2025 Fantasy Football Draft Strategies

The gridiron isn’t the only place to catch exciting football action and competition: Many people go head-to-head every week with their friends, family or complete strangers in fantasy football, too.

If you’re new to fantasy football or you just can’t seem to get the edge you need to come out of your fantasy league victorious, here’s how you can catch up to the pros on draft day and make sure you have a solid roster for the season.

What some see as just a list of all the players on an NFL roster, others see as positional hierarchy, value picks, sleepers and something called Zero RB. Here’s a complete breakdown of all of the draft strategies at your disposal, so that you can find which one works best for your draft position.

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Fantasy Football Draft Strategies

No matter your draft position, you can find a draft strategy that gives you top-tier roster construction in an auction draft or standard snake draft. The key is finding the right value, at the right position, at the right time.

Here are the strategies we’ll explore:

• Zero Running Back
• Hero Running Back
• Robust Running Back
• Late Round Quarterback
• Value-Based Drafting
• Positional Scarcity
• Super Flex (2 Quarterback)

Not sure which is the best? Join a few mock drafts and try them out.

Zero Running Back Strategy: The Art of Patience

One of the classic fantasy football drafting strategies is Zero Running Back. This might sound like you are punting on the position altogether, but really, it’s about avoiding drafting RBs in the early rounds of the draft.

Instead, concentrate on wide receivers, tight ends and even quarterbacks if your pick allows for it. The first RB isn’t on your squad until the middle rounds.

How Zero RB Works

Since you’re passing on the best players at a key position on purpose, loading up on elite wide receivers and tight ends early in the draft is crucial to making this strategy worth it. These players are more consistent and less injury-prone. There’s almost always someone on the roster who will take over as RB1. It’s a lot harder to find someone deeper in the depth chart to take over as a true WR1 or TE1 in terms of fantasy points.

A crucial part of the prep is identifying which RBs are likely to be there in the middle to late rounds. These are players that fall through the cracks, and it’s going to require some pre-draft research to identify which RBs have the potential for breakout seasons or bye-week upside.

Season-Long Commitment

Zero running back is also a draft strategy that carries through the entire fantasy league season. It requires a lot of vigilance on the waiver wire, as that week four waiver wire pick up could end up being the RB1 that you didn’t draft in the second round.

Injuries to starting RBs might increase the workload of backfield mates, or even someone getting pulled off the practice squad and thrust into a position of glory.

While you’re not focusing on the star-studded running backs early, it is important to stack your bench with running backs. This allows you to potentially have one of many running backs that could break out if the situation breaks just right.

Why Zero RB Works

The Zero running back strategy is a classic fantasy football draft strategy for several key reasons:

• Injury Risk Reduction: Running backs take more hits than any other position and thus get hurt more often. If you’re investing top draft picks in wide receivers or tight ends, you’re less likely to see those top draft picks miss time with injury.
• Consistency: Wide receivers and tight ends tend to score more fantasy points consistently week to week than running backs.
• Positional Advantage: With elite WRs and an elite TE on your team, you’re denying other players access to these positions that have less injury risk and put you in a better position to exploit matchups.
• Value Over Risk: Running back tends to be a really volatile position, so if you hit on even just one of those mid-to-late round picks or a waiver wire pickup, it’s more of a hopeful handcuff strategy rather than a hope-and-pray on an early round draft pick.

The Zero RB strategy is not a set-it-and-forget-it approach. It requires you to be on top of the waiver wire and know which players are in the best positions to succeed, even if they’re not at the top of their team’s depth chart.

Hero Running Back Strategy: The Opposite Approach

On the other side of the coin is the Hero RB draft strategy. This involves selecting one dominant, highly-drafted running back early, then holding off on more running back selections until the later rounds.

Executing Hero RB Successfully

To make sure this strategy works, you’ve got to draft an elite workhorse running back in the first round. These are players without much competition in the backfield who have a track record of high performance and are often the nucleus of their teams, whether that be running the ball or catching the ball. Think Saquon Barkley, Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs.

Once you’ve got your top-tier running back, it’s time to shift focus to high-volume, high-upside wide receivers and tight ends for the next few rounds. You want to build a strong receiving corps across the board.

Finding Your RB2 and Beyond

Once you’ve secured that top-tier running back and built out your receiving corps, you can focus on your RB2 in the late rounds when you’re looking for value. These might be running backs that are in timeshares or running behind an elite offensive line. These players also have a clear shot at top of the depth chart should injury or poor performance hit the starter.

The Hero Running Back strategy means being a little more patient at quarterback and ensuring you’ve got depth at the running back and wide receiver positions. While there are elite quarterbacks that set themselves apart, you can likely end up with a top 10 quarterback by drafting one in the middle or later rounds.

Extra bonus points if you’re able to find a quarterback that you can stack with a teammate, either a wide receiver, a tight end or even your hero running back.

Benefits of Hero RB

• Maximize Elite Talent: If you grab an elite running back in the first round, you’ve likely got a consistent point scorer on your roster. These are three-down players who contribute on the ground and in the air. If you’re in a half-PPR or PPR league, they provide extra upside by being a receiving threat in the backfield.
• The Talent Gap: The gap between top and second-tier running backs is much bigger than between top and second-tier wide receivers. By securing these high-scoring running backs early, you can still capitalize on wide receivers that have high floors with upside in the middle to late rounds. 
• Flexibility in Later Rounds: By getting a top-tier running back, you can now exclusively target players with breakout potential across the board. Rather than forcing yourself to focus on a position in the middle to late rounds, you’re focused more on the overarching promise of finding a gem in those middle rounds.

Robust Running Back Strategy: All-In on the Position

The robust running back strategy is about taking those previous two strategies and throwing them out the window. This approach prioritizes running backs early and often in the draft. That means first filling running back slots and even your flex spots with running backs before taking any other positions.

Why Go Robust RB?

• Scarcity of Elite Talent: With so much receiving talent in the NFL, you can find quality wide receivers in the middle to late rounds who can be weekly starters for you. Elite running backs, however, are much harder to find later in the draft and even harder to find from a fantasy perspective because of the increase in timeshare situations designed to help keep players fresher longer.
• Insurance Against Injury: While running backs face a higher risk of injuries, you’ve now gone beyond one or two and instead have three, maybe four, good-to-great running backs that can hold your team down if one of those gets hurt.
• Maximum Position Strength: Loading up early creates a competitive advantage at the most volatile fantasy position.

Some Research Required

• Draft Timing Knowledge: This strategy requires research to know where a running back might fall in the draft based on rankings from various platforms. You can see where long stretches of quality running backs are available or whether there will be a dearth of talent. Don’t fall into those dead zones in need of a running back.
• PPR Considerations: The robust running back strategy becomes much more effective in PPR or half-PPR leagues where pass catchers, either split out wide or in the backfield, have slightly higher value.

Late Round QB Strategy: Quality Depth Over Elite Talent

Typically, in fantasy football, three or four quarterbacks are head and shoulders above the rest, leaving the next 10 really tightly grouped. You won’t typically find a significant difference in average point totals between QB5 and QB15.

These might be players like Jared Goff, Jordan Love, or Brock Purdy who aren’t consistently putting up elite levels of fantasy points, but they do allow you to get a solid option at quarterback. Ideally, you can pair them with a running back, wide receiver, or tight end stack.

Now, if you find yourself in a position to draft a Josh Allen, a Jalen Hurts or a Lamar Jackson, you might want to take it. But if those quarterbacks are gone and there’s plenty of other talented players on the board, it could be worth waiting until later in the draft to fill the QB spot to focus on other positions.

The Late Round QB Risks

• Inferior Talent: This strategy risks acquiring inferior talent at QB, making it particularly important to assess and avoid other variables that might make a late-round quarterback even more volatile.
• Red Flags: Factors that could slow a quarterback’s success and upend your strategy include whether they’re a rookie, just coming off an injury, or dealing with a new coach and playbook. 

Positional Scarcity Strategy: Target the Rare Gems

Basically, this means starting out by grabbing a top tight end and quarterback, which have fewer elite options than running backs and receivers.

The High-Risk, High-Reward Approach

• Consistent Edge Potential: You can have a top player in a position without a lot of elite talent or opportunity, which can give you a consistent edge over opponents who wait too long at these positions.
• Draft Well Everywhere Else: With high value in those scarce positions comes the need to draft well everywhere else to ensure a strong team overall.
• Injury Devastation: If one of those scarce position players gets injured, that can be a real blow to your team since quality replacements are limited.
• Over-Emphasis Danger: You might also put too much emphasis on these scarce positions, which might end up harming you in other positions where depth and talent are more readily available.
• Research Requirements: It requires more research to understand player performance, their injury history and the team dynamics and how that impacts fantasy production.

Staying Flexible

This strategy requires you to be nimble because there are so few options at quarterback and tight end, for instance. Suppose they all go before your draft pick, even though it was your strategy to jump on positional scarcity. In that case, you might have to move to a more standard draft strategy of taking the best player available or pivoting to Zero, Hero, or Robust RB strategies. 

Value-Based Drafting Strategy: The Numbers Game

Value-based drafting focuses on player value relative to others at the same position. Instead of focusing on scarcity or recent performance, value-based drafting assigns a numerical value to each player based on their projected fantasy points above a replacement-level player at the same position. This can help you identify undervalued players and make more strategic draft choices.

Why Value-Based Drafting Works

• Objective Decision Making: This approach helps reduce biases and makes your drafting decisions more objective, removing emotion and gut feelings from the equation.
• League Setting Adaptability: Player values should be adjusted based on your league rules and scoring, so no matter if you have PPR, half-PPR or standard scoring, this is a strategy that can work for you.
• Maximum Value Extraction: If done well with accurate player projections, it’s a way to make sure that every pick maximizes your team’s overall strength.

The Investment Required

The downside is that it’s really data-intensive, so if you’re just getting into fantasy football or you want to try out some of these other formats with less upfront work, value-based drafting might not be for you. But if you’re an analytics wizard, it’s right up your alley. This strategy requires up-to-the-moment projections to identify who the best players to draft are.

Super Flex Strategy: The Two-QB Revolution

Super Flex is a league format with two starting lineup spots for quarterbacks. In most standard leagues, you can afford to wait on a quarterback. Maybe you want to get that top-tier guy, but if you miss out on them, you can wait until mid-to-late rounds to get your starter. That goes out the window in a Super Flex league, where QBs shoot straight to the top of the early rounds on most draft boards.

Quarterback Scarcity Changes Everything

• Scarcity Creates Premium Value: With two starting quarterback positions, the responsibility becomes finding your quarterbacks early in the draft. You should not hesitate to draft quarterbacks right out of the gate.
• Math Works Against You: There are 32 NFL teams and 10+ teams in most fantasy leagues. That means roughly three quarterbacks per team, if you’re lucky. You can give yourself a leg up by drafting more and creating scarcity for other teams.
• Early and Often Approach: You should be looking at up to four QBs in a league of 10 teams or more, getting the best available quarterback early and perhaps taking the next available quarterback with your next pick.

The QB Hoarding Advantage

• Insurance Policy: Having more quarterbacks than you need provides protection against injury and bye weeks in a format where QB scarcity is extreme.
• Trade Leverage: It’s a strong trade asset if you ever need to make a deal. If another team loses a QB for whatever reason, you now hold a very valuable piece for them to maintain competitiveness or even a chance to win.
• Market Control: In a Super Flex league, quarterbacks are premium assets and controlling more of the limited supply gives you significant strategic advantages.

Evaluating QB Value in Super Flex

Is this QB on a successful team always hovering around the endzone? Is it a team that throws throughout the game? Is it a team that is going to find themselves behind, and so will need their quarterback to try and make big plays? Does a particular QB hoof it themselves, amassing loads of rushing yards and rush TDs? When you miss out on the obvious talents, these are the questions to ask yourself when finding the right QBs.

Finding Your Perfect Strategy

Each of these fantasy football drafting strategies has merit. The right one depends on a combination of your draft position, scoring formats and risk tolerance. The key is understanding the philosophy behind each approach and executing it consistently throughout your draft.

Whether you go Zero RB for consistency and injury mitigation, Hero RB for that elite foundation piece, or Robust RB for maximum insurance, success comes from preparation, research and staying true to your chosen strategy.

Remember, fantasy football drafts are won in the preparation phase. Study the depth charts, understand the coaching philosophies and always be ready to adapt when opportunity presents itself during your draft.

Give yourself a leg up with mock drafts that mix up your draft order so you can be prepared for anything come draft day.

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