Fantasy football season is here and with Week 1 officially less than one week away, it's important to ensure you've crafted your fantasy football strategy and fantasy football rankings not just in general, but specific to the site you're drafting on.

When it comes to ESPN fantasy football strategy, there are different nuances that you may not see on sites like Yahoo, Underdog, or even Sleeper.

Below are three notes that I have collected from some of our best articles this offseason to help guide you through your ESPN fantasy football strategy.

Target Mispriced Players in ESPN draft rooms

One of the biggest advantages you can have in an ESPN draft room is understanding what players are priced further down the board than they are elsewhere.

Luckily, Kendall highlighted a handful of players to get you started:

Jaylen Waddle, WR Dolphins

Is Jaylen Waddle the WR2 behind an absolute beast of a wide receiver in Tyreek Hill? Yes. Should his average draft position be this far down because of that? Absolutely not. There are plenty of teams where Waddle would be the leading man, sans Tyreek.

Tua Tagovailoa led the league in passing yards last season — this is an explosive offense that you want a piece of in fantasy. Waddle's 20.5 difference from Fantasy Life's rankings vs. ESPN ADP is way too big of a gap. Drafters might be cautious after last season since it was his lowest fantasy output since coming into the league:

  • 2021: (15.5 Points Per Game)
  • 2022: (15.4 PPG)
  • 2023: (14.2 PPG)

Waddle did suffer some in-game injuries last season that impacted his game, but according to Dwain McFarland, if you exclude those three games, he averaged 15.6 points per game with a 26% target share.

Even though he's playing alongside Hill, Waddle's 3,385 receiving yards rank 13th in the NFL since 2021, and he has recorded the 16th-most receiving yards of any player in their first three seasons, according to ESPN. 

I'll draft Waddle in this range every single time. And if you see me in a Dolphins jersey this season, just mind your business!

More ESPN Values To Target

Strategy For ESPN's Default Roster Construction

ESPN's default roster construction consists of two starting WRs and one Flex spot.

Dwain McFarland wrote a brief breakdown on this exact format and how to approach it from an overall roster construction standpoint:

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.

How to use this table

Think of this table as a simplified "if-then" analysis. The left-hand columns are the four different strategies you might deploy. 

If you go Hero RB (one RB and two WRs) in the first three rounds, you can consider three paths in Rounds 4 to 6. Once you finish Round 6, you know your attack plan for Rounds 7 to 9.

Example:

You don't have to predetermine which strategy you will use. While it is good to understand the ramifications of each path in future rounds, you can let the draft come to you. This approach keeps you open to unique value combinations early.

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.

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:

  1. Some of the best ADP values are at WR.
  2. 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 league mates.

Tip: You can use the Draft Champion and select your draft strategy to practice different builds.

More Draft Strategy Tips from Dwain

When To Target Certain Positions on ESPN

Another crucial factor that plays into your strategy is when you want to attack certain positions more aggressively than others.

Ian Hartitz dove into how early draft positions lend themselves to Hero-RB build, especially on ESPN:

Early draft positions lend themselves nicely to Hero-RB builds

"Hero-RB" or "Anchor RB" is the strategy of landing a stud RB inside of the first few rounds before focusing on filling out the rest of your roster with your next five-plus picks.

Please don't confuse this with building around ANY RB—we only want to use early-round draft capital on the position if the RB in question boasts a legit top-five upside thanks to a mix of elite talent and usage inside of a great offense.

There are roughly nine players at the position who I'm especially confident in leaning on with this archetype inside of the first three rounds. It's not a coincidence these are my top-nine highest-ranked RBs in half-PPR scoring:

It's more than doable to get one of the former three backs with a top-four pick inside fantasy drafts of most shapes and sizes, while there's also a decent chance to land one of the latter three backs at the Round 2-3 turn. Landing one of these options *with* multiple highly ranked WRs with your top-three selections has been my favorite strategy from an early-draft position all offseason, as this provides solid-enough floors at both spots to also focus on getting elite options at the onesies (QB/TE).

And if you don't get the opportunity to draft one of these players at a reasonable cost? Don't panic; make a strength at WR into a superpower instead of allowing other drafters to dictate what you do. Again: Be like water.

After all, there are far too many elite options at other positions in the early rounds to waste time taking someone you don't want.

More Position-specific Draft Strategy