Worst Case Scenario Fantasy Football Draft

Rustyn Rose | August 21, 2009

How to use ADP and avoid your fantasy football draft going down the drain.

Your draft has started, you now know your slot and the train races out of the station. You have all your draft tips and tools at your fingertips, your strategy in place, and yet you feel that familiar sense of unease you get every season as the rounds sweep by. The draft is not going exactly as planned. The guys you want are going earlier than expected, while guys you weren’t considering are hanging around way too late. Now you’re beginning to stray from your strategy because the other owners are not following along with your plan. Bastiches. Don’t they know how to play fantasy football?

This is where doing some well spent preparation comes in handy. My suggestion is this; find a good ADP (average draft position) site (I like fftoolbox.com) and look to see where people are going this season. You may be surprised by how different real drafts are from those “experts” rankings. By going through the ADP round by round, you can see who your worst case pick is. You can then make your own assessment on who to take in what round, with a better understanding of what other owners are consistently doing.

Let’s look at the first three rounds:

Round 1– Worst case scenario in this round is Steve Slaton. Personally I rank him as the 5th or 6th best RB, especially in PPR leagues. So let’s say he is your worst pick.

Round 2– Assuming you picked 12th in the first round you get some sweet choices here, like get Moss or Johnson but following our worst case plan we go with Brandon Jacobs.

Round 3– Here your worst case is Terrell Owens. Now in a traditional snake draft, you’ll do better than this; as an example if you have 6th pick you may net Fitzgerald, Jennings and Kevin Smith. But the idea here is to see here is to see who is going where so you can make better decisions when that 90 second clock gets to you.

Round 1	Round 2	Round 3
1 Adrian Peterson RB	13 Randy Moss WR	25 Anquan Boldin WR
2 Maurice Jones-Drew RB	14 Calvin Johnson WR	26 Peyton Manning QB
3 Matt Forte RB	15 Drew Brees QB	27 Marques Colston WR
4 Michael Turner RB	16 Brian Westbrook RB	28 Ronnie Brown RB
5 Steven Jackson RB	17 Reggie Wayne WR	29 Wes Welker WR
6 Larry Fitzgerald WR	18 Tom Brady QB	30 Dwayne Bowe WR
7 Chris Johnson RB	19 Greg Jennings WR	31 Kevin Smith RB
8 Andre Johnson WR	20 Marion Barber RB	32 Reggie Bush RB
9 Ladainian Tomlinson RB	21 Steve Smith WR	33 Aaron Rodgers QB
10 DeAngelo Williams RB	22 Clinton Portis RB	34 Brandon Marshall WR
11 Frank Gore RB	23 Roddy White WR	35 Jason Witten TE
12 Steve Slaton RB	24 Brandon Jacobs RB	36 Terrell Owens WR

Rounds 4-6– Worst case scenario after six rounds your line up looks like this: QB Matt Schaub, RBs Steve Slaton, Brandon Jacobs and Derrick Ward, WRs Terrell Owens and Vincent Jackson. Not a bad worst case scenario. But let’s keep going.

Round 4	Round 5	Round 6
37 Pierre Thomas RB	49 Eddie Royal WR	61 Larry Johnson RB
38 Ryan Grant RB	50 Tony Romo QB	62 Jonathan Stewart RB
39 T.J. Houshmandzadeh WR	51 Kurt Warner QB	63 Antonio Bryant WR
40 Darren McFadden RB	52 Joseph Addai RB	64 Matt Ryan QB
41 Philip Rivers QB	53 Tony Gonzalez TE	65 Lee Evans WR
42 Marshawn Lynch RB	54 DeSean Jackson WR	66 Jay Cutler QB
43 Braylon Edwards WR	55 Anthony Gonzalez WR	67 Chris Wells RB
44 Roy Williams WR	56 Santonio Holmes WR	68 Willie Parker RB
45 Chad Ochocinco WR	57 Dallas Clark TE	69 Ray Rice RB
46 Antonio Gates TE	58 Donovan McNabb QB	70 Greg Olsen TE
47 Knowshon Moreno RB	59 Thomas Jones RB	71 Santana Moss WR
48 Vincent Jackson WR	60 Derrick Ward RB	72 Matt Schaub QB

Following our worst case strategy in rounds 7-9 your team picks up two young WRs in Percy Harvin and Donnie Avery, and the worst pick of the worst case so far, Jamal Lewis as your RB4.

Round 7	Round 8	Round 9
73 Felix Jones RB	85 Laveranues Coles WR	97 Matt Cassel QB
74 Hines Ward WR	86 Donald Brown RB	98 LeSean McCoy RB
75 Jerricho Cotchery WR	87 Devin Hester WR	99 Julius Jones RB
76 Bernard Berrian WR	88 Pittsburgh DEF	100 Steve Breaston WR
77 Kellen Winslow TE	89 Ben Roethlisberger QB	101 Michael Crabtree WR
78 Chris Cooley TE	90 Kevin Walter WR	102 Ted Ginn WR
79 Cedric Benson RB	91 Torry Holt WR	103 Eli Manning QB
80 Carson Palmer QB	92 Darren Sproles RB	104 Leon Washington RB
81 Lance Moore WR	93 Donald Driver WR	105 Baltimore DEF
82 Owen Daniels TE	94 Rashard Mendenhall RB	106 Zach Miller TE
83 LenDale White RB	95 John Carlson TE	107 Dustin Keller TE
84 Donnie Avery WR	96 Jamal Lewis RB	108 Percy Harvin WR

In rounds 10-12 Defenses start coming off the board, but your worst case scenario nets you TE Jeremy Shockey, who has been turning heads in camp so far, and you get depth with back-up QB Joe Flacco, and RB5 Laurence Maroney.

Round 10	Round 11	Round 12
109 Tim Hightower RB	121 Minnesota DEF	133 Hakeem Nicks WR
110 NY Giants DEF	122 Chester Taylor RB	134 Jamaal Charles RB
111 Derrick Mason WR	123 Josh Morgan WR	135 Chicago DEF
112 Fred Jackson RB	124 Earnest Graham RB	136 Visanthe Shiancoe TE
113 Matt Hasselbeck QB	125 Domenik Hixon WR	137 Tennessee DEF
114 Ahmad Bradshaw RB	126 Shonn Greene RB	138 NY Jets DEF
115 David Garrard QB	127 Kyle Orton QB	139 Le’Ron McClain RB
116 Minnesota DEF	128 Jerious Norwood RB	140 Earl Bennett WR
117 Trent Edwards QB	129 Jeremy Maclin WR	141 Michael Bush RB
118 Willis McGahee RB	130 San Diego DEF	142 Chris Henry WR
119 Steve Smith WR	131 Chris Chambers WR	143 Heath Miller TE
120 Jeremy Shockey TE	132 Joe Flacco QB	144 Laurence Maroney RB

Through 12 rounds of your worst case ADP draft your team looks like this:

QBs: Matt Schaub, Joe Flacco

RBs: Steve Slaton, Brandon Jacobs, Derrick Ward, Jamal Lewis, and Laurence Maroney

WRs: Terrell Owens, Vincent Jackson, Donnie Avery, Percy Harvin

TE: Jeremy Shockey

For a worst case scenario, that’s not a bad team to be stuck with. Obviously your team will be more staunch than this one, because you won’t get stuck with worst case picks. Yet this little experiment shows where picks are deep and where they are shallow. The beauty in doing research like this is that it helps you better prepare for any draft slot, let’s you see where you can expect certain players to go, and gives you some flexibility on who to take and where. Now you know you can hold back a bit on QBs because you can find value in the mid-rounds this year. You can also reach a bit and take some people you think will out perform their rankings and draft position. As an example, WR Brandon Marshall’s current ADP is 34, or late 3rd round. His counterpart in Denver is Eddie Royal who is going at the top of the 5th round. I fully expect Royal to out perform the injured and disgruntled Marshall this season, so I’d skip Marshall in the third and be comfortable reaching for Royal in the fourth. As another example, I’m one of those guys that wants an elite QB if possible, and when I see Philip Rivers lasting to round 5, knowing he’ll put up Peyton Manning like numbers two rounds later, I begin salivating. This is why doing some research and a few mock drafts is crucial to your success. All the expert rankings in the world are not going to be as important as what actual fantasy owners are doing, and what your gut tells you.