In today's Fantasy Life Newsletter, presented by Yahoo Fantasy:
A lot of my biggest fantasy misses have come from skepticism.
There’s no way a 165-pound 3rd-round pick (Tank Dell) can make a Year 1 impact, right?
Oh ya, I’m sure the 5th-round pick out of BYU playing behind Cooper Kupp (Puka Nacua) is capable of producing like a Top-12 WR in his rookie year.
Ya right…
But when players show us who they are and teams tip their hand, we should pay attention.
That’s how I’m feeling about Texans RB Cam Akers right now, who is coming off his second Achilles tear in the past four years.
I know it sounds crazy, but I’m pretty convinced he is the locked-and-loaded RB2 in Houston behind Joe Mixon (and not Dameon Pierce).
Dwain was all over this last week and now Akers has finished up the preseason with 24 attempts for 112 yards (4.6 YPC), 8 receptions for 61 yards and 1 TD, and this truly electric play over the weekend.
Maybe it’s hard for you to get excited about an RB2, but this is the same team that quickly moved on from an inefficient Pierce last year for a capable veteran in Devin Singletary.
Mixon—who is a perfectly fine pick at cost—has previously struggled with efficiency. If that happens again, I have no doubt that the team will be happy to give a rejuvenated Akers a crack.
You might not want to believe it, but Akers is a great Zero RB dart at the end of drafts.
Fantasy Life's 2024 Fantasy Football Draft Kit is LIVE (and free)! Click here to access all of the content you need to dominate your drafts.
What else is in today’s newsletter?
- Dwain McFarland’s Perfect Draft Strategy
- Watercooler: Holdout updates
- Ian Hartitz’s Sheesh Alert
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The Perfect Fantasy Football Draft: Strategy Guidelines to Dominate Draft Day
Over the last two weeks, we have been building up to this moment by analyzing the best strategies for each position.
Now, it is time to zoom out and reassemble everything into an easy-to-use format so you can adapt as the draft unfolds. You can still refer to those pieces for more in-depth reasoning behind value targets.
🛠️ Format: Two WR + One Flex
This format is the standard set up for the majority of leagues. It is the default for ESPN and Yahoo. These guidelines are based on half PPR (Yahoo) or full PPR (ESPN) scoring in a 12-team format, however, they can still be applied to different league sizes.
Strategy Guideline Do's and Dont's:
- Do: Focus on WR and RB in the first three rounds.
- Don't: Take a TE or QB in the first three rounds—there are too many values later.
- Do: Draft one QB or TE in Rounds 3 to 6. Don't risk getting cut off at both positions.
- Don't: Take a QB and TE both in Rounds 3 to 6.
- Do: Focus on rounding out your RB, WR, and Flex in Rounds 3 to 6.
- Don't: Use Heavy RB unless it is unbelievable value.
Example: Christian McCaffrey, Jonathan Taylor, Jahmyr Gibbs in a 12-team league.
Preferred strategies for two-WR leagues in 2024
While I am an avid Zero RB drafter in best ball formats, my preferred strategy is Hero RB (one RB in the first three rounds), and my second favorite is Super Hero RB (two RBs in the first three rounds) in two-WR managed leagues.
There are two reasons:
- Some of the best ADP values are at WR.
- I prefer one to two RBs early because names like Joe Mixon and Rachaad White are way overpriced versus the WR values in that range. Of course, we don't want just any combo of RBs in these three rounds; there are backs we wish to avoid.
When evaluating likely outcomes for Zero RB, I was consistently disappointed with my RBs and was often forced to leave value on the board later at WR as I had to pivot to cover other needs.
Having said all of this, you know your league far better than me. If you play in a league where WRs fly off the board, then Super Hero RB might not be for you, but Hero RB is in play. The framework above allows you to adapt based on your unique insights about your leaguemates.
Tip: You can use the Draft Champion and select your draft strategy to practice different builds.
RELATED CONTENT:
- Dwain has your utilization and usage takeaways for Week 3 of the preseason.
- Kendall’s turning up the heat with some hot takes for this season.
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The latest fantasy nuggets, silliness, and NFL gossip from our merry band of football nerds:
👀 Overreactions from Week 3 of the preseason. Dwain and Ian have you covered.
📊 Let’s hit rewind. Redoing our rookie rankings with what we know today.
💤 Don’t sleep on this rookie WR. Dwain has the goods.
⌛️ Is CeeDee Lamb going to return soon? Here’s the latest.
🙏 A star WR returns to practice. That’s a relief.
🤗 Puka Nacua’s brother did what?! Runs in the family.
🦶 Kickers to target in 2024 fantasy football drafts. The people need it.
😆 Keon Coleman is hilarious. Name a random NBA player.
Sheesh Alert!
- by Ian Hartitz
From overthrown TDs to bad officiating, to ill-time drops: Any given 60 minutes of gridiron action inevitably provides plenty of moments that simply leave fantasy football managers saying, "Sheesh!"
And yet, sheeshy fantasy-relevant actions don't exactly wait until Week 1 to start occurring. Managers might try to enter Week 1 with rose-colored glasses, but that doesn't stop the following three tilting activities from being pretty, pretty, pretty annoying to deal with before a single meaningful snap even takes place.
1. Getting Sniped
Maybe the other fantasy manager made a good pick for their squad, or maybe it really didn't make much sense: Either way, there's nothing more annoying during any given fantasy draft than having your target get drafted one single pick before you.
The best way to deal with this situation is to take a page out of Will Ferrell's playbook from Old School and keep our composure, but that's certainly far easier said than done when I COULD HAVE ADDED Rashee Rice IN ROUND 5 BUT F*CKING KEITH DECIDED TO MAKE THE FIRST GOOD PICK OF HIS LIFE EXACTLY ONE SPOT BEFORE ME—err, yeah, anyways, getting sniped sucks, so try to not overly freak out when this sheeshy moment happens to you.
2. The Injury Gods
Whether it's Puka Nacua (knee), Hollywood Brown (collarbone), Jordan Addison (ankle), or Curtis Samuel (toe) among others: August injuries inevitably shift the average draft positions (ADP) of countless players in fantasy land. This leaves the poor fantasy managers who previously took them with only one thing to say: Sheesh.
Of course, the other annoying aspect of this is the ridicule from innocent bystanders who ask you, "Well, why did you draft so far away from the start of the season in the first place?"
Wow. What a great idea that somehow nobody has ever thought of. Why don't we simply start fantasy football leagues at the beginning of Week 17 to ensure everyone has the most information available possible? We can all just draft 15 minutes before the first kickoff of the week? How has nobody ever thought of this?
3. A bad team name
Maybe you drafted the best fantasy football team in the history of mankind, but guess what? Nobody will care if you have some stupid team name that immediately forces onlookers to question whether you even know ball, bro.
Lucky for you: The Fantasy Life crew recently put together the best fantasy football team names for 2024, filled with movie references, player puns, NSFW options, and so much more.
My three personal favorites:
- Nabers think I’m selling dope (Malik Nabers)
- Conner? I Hardly Know Her (James Conner)
- Kupp My Life Into Pieces (Cooper Kupp)
Luckily for everyone involved: Meaningful football is finally just around the corner, so fantasy managers can get back to simply enjoying the greatest sport on the planet in peace.
Just kidding. If there's one thing that's guaranteed about fantasy football, it's that you will face all kinds of tilting experiences on a near-weekly basis on your way to attempting to capture championship gold.
But hey, at least you'll be able to come right back here each and every Tuesday throughout the season to bask in all the "Sheesh!" moments that went down. Best of luck to everyone this year, and may the Sheesh odds be ever in your favor.
