Draft season has officially begun, and I have some draft strategies for the 2025 fantasy football season!
With Scott Fish Bowl online drafts beginning today, it’s time to sharpen your drafting skills for your charity leagues and your home leagues.
This is my first year in the Scott Fish Bowl after several tries to enter, and you need to be familiar with the setups for most charity leagues. We were allowed to pick our draft position, and I took the No. 1 spot in my Washington Sentinels league. I drafted Cincinnati wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase with my pick.
Most know the Scott Fish Bowl is a super-flex league (you can start two quarterbacks if you like), but this is part of my strategy I run with in most of my super-flex leagues. When they zig, you zag.
When they zig, you zag
This is a very good way to be different in your leagues, and maybe throw a wrench into your league mate’s fantasy football draft plans.
However, I’m leaning toward a top wide receiver or running back in the first round even in super flex and one-quarterback leagues. But it all changes in the second and third rounds for me.
I tend to be the wild card and will load up on WRs and add in a stud RB in super flex, while I won’t be afraid to take a QB in the second round of 1-QB leagues. When they zig, you zag.
And there is always talk of the dead zone for running backs in Rounds 3 through 7, but this is the area where your league mates make most of their mistakes. Don’t be afraid of the dead zone.
Hero RB & Zero RB
The NFL has slowly evolved into a passing league and it has affected how managers draft their fantasy football teams. Quarterbacks have become the focal point of the league, and the main beneficiaries have been wide receivers, along with leagues using points per reception exclusively.
Despite this switch in the league’s offensive approach, some fantasy managers continue to load up on running backs early in the draft. I’m telling you it’s time to stop this thinking.
The toll running backs take in the NFL makes using the Hero RB or Zero RB approach a solid strategy to use. But the old school thinking is a hard habit to break but I have one number that stands out to me that managers can use to dominate their fantasy football drafts.
GAMES PLAYED – A lot of managers will look at points per game to decide between a top RB or WR, but games played tell the whole story. During the last five years, the top 12 scoring WRs have played the entire season or missed one game in 52 out of 60 players, while for running backs, 44 out of 60 have played the whole season or missed one game.
I will say last year was the first time in five years the Top 12 RBs were the better choice as they were able to play the entire season or miss one game (10 of 12) compared to the WRs (9 of 12).
RB1s are easier to replace
The backup for the WR1 will not generate the same opportunities as WR1 would have. But if an RB1 falls to injury, his backup will get close to similar opportunities. The problem arises because teams’ No. 2 and No. 3 WRs start to pick up the slack, unlike the WR1’s backup.
The perfect example of RB1 production was Indianapolis’ Jonathan Taylor missing Week 5 and Week 6 last season. Trey Sermon averaged 17 touches in the two games he started in place of Taylor.
The Rookies
Team managers during the late 1990s and early 2000s would avoid rookies early in fantasy football drafts because of the learning curve. But now that curve has been shortened as college teams play a 12-game regular season and elite teams play even more games in the college playoff systems.
I’ve always taken a rookie as my second RB in my one QB leagues, but since the NFL’s shift to a passing league, the rookie WRs have evolved into early round studs. NY Giants’ Malik Nabers and Jacksonville’s Brian Thomas Jr. continued that trend last season, and there were three drafted in the first round this year – Carolina’s Tetairoa McMillan (8th), Tampa Bay’s Emeka Egbuka (19th) and Green Bay’s Matthew Golden (23rd).
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