Find out how to proceed through the early rounds of your fantasy football draft when picking from slots 1-3.
Drafting a fantasy football team is not a mistake-free endeavor.
For all the mock drafts and reading you do beforehand, sometimes you just hit the wrong button, and your team doesn't turn out how you wanted it. What's more likely to occur, though, is a deviation from your pre-draft plan during a run on running backs, tight ends, quarterbacks—you name it—with the timer running out, forcing you to make a panicked pick.
In that case, it’s important to have contingency plans in place, and lots of them. The SI Fantasy team has rankings hundreds of players deep for PPR, dynasty, rookie-only and superflex in the 2022 draft kit, and you should use rankings to help guide your draft decisions, but they’re not to be followed blindly.
Taking into account positional value is important when it comes to roster construction. That's why quarterbacks, even though they score the most points each season (save for 2021 when Cooper Kupp went scorched Earth), are generally not wise early-round selections in redraft leagues.
Keeping in mind that not every draft decision you make will be the equivalent of the Patriots landing Tom Brady with the 199th pick, let's kick off the first installment of the second annual draft strategy series! I will share my thoughts and I'll hand it over to my editor, Matt De Lima, to chime in with his opinions to put a bow on it. We'll walk through how to proceed in the early rounds of a draft with different draft slot groupings from 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12. Picks 1-3 will kick things off.
Draft Pick Draft Strategies
Picks: 1 to 3 | 4 to 6 | 7 to 9 | 10 to 12
Drafting in round 1
The first three picks of Round 1 are running back territory—elite running back territory, that is. Jonathan Taylor is the consensus 1.01 after romping for more than 2,000 total yards and 20 touchdowns in 2021. I would not advise breaking from that prevailing opinion if you land the first overall pick in your draft. You won't be picking again for essentially two whole rounds, so you want a sure thing, and Taylor is about as sure as it gets at the top of the draft.
After Taylor, there's a handful of backs in competition for second and third banana: Derrick Henry, Christian McCaffrey and Austin Ekeler. There are pros and cons for each player. Henry finished top 10 in rushing despite playing less than half the year—he missed nine games due to a foot injury, and his carries are adding up. McCaffrey is viewed as the best fantasy weapon when healthy, but he hasn't been since 2019. And Ekeler had a phenomenal season in 2021 thanks to a career-high number of carries, but he’s come out and said he wants a reduced workload going forward.
It's vital to come away with a high-end running back early in your draft because the top 12 players at the position will be long gone by the time your second-round pick comes along. But beware of the hit rate early in the draft: None of the top-five players by ADP in 2021 recouped their draft value.
It’s tough sledding, but running back is still the way to go here.
Matt De Lima’s Round 1 Hot Takes:
With an early pick in Round 1, you want to minimize the red flags. Kyle is correct about snagging a RB here. Taylor is the safest choice given the confluence of his age, usage and talent. From there, I would give the slight edge to Ekeler as my RB2 over Henry and McCaffrey. The workloads for Henry overfloweth in 2019 and 2020, leading to nine missed games in 2021. A bounce-back is not a given—just look at CMC's 2021 season. And the same could be said for McCaffrey’s workloads in 2018 and 2019, which led to injury-plagued seasons in 2020 and 2021. Ekeler’s 276 touches a year ago is up there, but was only the eighth-most among RBs and 14th-most per game. Between Henry and McCaffrey, I feel there is a negligible risk difference between the two. So if both played 17 games fully healthy, by some miracle, I would give the edge to CMC. If you prefer Henry, then by all means, but I have him as my RB4 just ahead of Najee Harris, Dalvin Cook and Joe Mixon.
Drafting in rounds 2 and 3
Some of my favorite players are going around the 2-3 turn in a 12-team draft, and a few of them can be found at a steep discount from where they were going just one year ago. So at this point, if you followed the Round 1 advice and got your guy at running back, you should look to shore up your RB2 slot and add your WR1. You can also fill one of those needs and add an elite tight end or blink first and take the quarterback of your dreams. The world is your oyster at the turn.
Let's dive into the first option: filling your need at RB2 and finding your WR1. The running backs in the 22-24 range at the end of the second round are Javonte Williams, Aaron Jones, Leonard Fournette and Saquon Barkley. If you can get Jones as your RB2 at the end of the second round, you should absolutely jump at the opportunity. His rushing numbers were down with the emergence of A.J. Dillon in Green Bay, but he hit career-high receiving marks and could do so again after Aaron Rodgers' top target Davante Adams was traded away. (I wrote about how the Packers' vacated targets could be redistributed here.)
I pegged Williams as a bust in my fantasy forecast, but I think that depends on what you need and expect out of him. Williams should be more than serviceable at RB2, as should a player like Fournette, who exploded in 2021 and is a favorite of Brady, or Barkley, who is now more than a year removed from his ACL tear.
Three receivers are going in the 25-27 range who have all proven their worth as WR1s in the past: Mike Evans, Keenan Allen and A.J. Brown. I'm highest on Evans of the three of them, with Chris Godwin likely out for at least the early part of the season, but Allen and Brown are also stabilizing receivers with upside.
Let's address the second route: Addressing either RB or WR and getting a premium player at TE or QB. I'd generally advise against this and recommend loading up on backs and receivers, but a TE is going right in this range who I will not be able to pass up. Mark Andrews just capped off the first All-Pro campaign of his career with career-high receiving marks, and there are even more targets to be had for him in Baltimore after the Ravens moved on from Marquise Brown (I wrote about how Andrews could be in line for more work as a result of that trade here). Andrews is in the middle of the run on running backs at the 2-3 turn and is an excellent selection here.
Then there's the quarterback position. Really, it's just Josh Allen in this ADP range. The Bills QB and MVP favorite was the top scorer at the position in 2021, and he'll have to repeat to make his ROI worthwhile. The next quarterback off the board (Patrick Mahomes, ever heard of him?) is going a full round after Allen. If you want the Buffalo signal-caller, you'll have to pay up here because he won't be there next time you're on the clock.
The optimal outcome here is solidifying the running back position with a solid RB2 in the second round and snagging either a receiver or Andrews. I like the RB-TE route considering receiver is an increasingly deep position, which you’ll see when filling out your mock drafts.
Matt De Lima’s Rounds 2 & 3 Hot Takes:
So you’ve drafted RB in Round 1, therefore I disagree with Kyle on his RB-TE inclinations in these spots. It is absolutely essential you get at least one, if not two wide receivers here. By the time you’re on the clock again in Round 4, we are at picks 46-48, so to secure your WR1 among this crop is a best-case scenario of the likes of Terry McLaurin, DK Metcalf, Mike Williams and Michael Pittman Jr. Worst-case scenario, we’re choosing among Marquise Brown, Chris Godwin and Amari Cooper.
Receivers are your most consistent point scorers. They’re more durable than running backs and the half-PPR/PPR formats provide them a steady diet of points. Elite tight ends score in bunches while lacking consistency. Running backs are always a minefield. Again, you’re drafting to minimize risk and maximize points. The game is not about calling your shots on players and predicting who will have success. You are not Nostradamus. You are not Sherlock. You don’t actually know anything. It’s extrapolations based on assumptions based on inklings based on stats based on the results of an oblong ball floating on the winds of serendipity. Do your best to use crowdsourced information (the opinions plethoric of analysts, consensus rankings and ADP lists) to zig when everyone zags. At the end of Round 3, I either want 1RB-2WR or 2RB-1WR.
Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports
Drafting in rounds 4 and 5
I’m looking almost strictly at wide receivers in the 46-48 and 49-51 range in the fourth and fifth rounds. Some names with ADPs in that range: Terry McLaurin, DK Metcalf, DJ Moore, Mike Williams and Brandin Cooks. I also like Courtland Sutton, who’s going about a half-round later than those options.
With one or no receivers on your team at this point, you want to target a player who is reliable week-to-week. That preference points me to Moore or Cooks rather than McLaurin, Metcalf and Williams, who have more boom/bust potential. Double dipping at receiver with an upside player like Williams and a safe pick like Cooks is certainly encouraged.
If you've waited until now to get your RB2, or you're just looking to load up at the position, plenty of young options are available in this range. Jets running back Breece Hall has the highest ADP of any rookie, followed by Travis Etienne Jr., J.K. Dobbins and Elijah Mitchell. They all figure to be the lead back for their teams though there are lingering concerns for Etienne and Dobbins after they each missed all of 2021 due to injury. And then there's the Trey Lance question with Mitchell; the sophomore QB could steal some goal-line work. As for Hall? Well, this is the Jets offense we're talking about, and Michael Carter was no slouch last season.
In terms of ADP, there's a bit of a dead zone for quarterbacks between the top three of Allen, Mahomes and Justin Herbert and QB4 Lamar Jackson, who's going right at the top of the fifth. There's almost a round and a half between Herbert and Jackson, and I love Jackson at this spot. I have him tabbed as my comeback player in my fantasy forecast after he was plagued by injuries in 2021.
Matt De Lima’s Rounds 4 & 5 Hot Takes:
Just beginning to load up at receiver at this spot is a nonstarter. There’s a lot of red flags here among the WRs listed above. An underperforming WR1 on your fantasy roster puts you in a bad spot and if you wait upwards of 50 picks before taking your WR1, that's bad, okay? Most starting lineups these days require two RBs and three WRs and a flex. Meaning, in many weeks, you’ll have as many as four receivers starting. If your WR1 is more miss than hit, your WR4 is going to be a bum. I’d feel much more comfortable with somebody like Metcalf, McLaurin or Williams as my No. 2 or even No. 3 option. By the end of round 5, I want at least two receivers, at least two running backs and my fifth player being a wildcard QB, RB, WR or TE.
Evan Habeeb/USA TODAY Sports
Takeaways from drafting from picks 1 to 3
With wide receiver ADPs rising in the early rounds, it's entirely possible to land your top running back targets in the first two rounds and table any further thoughts about the position until receiver and quarterback are addressed. The only quarterbacks worth targeting from these draft slots in the first five rounds are Allen and Jackson, and in terms of tight end, Andrews is the only player who makes sense unless Travis Kelce falls to the back of the second or Darren Waller slides to the end of the fourth.
Picking in slots 1-3 will not set you up to draft a top-six receiver as they’ll all come off the board between the third and 22nd pick of the draft, but there are proven, low-end WR1s in good situations available in the second round.
Ideally, this is how your first five picks play out: RB, RB, WR/TE, WR, WR. There's nothing wrong with grabbing an elite quarterback in the third, fourth or fifth rounds or paying up for a receiver in the second. But the way mock drafts unfold at this point in the summer, you can wait to load up on pass-catchers and cross running back off your list of team needs early on.
Matt De Lima’s Drafting 1-3 Final Takeaways:
The quarterback and tight end positions have the most parity beyond the first tier. Meaning, you gain more points per player per game at running back and receiver by taking them early compared to QB and TE. You want to allow a QB or TE to fall to you in these spots and that’s a tough ask. Kelce is probably gone by Round 2 and Mark Andrews is too rich for my blood around pick No. 24. Josh Allen is probably there around 24, but can you take him over Leonard Fournette, Aaron Jones or Mike Evans? I don't know that Allen is worth the rub compared to what's available there.
Picking at the front of a round, you can often find yourself at the end of position runs. You can also strategically begin positions runs if a position tier is running low.
Be mindful of the drafters at the turn (pick 1 or picks 1 and 2 if you're at 3). If they haven’t drafted a position yet, you can snipe them or if they have loaded up at a position. For example, if they have no RBs (or WRs) by the end of Round 3, they’ll probably address that in the next round. Use that to your advantage. Or conversely, if they have loaded up at a position, you can sometimes wait until the pick comes back to you to address that position. So if they have three RBs after three rounds, they probably won’t get a RB in Round 4.
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