Putting Together the ULTIMATE Fantasy Football Draft

There is nothing quite like watching your favorite football team winning on a Sunday afternoon while your daily fantasy team is ALSO doing great. We're sure there is a chemical reason in your brain for those feelings but we're only interested in chasing and finding more of them. That is why daily fantasy sports have gotten so popular over the past couple of years. People want to watch football and win money. It's a simple thing. The rise of DRAFT, a daily fantasy site that opts for snake drafting rather than salary cap drafting, has gotten so popular in recent months. Still, winning is only a possible outcome when you know what you are doing. Today we are going to walk you through the steps to winning your first daily fantasy football contest.

Winning Your Daily Fantasy Football Draft
So if you decide to play on the DRAFT platform you are going to have to get used to operating within the confines of a snake draft. A snake draft, simply put, is when you and your opponents take turns selecting your players out of the entire pool of talent. Most DRAFT line ups consist of 5 players: 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR/TE. There is almost infinite variance that can occur between you and your opponents -- and that's a good thing! The more unique your line up is, the better the odds that your team stands alone at the top of the ladder when the dust clears and the boxscore is settled.

Variance
When it comes to daily fantasy football there is no metric more important than variance other than, obviously, points scored. Variance is what sets you apart from the rest of the field. When you pick the same players as the rest of the DFS teams you are doing what is called 'being chalky'. You don't want to do this. You want to pick the surprise gems. Consider Tom Brady and the Patriots vs New Orleans. Everybody is going to be on board for Brady. There's nothing wrong with that except for the fact that you aren't going to 'get ahead' of your opponents when he scores a touchdown. You're just going to read water.

Upside
We said that 'points' are the only thing more important than variance when you are talking daily fantasy football, and that continues to ring true. We like to look for players that have a high upside rather than a safe floor. A guy like wide receiver Jarvis Landry might have a super safe floor thanks to his involvement in the offense, but he won't have the ceiling that a player like Martavis Bryant will have. Bryant will be easier to put on your team and less popular than Jarvis on most weeks. The same goes for QBs like Andy Dalton in comparison to Jay Cutler. Dalton is super safe, Cutler could explode for 300 yards and 3 TDs.

Dependability
You don't want to go overboard on players that are all upside and no stability. It is still incredibly important to field a roster that will score points. Look for players that you know will get plenty of snaps, who have a high involvement in their team's offense, and who are at least mostly healthy. These players are dependable for some level of production.