Drafting for First or Last, Not Mid-Table

"You play to win the game!" - the famous words of Herm Edwards ring heavy in all NFL fans' heads. And the GIF is even more iconic. The essence of professional sports. Wanting to be the best and not settling for being "also-rans" is the essence of professional sports. It is what makes people crave competition. But do we consider winning when we draft a fantasy football roster? Or are we too buried under values and projections to see the bigger picture? Totti and Genie are here to help you see the forest for the trees and to adopt a new kind of strategy....one that will have you swimming in glory or have you head in hands....there is no in between in this. As fictional racing legend, Ricky Bobby, says: "If you ain't first, you're last." This strategy lives and dies by that quote. Click here for details on how you can access our 22/23 Draft Kit.

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Defining Success

The fantasy season is long and tedious. It's ten months of deliberation, player values, percentages, decisions, sleepless nights, and early mornings, all offered up on the altar of ultimate league success. It all starts well before draft day, as you look to prepare for 16 long rounds of picks. But in the end, the only goal should be the championship; no ifs, ands, or buts. This success starts with the draft. Being prepared, knowing who to pick, who to avoid, and the route you want to take are all essential to kicking off a title winning campaign.

**Disclaimer: This strategy is not for the faint-hearted. Be prepared for weeks of numerous disappointments but also weeks of record-setting scores. You also must remain active on the Waiver Wire & Trade fronts to fully benefit from this strategy.

Basic Tenets of This Strategy

Starting off, you will need to look at your personal draft rankings and any resources you may have in the draft world. You should identify which players you believe can "boom", and earmark them as "must-drafts". You should understand that even while you are drafting for upside, you still need players who will start. For example, it would be very poor strategy to draft Dele Alli, Oxlade-Chamberlain, and Hudson-Odoi in the mid rounds just because on their day they can offer "MID1" value. All three of these players probably go undrafted unless they get loan moves to other EPL clubs, plus you are passing on players in the middle rounds who can offer strong enough upside while also getting more guaranteed minutes than these guys.

You need to also ensure you have enough starters to field a constant XI each week and not just punt on upside. A good example is thinking you have to pass on Trent in Round 1 to get Haaland, just because he will score more goals than Trent. Upside can be defined in multiple ways, but Trent's upside comes in the form of constant clean sheets combined with attacking output. Positional choice isn't as key here, as there will be defenders who offer just as much if not more upside than attackers available in similar rounds. For instance, drafting Chilwell in Round 4 over Harvey Barnes or Youri Tielemans, just because he is in the "defender" position, doesn't mean he offers less upside.

Which Types of Players Should You Target?

The obvious answer here is players with the highest possible "ceilings". These are players who usually have the potential to win you a gameweek. After the first round or so, the players with the highest ceilings will usually sacrifice their "floor". Players with a solid floor offer you consistent/safe points, usually 6-9, week in, week out, but with less upside/ability to score double digits. Floor players are usually pretty nailed on starters but lack explosiveness. These are set and forget players that some managers believe you need to win leagues. This strategy says NO to these floor players. We want players with higher ceilings, even if that means sacrificing a few total starts and less "safe" points every week.

For example, look at Declan Rice (282 points) vs. Harvey Barnes (286.5 points). While their total scores only differ by less than 5 points, Barnes managed 5 scores of 15+ points, whereas Rice only managed 2. Those 5 GWs from Barnes could have been crucial. Another good comparison is Hakim Ziyech (206.5 points in 14 starts) & Fabinho (206.5 points in 26 starts). Both these midfielders started less than 30 games but finished with the same total points. Ziyech started significantly less games but delivered 11.4 points per start vs. Fabinho's 7.7. While he was difficult to roster given the uncertainty, his double digit starts put managers on course to score 100+ points & win the gameweek. Although Fabinho had some big games (mainly due to some random attacking returns and unlikely PKs), he offered significantly less value to a team than Ziyech in terms of upside, and that is what we want with this strategy....UPSIDE, UPSIDE, UPSIDE!

In a head to head matchup, you want players that can singlehandedly win you a week or cause you a weekend of agony and sorrow. These defensive midfielders and safe CBs won't do that for you. In a head to head Fantrax league, your only goal is to beat your opponent that week, and that will mean having a roster full of "game changers". You know that a gameweek that includes starts from Ziyech, Foden, and Martinelli will put you on course to dismantle the dude rostering Kante, Fabinho, and Fred.

Genie's Take

As you may have read in Genie's Corner, I tend to firmly believe in the statement "Championships favour the bold". This strategy is the definition of that. Personally, I always try to take upside over "safe" picks. A few seasons ago, I was the opposite, always keen on having 1-2 defensive mids or "Kante's" in my team. Now I have realized those types of players will always be available the morning of gameday for streaming if need be. It is much better to use draft spots, especially in the mid-late rounds on players that have upside potential.

A good example is last season I used my 11th round pick to punt on Gray when he signed for Everton. He managed 28 starts at 9.8 points per start, and was a near set and forget FWD3 at that point in the draft. I ended up passing on "safer" players such as Romero and Keane, who turned out to be pretty poor themselves. In the same draft someone took a late round flier on Bernardo Silva in the same round.....and we all know how great of a punt that turned out to be. The point is that some of these late round upside picks will end up rewarding the punter and help propel you closer to a league title. Be prepared for some of these high-upside gambles to absolutely crash and burn, such as my round 10 punt on Naby Keita. No harm done with Keita, as I ended up dropping him in GW3 for a "safe" player that I needed that week. Think about it. There will always be a Kalvin Phillips or McTominay on the waiver wire for you at any point in the season, so why not take some punts on upside players who can light up the EPL on any given gameweek?

Here are 4 players I would draft for "upside":

1. Dalot instead of Romero in round 9

2. Redmond instead of Billing in round 13

3. Antonio instead of Tielemans in round 4-5

4. Sterling instead of Ward-Prowse in round 2

Totti's Take

As the author of the inaugural article of the same title last year, I don't have a lot to add here that hasn't already been said. Instead, I will try to follow through on my New Year's Resolution and use analytics to show you how to "draft to win". A lot of my research relies on Overthinking Football's data tables. For the purposes of this article, I will look at 2 metrics in detail: "Winning Ability"/Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and "Quality Starts" (QS). For detailed explanations of both of these metrics, please visit Overthinking Football, and while you are at it, please buy them a coffee for all their trouble! WAR Explained Quality Starts Explained

The tables above use data from the 21/22 season to calculate average WAR and Quality Starts, but they put it in the context of this season's Average Draft Position (where players were drafted). Obviously, more accurate data would be needed to produce xavgWAR and xQS models to show projections for this upcoming season. For the purposes of hammering home my point, it is worth flagging a few interesting cases.

The City Boys

The Manchester City players jump off the pages in terms of Quality Starts. Getting a player like Foden in round 2, who has an 80% chance of being a difference maker when he starts, is exactly what we recommend with this strategy. Meanwhile, someone like James Ward Prowse will get you 67% quality starts but starts every gameweek. It's a conscious choice to eschew reliability for explosiveness.

Defenders

Round 2 data throws up some very interesting anomalies. Both Reece James and Robertson, to a certain extent, have relatively high WAR numbers compared to their fellow second rounders. Yet their quality starts are lower. This comes from the fact that, especially in Reece James's case, his quality starts are heavily weighted towards the Q90 metric, meaning that when he goes above the 50% mark for the average score for defenders on any given GW, he is very likely to not stop at Q50 or Q75 (50th percentile, or 75th percentile) but go for Q90. In laymen's terms, this means that he is much more likely to get a Q90 score. But in the event that he does not get a Q90, he is more likely to get you a non-quality start than a Q50 or Q75. So what does this stream of consciousness you have just read mean? For me, it means that WAR or "upside" has different interpretations but adding the QS metric to the mix allows you to pick better upside players. In this example, although James looks like the player to recommend for the purposes of this article, a player like Saint-Maximin, who provides you with lower but still great GWs, might just be the player to target.

Conclusion

Upside or WAR, QS or Q90, whatever stat you use to value players, this article is really about sacrificing stability for maximum winning potential. It's about changing your mindset when it comes to draft day. Forget drafting handcuffs just to feel safer, forget drafting "water carriers" just to balance your roster. Throw caution to the wind and get guys who can get you wins on their own.

Dealing with Disappointment

This tactic is not for the faint of heart. It might throw up certain gameweeks where you can only field 6 players. It might give you gameweeks where your 11 starters get you 18 points altogether. You need to plan for that and develop a thick exterior. If youdo decide to go down this route, you might finish last. However, if even half of these high-upside gambles end up coming good, you have a chance of wrapping up the season by March. Again, if you ain't first, you're last!