How to Win Your Fantasy Football Auction Draft

There are many different FFL formats that influence how you might prepare for your auction-style draft, yet several principals that are applicable regardless.  For example, you might bid to purchase your starting players only then have a snake style draft for the remaining players to fill out your bench.  Likewise, other leagues auction to fill the entire roster changing how you might approach where to allocate your minimum bid player slots.  The focus of this article is to use sound strategies to help you think through situations during your auction no matter what variable nuances exist.

Stay in the middle of the curve.  I’m going to guess I’ve done close to 100 auction style drafts in my life thus far, going all the way back to my Strat-O-Matic days as a young teenager.  One common thread of every auction I’ve ever participated in (more noticeable as I’ve gotten older) is I come away feeling good about my team more so when I don’t fill up my roster ahead of the other teams, or find myself collecting the last half dozen or so players at the end when everyone else is already done.

I believe this is because when you purchase a lot of players early, you tend to see other guys getting more of those “steals” along the way.  You can’t continue to bid because either you don’t have the roster space or enough bid dollars, while other guys drop out of the bidding earlier than expected much to your dismay.  When you save your money for better values down the road, you tend to be left with a lot of unusable dollars at the end.  I’m going to touch on this point more elaborately in a moment.

Staying in the middle of the curve means if you find yourself with more players than the other teams, you need to slow down a bit and put up players for bid you’re not interested in acquiring.  The hope is these players can generate enough interest from other owners to bid against one another.  Likewise, if you find yourself with fewer players than the other teams, it’s time for you to start targeting players you want to roster for yourself.

Someone will be left holding unused dollars.  Don’t let this be you.  Every draft comes to a point when participants can no longer bid against one another to the full extent of both bidders’ powers.  As the auction progresses, the values of all players change constantly based on who’s left and how much capital is remaining.  Those most hesitant to pull the trigger early are usually the ones left with the most wasted unused dollars in the end.

Bid in minimum increments.  It’s silly, but it’s true.  Some auction participants believe they can generate excitement and influence bidding by throwing out suspect players at higher level prices.  I’ll never forget that look on my friend’s face the day he put Drew Bledsoe up for $65 and every cup dropped within a nano-second.  No one will ever know what Bledsoe would’ve actually gone for if he started out a dollar, but it’s very unlikely it would’ve taken 65 call-outs to find out.  To this day he claims Bledsoe was his guy, but I don’t believe him.

The value of Superman.  Yes, I’m going to get ridiculous to make a point here.  Let’s say Clark Kent entered the NFL as a QB, and every time he took a snap he scored a touchdown.  Now Dru Zod (nicknamed “General”) hasn’t yet declared his eligibility, so Kent has little competition for your league’s high scoring player.  And Patrick Mahomes is destined to finish a far distant second based on your league’s scoring system.  The FFL owner who has Kent is going to win his game every week.  Thus in this scenario, Kent’s value is infinite.  The league owner who bids the maximum on Kent while filling out the rest of the roster with dollar players will win the league.

Why reference this ridiculous scenario?  It’s because you can’t be afraid to overspend when the situation is right.  Since George Kittle is considered a superhero by most people I know, let’s continue with this example.  You’re going to allocate $35 for the TE position and need one starter and one reserve.  Are you better off with Kittle for $34 and the 25th – 36th best TE for $1 (maybe Irv Smith or Jace Sternberger), or are you better off with Darren Waller for $20 and Tyler Higbee for $15?  Now the dollars and/or players may vary a bit as you head through your auction, but barring unforeseen and unpredictable injuries the answer is fairly obvious.

Wait a second, you may be asking what if everyone goes in with that mentality to target George Kittle?  Fortunately, there is no single Superman in the NFL. But there are a dozen to two dozen or so elite-level talents, and you’re going to need to get your fair share of them early on.  Again, don’t be afraid to overspend on the players you’re targeting for your own specific likings or reasons.

Pay attention to the tiers.  This is the real time to spend.  Everyone is going to have minimum bid players fill out the end of their roster.  Whether you have four or six of them may not really matter.  These are typically the first players cut for free agents.  But what does matter is when you can get that one additional impact starter, at the expense of choosing from similar players later on.  If you look at your current WR ranker, you probably don’t feel much different about the 45th ranked player and the 60th ranked player.  If fact, your 45th ranked WR may very well be someone else’s WR60.  But miss out on WR23 when he’s up for grabs, pay close attention to the drop off if the next few guys on your ranker appear to be on a much lower level of projected productivity.

And one last point I feel obligated to throw out.  Don’t reinvent the wheel.  Every time I’ve gone into an auction with a wacky strategy I’ve come out with a disaster of a team.  The only upside to trying oddball strategies is learning from the experience.  No matter what you do and how you approach your auction, be sure to have fun and enjoy the ride.  It’s why we do this to begin with.  Good luck, and have a great season!

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