Perfect Fantasy Football Draft: 7th in a 10-Team ESPN PPR League

Aug 14, 2023

Perfect Draft: 7th in a 10-Team ESPN PPR League

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The seventh pick is arguably the worst spot to draft from in 2023. There seems to be a clear top six players in the first round, meaning fantasy managers picking seventh immediately get their draft started on a somewhat disappointing note as they are usually forced to settle for a tier two player without gaining the advantage of a short turn. With that being said, any true fantasy football diehard will always be up for a challenge, and winning your league will be all the more sweet if you did it picking from the least optimal draft position.

In this article, I will walk through my favorite players in each round that should be available to me based on ESPN ADP and discuss my overall draft strategy from the No. 7 spot in a 10-team league.

More Perfect Drafts

ESPN 12-Team PPR: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |12
ESPN 10-Team PPR: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Yahoo 12-Team Half-PPR: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |12
Yahoo 10-Team Half-PPR: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

The 4for4 staff uses the Draft Hero software for all of our leagues. Draft Hero syncs directly to your league and optimizes each pick using projections and value-based rankings from 4for4. Draft Hero lets you customize your draft experience with settings on which rounds you want to draft a position, how many players you want at each position, and players to target or avoid.

For those new to Draft Hero, be sure to explore this walkthrough of the app.

My Plan of Attack When Drafting Seventh

Roster Settings: 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex (WR/RB/TE), 1 Kicker, 1 DEF, seven bench spots

It is obviously important to remain flexible during your fantasy drafts, but here’s a general overview of how I’d like to build my roster from the seven spot:

Don’t be afraid to buck the consensus: I’m not advising to drastically reach on players, but building an unorthodox roster from a positional allocation standpoint could help with diminishing the shortcomings of picking seventh. This could entail taking a tight end or quarterback in the early rounds or trying out an Anchor-RB or Zero-RB draft strategy.

Draft one running back early: I am not a fan of pretty much all the running backs being drafted between rounds four and seven (besides Aaron Jones and Rachaad White), so I’m going to try and secure an elite running back early to minimize how much I rely on middle-round options.

Optimize for high ceilings over high floors in the later rounds: Lottery tickets will be key when picking seventh as I’m less confident in how great our starting lineup will be. So, I’d rather draft a high-upside player that could become a top-20 option at their position than choose a safer, less exciting depth option.

Continue reading for a breakdown of my favorite picks through Round 10 and a list of the best late-round targets at each position.