Perfect Fantasy Football Draft: 9th in a 12-Team ESPN PPR League
The ninth pick is one of the trickier spots to draft from in fantasy football this year. Barring any surprising reaches, you will miss out on many of the no-question-mark players going at the top of drafts. It isn’t all bad though—picking ninth will at least give you a solid amount of control between selections, as the shorter turns are separated by just six picks. Overall, it isn’t the best place to pick from, but a championship-quality team can certainly still be built.
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. 9 spot.
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 Ninth
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 my roster to shake out from the nine spot:
- Emphasize wide receivers to start - the consensus top three running backs—Christian McCaffrey, Austin Ekeler, and Bijan Robinson—will likely be off the board by the 1.09, so I’m going to focus on drafting a couple of elite receivers early to take advantage of the full PPR format.
- Wait on quarterback - QBs are being drafted very early this season compared to recent years, but they don’t work out nicely from an ADP standpoint picking ninth. The elite guys will be taken by the time we pick in the back of the third round, and the early fourth is too early to dip into the second tier.
- Load up on late-round running back lottery tickets - Our starting running backs might not be that great if we prioritize receivers early, so taking several high-upside RBs late in drafts will help offset our lack of home-run hitters at the position and give us some needed depth.
Continue reading for a breakdown of my favorite picks through Round 10 and a list of the best late-round targets at each position.
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