Make the game hard so that better players have the best chance and greater flexibility in finding structural roster advantages that are completely moot in shallow, RB-dominant Flex 9 formats. You have to really work on your league to change your formats to at least Flex 10, full-PPR and then evolve to SuperFlex 11, which is ideal. But remember, what they say is luck is often skill because the skilled players know where they can get lucky. It’s QBs ranked in the teens who are going to provide the most surplus value. I’m firmly in the camp of not valuing QBs as highly as most even in SuperFlex formats, for reasons I explain here. But you definitely want to downgrade running QBs here, as well as in leagues that give a point for every 20 passing yards instead of every 25 these are pocket-passer rules. Remember, the QB1 (meaning top-scoring QB) has been the 13.3rd QB drafted, on average, since 2018. We have no idea who those QBs are going to be. And perhaps two or three more will do that, too. Maybe you can project Patrick Mahomes for 40 touchdown passes, and Mahomes alone, but we know someone else is going to throw 40 or 35-plus, even irrespective of the new 17-game context. The 12th QB who is taken very late can easily throw 33 touchdowns and then becomes a key asset. Remember, all QBs have a high-touch floor. Now what about different QB formats? There’s a common misperception that scoring TD passes six points (instead of the more common four or even three) increases the value of the QB position in one-QB leagues. Travis Kelce in this format is more valuable even than in Flex 10. In a Flex 9, you should care way more about drafting a TE you think can be a Top 2 scorer at his position than a WR. What about TE? The less players you have, the more important TE is since the TE requirement is the same regardless. Again, in Flex 10, full-PPR, a WR-dominant draft is more likely to win than a RB-dominant one. A wide-receiver dominant draft is more likely to win but still not more likely than a RB-dominant one. What about Flex 9, full-point PPR? The wide receivers are slightly more valuable. Weekly pickups via waivers are far more plentiful and thus require much less acumen and foresight. This is super boring and also makes the league far more random, and the draft is far less meaningful. You should probably take three in the first five picks. So in Flex 9, half-point PPR, forget all my rules about picking WRs over RBs in the second and third round. 2 and flex WR spots because it’s hard to make lineup decisions when your backups are so close in projected points to your starters. All I’ve done is given myself weekly headaches at the No. “But Mike,” you say, “just keep drafting those great WRs.” Sure but my depth is not as valuable as the comparable starters who other managers are getting after they have secured two top RBs (or at least plausible top RBs). It’s almost like making WR quarterback in that it doesn’t pay to draft them early when there are such screaming values in the middle rounds. That means there are just too many receivers to go around. There are going to be maybe a half dozen teams with TWO top 24 receivers and then every other team has their No. Even if everyone is starting a WR in flex, and they won’t, there are just 36 receivers active in a 12-team league. Here’s the key takeaway if you play Flex 9 and especially when it’s half-point PPR: You have to prioritize RBs. It’s also critically important in draft strategy. This is not just important in auction leagues, where if you have limited lineups the only rational strategy is stars and scrubs, given there is no penalty for overpaying given that $1 and free agent pickups have such high value. My leagues are double flexes and even triple flexes (often with one SuperFlex, meaning a second QB qualifies). The best advice I can give anyone serious about this fake game is to have more starting roster spots and go full-point PPR. (Though of course picking the best players beats structural advantages 100 times out of 100.) In fact, it actually makes it plus-expected value, meaning that doing it will increase your odds of winning. Flex 10 puts “zeroRB,” where you draft at most one RB in the first six rounds (and obviously no QBs), firmly in play. The most common ways to address this are Flex 10, full-PPR leagues. I mean, I hate the out-sized importance of the position in our scoring and in our structural strategies.
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