Fantasy football: 5 winning strategies to ace your draft for 2018
By Peter Panacy
No. 2: Players on a Bad Team Can Win Fantasy Football Championships
Normally, it’s always a good method to draft the offense over the player. What I mean is, if your choice comes down to two relatively equal players at one position, go with the player surrounded by the better offense.
Just don’t let this strategy handicap you.
There are such things as good players on bad teams. You would have been a fool to rely on anyone from the Cleveland Browns’ 2017 offense last year. But it would have been a genius move to grab running back Duke Johnson (10.06 ADP in 2017) in the later rounds of the draft.
While Johnson wasn’t a starting runner, slated behind No. 1 tailback Isaiah Crowell, the former did have 348 rushing yards with a team-high 693 receiving yards, totaling 1,041 yards from scrimmage and seven all-purpose touchdowns.
That’s easily into RB1 status right there.
Johnson probably won’t put up those gaudy numbers this season, particularly with Bradley Chubb and Carlos Hyde now in the mix in Cleveland. But you should understand the point.
Offenses like those of the Browns, Indianapolis Colts, Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins are all going to have low-name contributors you’ll want to watch for late on draft day.
Tack on the previously noted split/attempt/target strategies, and you can find the late-round gems vital to winning a fantasy football championship.