One of the biggest things I’ve learned throughout my fantasy football experience is that we don’t always get things right. Forecasting playing time, depth charts, and future game scripts can be a laughable exercise when looking back at our thoughts heading into a particular NFL season. Injuries are something that are beyond our control yet they play an immense role in how a season plays out.
While we may not be able to predict which particular players are going to get injured, or for how long they may be sidelined with an injury, what we can do is mitigate the loss of said player on our fantasy squads.
Depth is a crucial part of fantasy football roster construction and most typical leagues don’t offer enough of it. Entering 2017 we can create uniquely customizable leagues, but for the sake of this exercise, let’s say we’re in a typical 12-team, PPR league with 16 roster spots. In a league that starts 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex, 1 K, and 1 DEF, we’ve already used up 10 of our 16 roster spots just on starters. Shallow benches should force our hand to take as many dart throws as possible at both the running back and wide receiver position due to the depth of starters there, but drafters fail to implement that strategy with any regularity.
The main reason we should be drafting heavily at both RB and WR is simple supply and demand. In a 12-team league, there are plenty of quarterback options available on the waiver wire. Say half the teams in this hypothetical league decide to pick up a backup quarterback (and provide you a terrific edge in the process). That means there were 18 quarterbacks drafted. You late-round QB it and select Andy Dalton (ADP: QB16). According to Pat Thorman’s Strength of Schedule grid, we can find some usable quarterbacks to provide baseline production without dropping a valuable stash piece like, for example, RB Marlon Mack or WR Kenny Golladay. That potentially leaves us with Dalton and our pick of Carson Wentz (QB19), Carson Palmer (QB20), Blake Bortles (QB21), and Ryan Tannehill (QB22) as a solid group of five options to play the matchups. We can figure out which of these five have the best matchup and utilize the depth available on the waiver wire to our advantage.
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