DRAFT DFS Strategy: 3 Person Snake Draft Advice
Dominate 3 Person Tournaments on Draft: NFL Week 2
One of my favorite formats to play fantasy football throughout the year is Draft.com’s 3-Person tournaments. They’re quick to knock out, really simple, and deal almost exclusively with the top options in offenses. I love that I can manipulate the draft to give myself the biggest edge.
How to Play?
Starting lineups are limited to 1 QB, 2 RBs, and 2 WR/TEs that are chosen through a snake draft. Scoring is standard with .5 PPR. The nice thing about these drafts is the reliance on the projections on Draft. We can use the projections on DailyRoto.com to come up with a strategy that applies game theory to give your team a leg up. There are about 284.8 points to divide among three teams by using the top player projections on DailyRoto this week. It’s a zero-sum game so what benefits your team necessarily hurts the other two. How you draft is critical.
- More Info: DRAFT Review: A Detailed Look at Draft.com
Let’s start with a look at the projections on both sites:
Quarterbacks
| Draft QB | Draft Proj | DailyRoto QB | DailyRoto Proj |
| Drew Brees | 20.6 | Ben Roethlisberger | 21.91 |
| Ben Roethlisberger | 20.1 | Drew Brees | 21.81 |
| Deshaun Watson | 19.6 | Aaron Rodgers | 20.24 |
| Aaron Rodgers | 19.6 | Alex Smith | 19.52 |
| Alex Smith | 19.5 | Jimmy Garoppolo | 19.15 |
Running Backs
| Draft RB | Draft Proj | DailyRoto RB | DailyRoto Proj |
| Todd Gurley | 21.7 | Alvin Kamara | 22.84 |
| Alvin Kamara | 20.3 | Todd Gurley | 20.3 |
| David Johnson | 18.8 | James Conner | 19.15 |
| Melvin Gordon | 18.8 | Ezekiel Elliott | 18.83 |
| Ezekiel Elliott | 14.8 | Melvin Gordon | 18.61 |
| Joe Mixon | 14.7 | Christian McCaffrey | 18.46 |
| Dalvin Cook | 14.6 | David Johnson | 18.01 |
| LeSean McCoy | 14 | Saquon Barkley | 16.22 |
Wide Receiver/ Tight Ends
| Draft WR/TE | Draft Proj | DailyRoto WR/TE | DailyRoto Proj |
| Antonio Brown | 18.6 | Antonio Brown | 21.4 |
| Michael Thomas | 16.9 | Michael Thomas | 20.78 |
| Julio Jones | 16.6 | Julio Jones | 17.36 |
| Keenan Allen | 15.7 | Odell Beckham Jr | 15.71 |
| DeAndre Hopkins | 15.5 | DeAndre Hopkins | 15.39 |
| Rob Gronkowski | 14.9 | Rob Gronkowski | 14.24 |
| Tyreek Hill | 14.5 | Keenan Allen | 13.93 |
| Odell Beckham Jr | 14.3 | Adam Thielen | 13.45 |
*Projections may change throughout the week. These projections were pulled on Sept 11th for the full 16-game slate.
The QB projections are fairly in sync, but some things should stick right out and we’ll start with the RBs. Todd Gurley and Alvin Kamara projections are flip-flopped between Draft and DailyRoto with Kamara projected 2.5 points higher than Gurley. We are going to draft Kamara first even if we have the very first pick although they’re close enough that it’s not a deal breaker to go Gurley first if that’s your preference. The second thing you should notice is James Conner and Christian McCaffrey. Neither are projected in the top-8 RBs per Draft! This is going to be the single biggest inefficiency we can exploit this week. While David Johnson gets drafted too high, we can take Conner or McCaffrey for free.
You can also see a quick drop off between Antonio Brown, Michael Thomas, Julio Jones, and the rest of the receivers. The two sites have Odell Beckham Jr. and Keenan Allen flip-flopped. We want at least one of those top WRs, but we can probably safely draft OBJ late just like we can with Conner and McCaffrey. Let’s take a look at the draft from each position.
Drafting in First Position
I already mentioned Kamara’s projection so we’re going to start with him. The order might change a little bit depending on what the other two teams do, but we can safely assume Gurley, AB, and some combination of Michael Thomas, David Johnson, and/or Melvin Gordon are taken with the next four picks. If you look at the projections on draft, there is a sizable drop off between Melvin Gordon/David Johnson and the rest of the RBs while the four WRs after AB are all projected within 1.5 points of each other. I’m going to assume the drafters in the second and third slot take those RBs, which should let us select Michael Thomas and Julio Jones. Let’s take a look at what this draft may look like:
| You | Team B | Team C |
| Alvin Kamara | Todd Gurley | Antonio Brown |
| Michael Thomas | Melvin Gordon | David Johnson |
| Julio Jones | Keenan Allen | DeAndre Hopkins |
| James Conner | Rob Gronkowski | Ezekiel Elliott |
| Drew Brees | Ben Roethlisberger | Aaron Rodgers |
| DR Proj Pts: 101.94 | DR Proj Pts: 88.99 | DR Proj Pts: 93.87 |
| Draft Proj Pts: 88.4 | Draft Proj Pts: 91.2 | Draft Proj Pts: 87.3 |
Congrats, you have a massive advantage with this lineup. I used LeSean McCoy’s 14.0 points projection from Draft for James Conner. Even with that low projection for Conner, your team is within three points of Team B and you crush everyone using DailyRoto’s projections. If by chance Team B or Team C pick Michael Thomas, you can still select Julio Jones and Odell Beckham Jr. You’ll lose a little bit of your advantage, but not that much.
You may notice that you have three players on New Orleans. If you wanted to change it up a bit, you can start with Gurley and/or choose another QB like Ben Roethlisberger, Philip Rivers, or Alex Smith. It comes down to preference, but I’d rather roll with the three New Orleans players than stack James Conner and Ben Roethlisberger. Your drafts are going to be filled with a lot of players from New Orleans and Pittsburgh since both teams are projected to score more than 28 points this week so some sort of stack is nearly inevitable.
Drafting in Second Position
Drafting in the second position may actually be better than the first position. No matter what you get Gurley or Kamara, but you move up a spot for the second round so your chances of landing Michael Thomas increase. Here’s how the draft should look:
| Team A | You | Team C |
| Todd Gurley | Alvin Kamara | Antonio Brown |
| Melvin Gordon | Michael Thomas | David Johnson |
| Julio Jones | Odell Beckham Jr | Ezekiel Elliott |
| DeAndre Hopkins | Drew Brees | Keenan Allen |
| Ben Roethlisberger | James Conner | Aaron Rodgers |
| DR Proj Pts: 92.42 | DR Proj Pts: 100.29 | DR Proj Pts: 92.41 |
| Draft Proj Pts: 92.7 | Draft Proj Pts: 87.5 | Draft Proj Pts: 87.5 |
Once again, we’re loaded with players from New Orleans. We might have a problem if Team C goes AB/Michael Thomas. If that happens, we take Julio Jones with the second pick. The rest of the draft should remain unchanged.
Drafting in the Third Position
This looks like an ugly place to draft from. Gurley and Kamara will almost certainly be off the board by your pick. The normal draft flow has us selecting Antonio Brown, but we want to draft James Conner. Pittsburgh has a well-established history of feeding the RB even in Bell’s absence, but there have been a couple games in the past where DeAngelo Williams had single-digit carries. With Pittsburgh abandoning the run in those games, Brown was a target monster but we don’t really want to have one player thrive at the expense of our other. There’s the chance both players have great fantasy production like last week, but I’d rather have Michael Thomas and Kamara on my team than Conner and AB. Here are a few different team build options:
| Team A | Team B | You |
| Todd Gurley | Alvin Kamara | Antonio Brown |
| Melvin Gordon | David Johnson | Ezekiel Elliott |
| Michael Thomas | Julio Jones | Odell Beckham Jr |
| DeAndre Hopkins | Keenan Allen | Ben Roethlisberger |
| Drew Brees | Aaron Rodgers | Christian McCaffrey |
| DR Proj Pts: 96.89 | DR Proj Pts: 92.38 | DR Proj Pts: 96.31 |
| Draft Proj Pts: 93.5 | Draft Proj Pts: 91.0 | Draft Proj Pts: 81.8 |
You could start this draft Brown/Gordon as well without much of a drop-off. We avoid the Brown/Conner stack, but look at the projected points. It’s almost a three-person race. From a straight expected value standpoint, this is fine but Draft obviously gets their cut. Their rake means that over time you would lose money with this lineup since you’re only going to win right around 33% of the time. Let’s look at another option:
| Team A | Team B | You |
| Todd Gurley | Alvin Kamara | Ezekiel Elliott |
| David Johnson | Antonio Brown | Michael Thomas |
| Julio Jones | Melvin Gordon | Odell Beckham Jr |
| DeAndre Hopkins | Keenan Allen | Drew Brees |
| Ben Roethlisberger | Aaron Rodgers | James Conner |
| DR Proj Pts: 91.30 | DR Proj Pts: 97.02 | DR Proj Pts: 96.28 |
| Draft Proj Pts: 92.7 | Draft Proj Pts: 93.0 | Draft Proj Pts: 80.6 |
We avoided Brown so we could get the value with Conner, but the result was just about the same. Team B thanks you though. Where it was a virtual tie between you and Team A in the first scenario, now it’s a tie between you and Team B. What if we went WR heavy, but skipped Brown?
| Team A | Team B | You |
| Todd Gurley | Alvin Kamara | Michael Thomas |
| Melvin Gordon | Antonio Brown | Julio Jones |
| Keenan Allen | David Johnson | Drew Brees |
| Rob Gronkowski | DeAndre Hopkins | James Conner |
| Ben Roethlisberger | Aaron Rodgers | Ezekiel Elliott |
| DR Proj Pts: 88.99 | DR Proj Pts: 97.88 | DR Proj Pts: 97.93 |
| Draft Proj Pts: 91.2 | Draft Proj Pts: 92.8 | Draft Proj Pts: 82.9 |
This actually isn’t too bad. We’re in a virtual tie with Team B, but Team A is well behind. This might actually be profitable in the long run. Let’s just go for broke and see what it would look like to stack the Pittsburgh players:
| Team A | Team B | You |
| Todd Gurley | Alvin Kamara | Antonio Brown |
| David Johnson | Julio Jones | Michael Thomas |
| Keenan Allen | Melvin Gordon | Ben Roethlisberger |
| Rob Gronkowski | DeAndre Hopkins | James Conner |
| Drew Brees | Aaron Rodgers | Ezekiel Elliott |
| DR Proj Pts: 88.29 | DR Proj Pts: 94.44 | DR Proj Pts: 102.07 |
| Draft Proj Pts: 91.7 | Draft Proj Pts: 90.8 | Draft Proj Pts: 84.4 |
This we can work with. As ugly as it looked not getting Gurley or Kamara, we still end up with a significant advantage. I already talked about the problem with having Brown and Conner on the same team. It may work out, but I don’t like it. What I would probably do is modify this team just a little bit. I can replace Conner with Christian McCaffrey. I lose less than a point from the DailyRoto projection, but I still have a massive advantage. Notice that the RB order in the above draft doesn’t really matter. By your third pick, both of the other teams will have their two RBs. That’s why you may as well draft your QB of choice. This is also why I said Team C may be a problem if they go WR/WR when we draft in the one or two spot.
Conclusion
You should be able to finagle yourself a nice little advantage by recognizing the value of James Conner, Christian McCaffrey, and OBJ. If you happen to find yourself drafting third, make sure you go WR/WR. Happy hunting.
Good Luck this week
Eric Ludwig | DRAFT DFS Strategy: 3 Person Snake Draft Advice - Gridiron Experts
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