Fantasy Football Draft Picks: To Trade or Not to Trade?

Trading draft order picks can be an interesting conundrum for many fantasy football players. This short article outlines what it means to trade picks, why people do it, and when it makes sense for you to do so. Of course, this only applies to the traditional snake draft format.

Receiving your fantasy football draft pick is an exciting and also sometimes scary moment. Typically, the league commissioner will arrange for these picks to be determined prior to the draft day in order for the teams to prepare for their first couple of rounds thoroughly. Even if you get your pick a few minutes before the draft begins, a question will arise; should I try to trade my pick?

For those new to playing fantasy football, the draft pick is your position in the drafting order. The order starts at 1 and each team takes turns picking their first player according to draft order Non ppr fantasy football ranking. When the last person in the order picks their player, they then pick again. The order then flows backward to the player that picked first overall. This process repeats. This is known as the classic snake draft format. To provide further clarity, our following example is a 10 team league. The number 1 overall pick will choose 1st, 20th, 21st, and so on.

The question still remains, am I happy with this pick I received or do I want to try to trade? This will all point to your core team desires. How to interpret: do you have a position that you want to put more emphasis than others, or do you want to have a more balanced team? In some leagues, RB is emphasized in the scoring settings, so you may want to focus on getting a strong group of running backs. In some leagues the QB or WR are a highly focused position. Prior to coming to draft day, start understanding the league scoring settings and put together a game plan on what you want your core team to look like.

Strong in Running Backs

This year it seems that the running back position is going to be highly coveted. This means around 12 out of the first 15 picks are going to be the top projected running backs. Out of that group, there are about 4 or 5 that are considered elite and can't miss players. If you want to secure one of those guys, you will need to have the 1-5 pick in the order. A second plan to gain an edge with running backs will be to pick later in the order, such as 8-10. This will give you the ability to pick a solid (but not elite) running back in the first round, and around the turn grab another. This would give you a strong starting squad at RB.

Strong in Receiver

The first option this year could be gain an elite wide receiver in the first round and a solid running back on the turn of the order. This would mean you are off to a balanced start, and could make a lot of sense in some leagues. This plan could happen if you had a mid to late first round pick, such as picks 7-10. If you want to be super loaded at the WR position, it is even possible to grab 2 of the elite receivers in your rounds 1 and 2. This will put your running back situation pretty shaky, but you will all set for WR.