I want to tell you that you can have it all from ninth place this year. Unfortunately, that would be a lie. But as you will see, a lot is possible.
What you can’t have at number nine 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 have the most confidence in in terms of talent, efficiency, run volume, and most importantly, receiving volume.
The challenge of not getting one of these RBs is that it makes it harder to take advantage of the tremendous WR values available in your home league. If you don’t get a RB in the first four rounds, you’ll be tempted to take someone like Rhamondre Stevenson or Najee Harris instead of Malik Nabers to ensure you have stability at the position. And friends don’t let friends draft Najee Harris in round 6.
In this article, I’ll go through my likely favorite available targets each round based on Yahoo ADP via 4for4’s Multi-Site ADP tool and discuss strategy starting at 9th place.
More perfect designs
- 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 |10 | 11 |12
- Yahoo 10 Team Half PPR: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
The 4for4 team uses Draft Hero software for all of our leagues. Draft Hero syncs directly with your league and optimizes each pick using 4for4’s projections and value-based rankings. Draft Hero allows you to customize your draft experience with settings for which rounds you want to draft a position in, how many players you want at each position, and which players you want to target or avoid.
If you’re new to Draft Hero, be sure to check out this introduction to the app.
My attack plan 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’s 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 we just don’t have later in the draft. My other pick in the first three rounds is an RB with a viable path to winning the league. That anchor RB is critical because it allows us to move away from the RB in the next few rounds. That way, we can get both an elite QB and an elite TE at relatively cheap prices compared to last year. Finally, I’ll turn my attention to a mix of rookie WRs that are too cheap on Yahoo and efficiency and reception-based RB plays.
Read on for a breakdown of my favorite picks through the 10th round and a list of the best targets in the later rounds at each position.
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