RB series as some of the best stuff I’ve read this draft season. All of the recent content has been a bargain for $8 a month.
We had our home league draft last night, and I can say with confidence that your content this offseason has made me better at fantasy football. I went into the draft excited to employ zero RB for the first time, but based on how the draft unfolded, I started with 3 WRs and 3 RB. The line in here that zero RB is more about a draft philosophy than a mandate to avoid running backs is tremendous reassurance that your lessons actually sunk in, because those RBs (Gibson, Swift and Javonte) were the only backs I took all draft and, despite detouring early, I still built a robust WR group full of upside. I've never been more excited about a roster going into the season.
I appreciate that you've taken the time to distill your philosophy on structural drafting and player evaluation into understandable content (both here and on Stealing Bananas), and I'm stoked for you that you've clearly found such a receptive audience. The player-take-centric fantasy advice content that is so prevalent has always felt incomplete, and now your content is proof that there is a better way. I hope you see that you're making the fantasy football community better.
Cheers, Tristen. Really appreciate that. That last sentence is something I've been told a lot and think is a really cool and humbling thing. Would describe it as motivational and I don't take it for granted whenever I hear similar.
Ben, don't worry about how long the articles are. I realize that the vast majority of the public are fans of give me the picks and they better be right. But I'd think that any fans of yours or Rotoviz are going to want to know the why for the strategy we chose to employ. While I do like how all articles are merged into player targets for the year seeing as that's easier to relate to in the midst of draft season, the reason for those players are the main dish. I had shifted away last year and the start of this season into a draft a few stud RBs and fill out from there. That style is just trying to take the easy way out. Dancing around and having to put thought into players and dig deep into the profiles is not only a more fun way to build a team but allows you to hit on those monster win rate players. Thanks for all the effort and passion you put into this and keep up those articles where you let out all the thoughts.
Outstanding content, Ben - thanks for taking the time to put all of this together. $8 is crazy for the insights you provide.
Ben, great stuff…. I’m definitely going to screen shot some of this post to make sure I don’t forget some of these points while I’m caught up in the draft room. Very valuable!!
Fantastic article Ben. This is the best value in fantasy football.
Awesome article, and I’m looking forward to putting this into practice this year. Wish I’d read something like this last offseason, before I started my main redraft with a couple of “safe” RBs (and added another in the dead zone) and got destroyed all season long.
Question: would this strategy change much in a Best Ball format? I’d expect you’d still want to emphasize WRs in the early and middle rounds, but you’d still want a solid amount of RBs on the bench to maximize the chance of two of them actually hitting from week to week, no? Especially since you’re not finding Robinsons or Gaskins on waiver wires in that format. Do the “safe” pass-catching backs have more value in that format to prop up the floor in those slots, since you don’t get to take advantage of new information during the season to find backs that suddenly gain value?
Best ball is a whole different game and there's some incredible content on it, but a lot of what's been shown this offseason has driven smart drafters away from RBs. Many employ the one anchor RB or modified Zero RB, there's a hyperfragility strategy where you start with several RBs but then you're just done for the draft, and you really load up on WRs and take advantage of the weekly volatility of scoring at that position in the best ball format to capture all the highs and none of the lows. And then Zero RB has also had good success rates. But broadly, I think most of the work is showing too much RB capital to be a structural loss — that you have to just make your bets at RB and assume them to be right, not try to build in redundancy, since you're already a longshot at the start of the draft.
Pass-catching backs are, interestingly enough, more volatile week to week than other RBs, because (much like WRs) their volume comes on targets but those targets can come in bunches, especially for these backs who see their roles expand in negative game scripts when teams trail. In other words, when you go look at game logs, pass-catching backs will have 8-catch games some weeks and be great for best ball and then not actually have a very safe floor the next week when the team wins by two scores and they lean on their other "rushing" RBs and the pass-catcher only has 1-2 catches and a couple carries. At RB, it's the rush attempts that guarantee a safe floor, so guys like Gus Edwards are pretty stable floor guys, whereas the pass-catchers are volatile. And that volatility does make them more valuable in best ball where you don't have to pick and choose when their offense might trail and use them a bunch.
This is really really good stuff.
No notes from me on anything missed. I think you summarized the league size and league type questions really well, which is something I had to talk to myself about after binging Ship Chasers and drafting so many Puppy teams on Underdog that I essentially have exposure to the entire field.
Knowing your league, knowing the platforms ADPs, and knowing all of the historical data regarding draft structuring that you, Pat, and many others have so graciously shared should have anyone in a place to have a really, really solid team. It's my first time entering my home leagues with this mindset and I'm excited to put it to practice.
New subber here: This was a great article and really laid out for me how to actually do Zero RB. I tried it last year after reading about it (but didn't understand it) and totally panicked in the dead zone and botched it.
I'm in a 0.5 PPR home league. Start 2 RB/3WR/1TE, no flex. Currently keeping Ekeler in Rd 2 and McLaurin in Round 9. Have 1.02 pick and also 2.10 in addition to 2.11 (using to keep Ekeler). I'm missing my Assuming CMC goes #1, do you think there's any value in trading back in round 1 to gain a 3-5th rounder (similar to the one other guys comment above?) and starting WR/WR/TE with with a later round 1 pick, 2.10, 3.02?
I'd almost exclusively be fine with trading back from 1.02 to the back of the first round to pick up another high-level pick, but this one might be kind of tricky with keepers. I'm fine with the outline of the trade but you might need to get more value than it seems if the 1.10 or something is a lot weaker pick with keepers removed. Every league has diff keeper rules. Also, who do you expect to be the 1.02? There's a lot of guesswork I'd do here on expectations of leaguemates' decisions.
1.01 just traded his 5th round keeper of Antonio Gibson for 1.05. I'm assuming he's gonna go CMC at 1.01 and a top WR at 1.05 (likely Davante) but i have a slight seed of doubt because he had CMC last year and was burned on his injury. 1.04 also kept two RBs so I'm assuming 1.04 and 1.05 are gonna go WR/WR which would like start a small RB run at 1.06
Kelce went 1.12 LY but 1.08-1.11 were all top WRs. You can't keep anyone who was picked top 3 rounds LY so a decent amount of the top talent pool is returned each year but that's usually RB heavy so bunch of top WRs are already gone. Maybe the play is to stay put but offer the trade during the draft if Hill/Diggs/Ridley are available at 1.10.
Here's who is available at RB/WR going into the draft. Rank is ETR's
Christian McC RB1 Tyreek Hill WR1
Dalvin Cook RB2 Davante Adams WR2
Derrick Henry RB3 Stefon Diggs WR3
Alvin Kamara RB4 Calvin Ridley WR4
Ezekiel Elliott RB5 DeAndre Hopkins WR5
Saquon BarkleyRB6 Keenan Allen WR9
Aaron Jones RB7 Allen Robinson WR12
Joe Mixon RB9 Amari Cooper WR13
Nick Chubb RB12 Cooper Kupp WR14
Najee Harris RB13 Mike Evans WR15
Amazing stuff as always Ben, I loved everything you did on here last year and this year is starting off phenomenal. My favorite aspect is how you “teach a man to fish,” the concepts and learning will transcend any one draft and help rewire how to look at fantasy. One question I had for you is, with your philosophy on RB vs. WR, if you were in a standard snake re draft 12 team league are you looking to trade down in the draft if you aren’t at #1 or #2? I know you are in on CMC and have Cook higher than the other backs but how are you handling that 3-7 range? Curious as to the strategy you employ in that spot
When you say standard do you mean non-PPR? In that format I would probably just bite the bullet and take Derrick Henry or maybe try to move down a bit to get Jonathan Taylor (or just draft Taylor third). If you're talking PPR, I'm definitely open to moving down from the 3-6 range. I tend to prefer the 7-9 range to moving all the way to 11 or 12, because that little gap can provide some better Round 3 and Round 5 targets.
Thanks for the reply! I should have phrased that differently I just meant a typical snake draft. For PPR or Half PPR I feel like the trade down makes sense, since most people won’t pull the trigger on WR or TE in the 3-6 range you increase the value like you had said of future picks. If you can’t trade down will you just take Diggs or Kelce 3-6? Thanks again!
If I was in one must-win league, I would probably take Diggs. I like the Diggs-RB builds over Kamara-WR in the first two rounds this year, because RB stays solid into the late 2nd round. But if you're in a bunch of leagues, it doesn't hurt to mix up exposures.
Really appreciate the comments on auction and Superflex leagues, of which my home league is both (and 6 points per TD pass). Spent big on McCaffrey last year and got wrecked. Planning to invest heavily on QB and WR this year and try to get by with like Jonathan Taylor + Giovani Bernard as starters as well as the AJ Dillon and Etienne type players at RB.
I would say even planning to spend on Taylor + Etienne + Dillon is a pretty solid RB investment for an auction in a SuperFlex league. I would probably not grab Taylor in this format and just roll with something like Etienne + Dillon + someone cheap like Bernard if I could make all that happen with a reasonably small percentage of my budget. And then I'd use that extra money to be even stronger at QB/WR/TE.
Appreciate the reply! Gives me a lot to think about. The league is only 8 teams full PPR Superflex with 2 extra Flex positions in addition to the Superflex, and it scares me to go that thin at RB, but I guess that's the magic of Zero RB is just dominating the other positions with your auction dollars like you said.
Great read. In auction drafts, is it more advantageous to build depth at the position (pursuing 6 of the top 15-20 WRs) as you've written here or use 70-75% of our budget to target 3 of the top 6 WRs as you and Shawn discussed on Stealing Bananas? I feel like the latter gives you an explosive advantage but are you putting yourself in a fragile build if one of the three doesn't pan out for some reason? Thanks!
This is an issue I've grappled with across seasons, because I do think the studs and duds model is pretty great in an auction. I think you should go in with multiple potential structures and play the room. I do the same in redraft. You have to understand there are various ways to get there that all more or less accomplish the same things and you let the values dictate which route you choose.
Makes sense and thank you for the reply!
How did you let me sign up for this for the price of a single puppy? Amazing work.
Do have a question for whenever you have time. Thinking of trading the 1.02 for the 1.10 and the 4.03 with the idea of using that extra 4th round pick to have 6 top 50 picks and to hopefully come out of it with at least 5 WRS. Is it crazy to give up on Cook to just draft structurally like that?
I think that's a coup. I mean I don't think that would be crazy any season — adding an extra 4.03 is a pretty massive move — but this year especially there are some concerns about first rounders that may or may not start with Cook, but I tend to think it's a lot flatter this year from 1.02 down to 1.10 (in part bc the WRs often fall down there and probably shouldn't). I'm perfectly fine with the caliber of player you can get at 10 relative to Cook, is what I'm saying, especially when the payoff is the 39th overall pick which could be like a DJ Moore. That, to me, is a great trade even if it's not considering structure.
How did you know I wanted DJ Moore at pick 39! Thanks man. Hope this trade goes through. The other guy won’t pull the trigger until draft day so we’ll see. Appreciate all you’re doing on here for sure.
Connected the dots for me, very helpful
Great insights as always. After reading this, I’m hoping for less detours, and more straight ahead drafting the rest of the way. I know i’ll be taking a few swings at upside towards the end of my drafts.
Phenomenal article, Gretch. Up there with Kerrane’s RB series as some of the best stuff I’ve read this draft season. All of the recent content has been a bargain for $8 a month.