Let’s resolve how you should prioritize the top of your fantasy football drafts, with the help of five years of ADP and scoring data (chart here).
We’re looking at Top 5 finishers at the major skill positions to see what the cost is, on average, in draft capital. Where do we have to spend our premium picks to get the difference makers we need to win, and where can we wait?
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Let’s look at the positions in order of how they should be prioritized, according to my research for the 2018-22 period.
WIDE RECEIVERS
On average from 2018-22, a Top 5 fantasy wide receiver costs you a Top 10 WR pick (9.8 actually, but we’re rounding here). Last year is the lowest on record, meaning the Top 5 overall wide receivers were, on average, the No. 5 overall WR drafted. The lowest ADP player in the Top 5 was CeeDee Lamb — the eighth overall WR pick.
In the entire five years, the cheapest Top 5 WR was WR36 in 2021 (Deebo Samuel). But that’s not something we can count on. Only two of the Top 5 in the five years (so two of 25, or 8%) were drafted outside of WR23. So the idea that you can build a winning WR room by waiting until 25 or 30 receivers are off the board is misguided. The odds of converting these picks into difference makers are super low.
You have to draft at least one Top 10 WR in your draft, and you really should strive to get two. Then you should take a third, and even a fourth, inside the Top 25. That’s the optimal way to crush your PPR league that starts three WRs and a flex.
The ideal draft slots for this are at or near the end of the first round in a snake draft. By the 36th and 37th picks, only 17 WRs are off the board on averagein NFFC drafts (for July only). You should use at least three of these top four picks at the receiver position. And then you can add WR29 on average when you snake back with picks 60 and 61. At that point, you can relax. This is a massive investment but a necessary one.
RUNNING BACKS
The average cost of a Top 5 RB is RB11. To get the RB1, you have had to draft a Top 5 RB, on average. But the RB5 — in this five-year period — has cost, on average, the RB16 in your draft — pretty cheap. Three Top 5 RBs out of 25 (12%) were selected after RB25 — bad odds but significantly better than WRs.
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RB16 is off the board this year on average by the middle of the third round. It’s basically Aaron Jones and Joe Mixon who we’re talking about. You can definitely see those players cashing in Top 5 RB value. But the better bet with that pick is a WR, who only needs to be Top 10 or so at the WR position to beat the No 5 RB, on average, in PPR scoring.
RB25+ is overall pick No. 70-something. If each one has a 12% chance of being a real difference maker (meaning about the fifth-highest scoring RB), this is why “zeroRB” is a great strategy. You can address other positions and then just triple-tap RBs between picks No. 70-105 and get a 36% chance of getting a stud RB, which should be gravy given the WR scoring you’ll almost certainly have. While 36% seems like low odds, remember your base rate for winning is just 8% in a 12-team league. If you cash a Top 5 RB after the fifth round, you’re a favorite. But you have to give yourself this chance, which is why it’s very sub-optimal structurally to draft more than one running back before the fifth round. You’re not winning anything with an average WR room.
TIGHT END
To me, this is part of the WR room. But I suspect you’ll be surprised by my take here.
Travis Kelce has been the No. 1 or No. 2 tight end every year and has been the No. 1 tight end selected, on average. If you want the No. 1 tight end, it’s almost certainly going to be Kelce and he’s going to cost you a pick in the middle of the first round. The end of the first is not likely to land Kelce no matter your league. He’s basically a Top 5 WR. So view him that way, not as a onesie tight end.
I get you can’t do it all and you just may be slotted too early or too late to get Kelce. Then what? Wait. And then wait some more. Here’s the thing about tight ends: Kelce is a given, but the rest of the Top 5 historically tends to be random. Remember, our leagues are pretty much drafting just 12 tight ends. So after the 12th TE, we need to know how many finish in the Top 5 out of the possible 25? Since 2018, it’s 10. So you have a 40% chance of getting this guy at the very end of your draft or via waivers.
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Last year, it was Evan Engram. In 2021, it was Dalton Schultz and Zach Ertz. In 2020, it was Logan Thomas and Robert Tonyan.
Looking at it in more detail, No. 3 through No. 5 the past five years were found 10 times (out of a possible 15) in the nether regions of the draft or on waivers. That’s 67%. They’re not Kelce. They’re not close to Kelce. But they will beat most of your league at the position for basically no cost. So, at TE, go big (Kelce) or go home (a late pick you hope hits but more likely utilizing waivers aggressively).
QUARTERBACK
Six of the Top 5 quarterbacks (again, out of a possible 25) were picked after QB12. Basically they were backups. Note that three more were QBs 10 or 11. That’s nine of 25 (36%) who were cheap. Last year there was one: Geno Smith (a waiver wire QB at QB35). There were none in 2021. Is the QB board changing where you have to pay more now for top performance? I’m not convinced that this is a fact now, though most of the tout industry is jumping on the early-round QB bandwagon, still anathema to me.
Over the entire sample, the sweet spot is QB9 — meaning that’s the average cost of a Top 5 QB. That pick in NFFC drafts (in July) is No. 70. But a lot of these are best balls where you have to take multiple QBs, so I suspect that in your draft, the QB9 is generally taken later. Even with the probably inflated NFFC QB ADP, I’d be in after pick No. 100 and get Daniel Jones and Aaron Rodgers, for example. I like my odds that one of them will finish in the Top 5.
Waivers probably won’t save you here. In 12-team leagues, we know an average of 23 QBs are drafted and an average of 24 are rostered every week of the season. So how many QBs outside of those 24 were Top 5 finishers? Just one: Smith. To get a championship-level QB, you need to plan to take two of the Top 15 QBs selected. This is very league specific as the price of QB varies greatly, so wait as long as your league will allow.
SUMMARY
The data says to aggressively draft wide receivers. Taking a Top 5 RB is very defensible. So is taking Kelce as high as necessary. But you can wait forever on tight end if Kelce eludes you. Wait a long time at QB and you can still end up being stronger than average there. You have about a 12% chance of hitting big with each RB25 to RB35 you pick.
So, a good plan for your first seven rounds is (1) Kelce, three WRs, three RBs. Or (2) four WRs then three RBs. As for TE in that second scenario, take one late and count on Top 5 tight ends being available on waivers — you’ll just need to beat your league in finding the two guys likely to be waiting there long after your draft is over.
(Jason Parkhurst-USA TODAY Sports)
Michael Salfino writes about fantasy sports and collectibles for The Athletic. His numbers-driven fantasy analysis began with a nationally syndicated newspaper column in 2004. He has covered a variety of sports for FiveThirtyEight and The Wall Street Journal, for whom he also wrote about movies. He's been the U.S. elections correspondent for the U.K.'s The Independent. Michael helped Cade Massey of the Wharton School of Business originate an NFL prediction model https://massey-peabody.com that understands context and chance and avoids the trap of overconfidence. He strives to do the same when projecting player performance. Follow Michael on Twitter @MichaelSalfino
