What Is The Best Fantasy Football Draft Strategy This Year?

So I’m commish of my fantasy football league with all my buddies and last night we had the draft lottery (it took a lot for me to figure out how to use Periscope and put it live on Twitter for them to watch). It’s a 14 team league and I drew my name at pick #7, right smack in the middle, worst pick you can get. So usually I pour over fantasy columns, rankings, tweets etc. I listen to podcasts and do mock drafts, but I always kind of come back to the fact that you can’t script it and you just need to go with your gut and how the draft shakes itself out.

But there definitely is a lot of research and some guidelines I try to follow. Every year there is a new trend that the “experts” want to tell you about, for example this year everyone is saying go wide receiver early. But some contrarian will tell you go for running back, or Gronk, or an elite QB. Some idiots even tell you to draft a defense or kicker before the last two rounds (NEVER do that).

I’ve tried a lot of different approaches in past years but my question is where to go this year with that #7 pick. I drafted at #6 last year, took Gronk, and won it all. I usually wait on running backs and QBs and go after the wideouts. From what I’m seeing though, the guys that might be available to me are DeAndre Hopkins, Devonta Freeman, Gronk, Ezekiel Elliot, Dez Bryant and on and on. So do I go back to the well and take Gronk? Do I try to nab a guy like Hopkins who is great but had Osweiler throwing to him and no one to take the pressure off? How about Dez coming off injury with a fragile/fat Tony Romo throwing to him? Or do I go running back which is so far off what usually works for me?

I think the bet I’ll make is on a pass catcher unless something crazy happens. The list of elite running backs is short and it’s so much easier for one to not work out. You want a rock solid first couple picks. I’ll have to start doing a bunch of mocks from the #7 pick on ESPN and try a bunch of things. I don’t think there is an exact right way to win, but there are certainly ways to lose.

*Being a fantasy “expert” is my dream job because it’s basically being a weather man. You can’t predict it and you could be dead wrong a lot.