How to draft players for every position and win your league in 2024

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The perfect fantasy football draft strategy in the 2024 redraft leagues is all about maximizing your team’s weekly maximum and minimum, and this simply involves picking the right players – you can also check out my predictions and rankings for help.

The other part is having a smart fantasy draft strategy and roster construction philosophy that takes into account where value lies on the field so you can dynamically adjust as your drafts evolve. In this article, you’ll learn in detail what I’ve found to be the optimal fantasy football strategy for 2024 and which players you should be targeting as a result.

I’ll start by going over the first six rounds of the 2024 fantasy football drafts. You’ll notice that I put a lot of emphasis on wide receiver strategy in these rounds. After that, I’ll show you how to build the rest of your roster at each position.

(Note: Everything you are about to read applies to traditional redraft formats that start with one QB, consist of 10 or 12 teams, and use half or full PPR scoring.)

Fantasy football strategy 2024

Round 1

Christian McCaffrey is the undisputed No. 1 overall pick. He scored nearly three points more per game than the WR1 in half-PPR formats and about a point more per game in full-PPR formats, and he scored over 100 points more than the RB2 in both formats.

For picks 2-6, I prefer WRs over RBs. You can’t win your draft in the first few rounds, but you can surely lose it, and you’re more likely to lose it if you expose yourself to the higher injury risk of RBs compared to WRs. With the NFL moving to 17 games in 2021, here are the average games missed for startable players at each position (defined as top 36 RBs and WRs and top 12 QBs and TEs according to ADP).

• RB: 3.4
• TE: 2.9
• WR: 2.5
• QB: 2.3

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Additionally, the WRs have higher ceiling/floor combinations. Below are their three-year highs/lows in PPR points.

• WR1 CeeDee Lamb: 405/233
• WR2 Tyreek Hill: 378/299
• WR3 Ja’Marr Chase: 307/246
• WR4 Justin Jefferson: 365/204
• WR5 Amon-Ra St. Brown: 332/223
• RB2 Breece Hall: 289/117
• RB3 Bijan Robinson: 252/252

In fact, the RB closest to the score of the top five WRs is not Hall or Robinson, but Jonathan Taylor (377/156). Taylor has the best offensive line of the three and the least competition for snaps, so I don’t mind moving him up to RB2.

My tiers for the top 10 selection are: (1) McCaffrey, (2) Lamb, Hill, Chase, St. Brown, Jefferson, (3) Hall, Robinson, Taylor.

If you’re in a 12-team league and you draft 11th or 12th, I think it’s best to go balanced in the first two rounds, drafting a RB and a WR. There is a clear drop in value at both positions after the top 10, but the balance allows you to more easily take advantage of the value that comes in rounds 3-4 and beyond. This will be crucial, as drafting late usually puts you at a disadvantage in terms of expected fantasy points.

• In my second WR level you will only find Puka Nacua And AJ Brown. I therefore suggest prioritizing WRs in Round 1, as the next pick in Round 2 should have a larger selection of RBs available.
• Among the RBs outside the top 4, I prefer Travis Etienne To Jahmyr Gibbs, Saquon Barkley, And Derrick Henry. Gibbs is fantastic, but he’s still part of a committee and could be more unpredictable for the RB5 than one would like. Henry and Barkley are good RB1 choices, but if we’re being nitpicky, they get a little criticism because of their age and the team change.