This fantasy football Draft Strategy article looks at the current ADP and identifies the best fantasy football draft strategy/strategies for the draft slots 10-through-12, which in a snake draft would leave you with one of selections 13-through-15 in the second round, 34-through-35 in the third round, 37-through-39 in the fourth round, 58-through-60 in the fifth round, and so on.
To read the article about slots 1-through-3, click here. For 4-through-6 click here, and for 7-through-9 click here.
The first three rounds are a crucial point in the determination of your fantasy football draft strategy not just because they should generally be your best players, but because the early course you set will determine your initial points of positional strength and weakness. It's important to weigh those strengths and weaknesses against your forecast options in upcoming rounds, devising a broader plan to account for those weaknesses so that you're as strong as possible for the draft slots you've been assigned.
You can't build a juggernaut right off the bat. It's a longer task that requires both foresight – knowing the ADP and your slot's placement relative to the fantasy football ADP – as well as in-draft adjustment so that you're not caught unprotected when the unexpected occurs.
It's important to track your own investments relative to the development of positional markets once your draft gets under way. This way you can create and adjust your plan in real time depending on which positional runs occur in
This fantasy football Draft Strategy article looks at the current ADP and identifies the best fantasy football draft strategy/strategies for the draft slots 10-through-12, which in a snake draft would leave you with one of selections 13-through-15 in the second round, 34-through-35 in the third round, 37-through-39 in the fourth round, 58-through-60 in the fifth round, and so on.
To read the article about slots 1-through-3, click here. For 4-through-6 click here, and for 7-through-9 click here.
The first three rounds are a crucial point in the determination of your fantasy football draft strategy not just because they should generally be your best players, but because the early course you set will determine your initial points of positional strength and weakness. It's important to weigh those strengths and weaknesses against your forecast options in upcoming rounds, devising a broader plan to account for those weaknesses so that you're as strong as possible for the draft slots you've been assigned.
You can't build a juggernaut right off the bat. It's a longer task that requires both foresight – knowing the ADP and your slot's placement relative to the fantasy football ADP – as well as in-draft adjustment so that you're not caught unprotected when the unexpected occurs.
It's important to track your own investments relative to the development of positional markets once your draft gets under way. This way you can create and adjust your plan in real time depending on which positional runs occur in the draft, doing your best to stay at the front of such positional runs.
Sometimes you might need to participate in the tail-end of a positional run if you get caught in a truly difficult spot, but it's far more ideal to start a positional run so that you can get the top swipe of value at the position before the other drafters start scrambling for worse pieces of the pie after you. Having a viable plan for a balanced roster throughout various contingencies is key to keeping your draft picks occurring on your own terms instead of chasing market developments left and right.
(ADP data is from NFFC 12-team drafts back to 7/15)
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FIRST ROUND (10-through-12) and SECOND ROUND (13-through-15)
It generally looks like a good year for the top 15, so especially in formats with third-round reversal this seems like a fairly low-difficulty drafting range. Therefore there is no one best fantasy football draft strategy from this range of the order -- a wide variety of approaches make sense.
The Monster tier of running back (let's say Robinson, Barkley and Gibbs) is out of reach, but runners like Christian McCaffrey (10.47 NFFC), Ashton Jeanty (10.53) and De'Von Achane (12.86) could have 30-point weekly upside in PPR scoring in their own right. Of course, each of those three has more concerns than the first three – McCaffrey's durability is somewhat concerning at this point in his career, while Jeanty and Achane play in potentially bad offenses.
That's not to diminish Derrick Henry (13.74), who certainly gains ground on the previously mentioned group in 0.5PPR scoring. With only 19 receptions in 2024, though, it might be difficult to keep up with the likes of McCaffrey/Jeanty/Achane, each of whom could go over 60 receptions this year.
In any case, from this slot range it's easy to make a well-budgeted team with any RB-WR or WR-WR combo. Some combination of Amon-Ra St. Brown (10.95), Puka Nacua (12.63), Brian Thomas (12.7), Nico Collins (14.57) and Drake London (16.02) should be available over the course of this range.
Whichever way you begin, keep in mind that you'll wait a decent amount of time between your picks in the upcoming rounds. Keeping general track of the players/positions selected is important so that you know which spots you need to guard before you begin your next wait between selections.
THIRD ROUND (34-through-35) and FOURTH ROUND (37-through-39)
You'd be lucky to have any of Garrett Wilson (26.34), Trey McBride (27.18), Kyren Williams (28.14), Jaxon Smith-Njigba (30.0) or Tee Higgins (30.62) fall this far every time you want them to, but it does happen at least occasionally. Any of them would carry a strong projection for the slot.
The more reliably available options in this range include Tyreek Hill (30.86), Joe Burrow (32.6), Breece Hall (34.62), Omarion Hampton (35.12), Jayden Daniels (35.36), Marvin Harrison (35.67), Davante Adams (36.42), James Cook (39.75), Mike Evans (41.13), George Kittle (41.32) and Jalen Hurts (41.59).
As you can see, there tends to be a variety of builds you could employ from these draft slots. The way the draft board shapes up can make some of these decisions for you by process of elimination, but the key otherwise is to make sure you're accounting for your team needs and, ideally, drafting players who project sufficiently for the role you're assigning them.
Any of these running backs (Williams, Hall, Hampton, Cook) could suffice as an RB1, especially if you're employing Zero RB principles, but as an RB2 you would call any of them strong projections. You generally don't want to pursue strength at RB2 if it will cost you sufficiency at WR2, but from these draft slots you could easily pull off a build along the lines of Ashton Jeanty-Puka Nacua-Breece Hall-Mike Evans in your first four rounds, and in doing so you'd have a strong RB2 and WR2 both.
You could also easily forego the RB2 selection in this range for a tight end like McBride or Brock Bowers (20.27) earlier, but there might be some Round 5 options to suffice yet at RB2. There's nothing wrong with pursuing Bowers or McBride as long as you budget the rest of your picks with their inclusion in mind.
Check out our fantasy football ADP report for a comprehensive tool with live-updated ADP data for multiple league formats and sites.
FIFTH ROUND (58-through-60)
Keep in mind, you'll also have one of selections 61-through-63 in the sixth round.
In this range you'll see the player selections diverge from the ADP even more regularly, so keep your plans flexible when you try to project the options at these selections or the upcoming ones.
With that said, the most commonly seen options in this range include Rashee Rice (51.18), Jameson Williams (52.35), TreVeyon Henderson (55.55), DeVonta Smith (55.56), James Conner (56.35), George Pickens (57.03), Zay Flowers (57.56), Calvin Ridley (58.79), Jaylen Waddle (61.57), Patrick Mahomes (63.46), Jerry Jeudy (64.15), D'Andre Swift (64.19), Sam LaPorta (65.9), RJ Harvey (65.99) and Rome Odunze (66.61).
Who knows what will happen with Rice's suspension, but in general he, Williams, Smith, Pickens, Flowers, Ridley, Waddle, Jeudy and Odunze all conventionally satisfy the projection requirements of a fantasy WR3, though their specific details are different enough that it's worth familiarizing yourself. If you need weekly consistency more than weekly ceiling, for instance, you might prefer a player with a high projected target share like Ridley over a more upside-minded pick like Williams or Odunze.
Running backs like Henderson, Swift and Harvey all have a shot at sufficing as RB2s, especially if you're adeptly applying Zero RB principles. Note: the more aggressively you fade the running back position early, the more you might want to spend later picks on running backs. You only need to start two, but you'll also want to be realistic about the number of lottery tickets it will take to find a winner later on.
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