Part of the art of fantasy football drafts is about balancing your roster in terms of the positions and how many you should draft of each.
While all fantasy football leagues give lineup requirements, few tell you exactly how many quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, kickers, and defenses you should draft.
Things are further complicated when you have to also consider Flex positions and making sure you have adequate coverage at each position.
Let’s take a look at how many players you should be looking to draft at QB, RB, WR, TE, kicker, and DST in a fantasy draft.
How Should You Structure a Fantasy Football Roster?
It is worth noting that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to structuring a fantasy football roster. Yes, there are minimums you should try to hit, but beyond that, there really is not an exact answer.
First and foremost, you need to consider your starting lineup requirements and your roster size. This will vary from league to league and has a major impact on your decisions.
If you need to start three RBs, drafting two isn’t much use. However, if you only need to start one RB, you might get away with only drafting two.
Let’s use a Yahoo or ESPN public league as an example. Their lineup requirements are as follows:
- 1 QB
- 2 RBs
- 2 WRs
- 1 TE
- 1 Flex (RB/WR/TE)
- 1 Kicker
- 1 DST
You then have seven bench spots to fill out the rest of your 16-man roster, and that is where the strategy comes in.
At the bare minimum, you want to draft enough players to fill your starting lineup, so one QB, two RBs, two WRs, one TE, one kicker, and one DST. Then, you want at least one more RB, WR, or TE to fill that flex spot.
Now, for the seven bench spots.
Some people believe you should draft two QBs and some advise you against it strongly. I can see a case for both ways, but I have never seen a case for drafting three QBs in a league where you start one. Therefore, you want a minimum of one QB and a maximum of two.
If you take an elite quarterback early in the draft, you should stick with just the one. In your basic 10 or 12 team league, there will always be quarterbacks on the waiver wire you can add to cover bye weeks.
If you wait until the double-digit rounds to draft a quarterback, it might be advisable to second a second one and play matchups.
For kicker and DST, there is never a case for drafting two at either position. If anything, there’s more of a case to draft none.
You should draft a maximum of one kicker and one defense. If you draft with time to spare before the season, you consider not drafting either a kicker or DST and stashing extra players at other positions, but that is a more advanced theory, and eventually, you will need to add one of each on the waiver wire.
Do not be married to your draft picks at either position. You can and should drop your kicker and defense throughout the season for ones with better matchups as needed.
Tight end can be a position that splits opinions. It is so hard to find 10 or 12 useable players at the position that trying to draft two is both greedy and unnecessary. Not many tight ends are good enough to be used in the Flex spot, so drafting two isn’t helping you most weeks.
The main case for drafting two tight ends would be to wait and get two that you want to decide between each week based on matchups. However, that can be extremely frustrating, as it’s hard to predict the consistency of the tight ends at that level of drafts.
Therefore, the majority of the time, you want to draft one TE, but you can make a case for selecting a second sometimes.
That brings us to RB and WR, and before we start there, let’s add up what we have already.
We have one kicker, one DST, and either one or two QBs and TEs (let’s say three combined, to keep the math simple). That is five of our 16 roster spots, leaving 11 to split between RB and WR.
How you split that up is up to you, but I would always look to go for a minimum of four running backs and five wide receivers, leaving you with two spots to split however you want.
So what does that leave us with in terms of how many players to draft at each position in a standard Yahoo or ESPN fantasy football league?
- 1-2 QBs
- 4-7 RBs
- 4-7 WRs
- 1-2 TEs
- 1 DST
- 1 Kicker
Those numbers are just a guide, and you can tailor them based on your league’s specific settings.
How Many Quarterbacks Should I Draft in Superflex Leagues?
This is perhaps the biggest complication when it comes to roster construction.
When you play in Superflex leagues, you can start two QBs every week, and with their scoring consistency and ceiling, you want to try and do that as much as possible. Therefore, you should aim for a minimum of three QBs in a Superflex league. Ideally, you want three clear starters with another dart throw upside backup as your fourth. Yes, QBs are that valuable.
Of course, that then impacts the rest of your roster makeup. You may have an extra roster spot in a Superflex league, so that gives you a free shot at an extra QB. However, if you want to take three or four, you may have to sacrifice bench depth at RB or WR.
As we said at the top, there is no right way to construct your roster once you hit those minimums, and that is the beauty of fantasy football.
