Using Average Draft Position Tiers to Dominate Your Fantasy Football Draft

There are endless varying strategies for fantasy football, and finding one that people will universally accept is not easy. But there is one truth that shines through the jockeying and disagreements.

Nobody wants to draft in a dead zone.

Let's say you're cruising through your 12-team, point-per-reception (PPR) draft, and you're about to pick at 31st overall. You've already snagged A.J. Green and Alshon Jeffery, so you're looking to pivot and snag yourself a running back in the third.

There's only one problem there.

There aren't any running backs who fit that slot.

Your top options on the board are C.J. Anderson and Thomas Rawls, but with either guy, you'd be taking them a good amount above their respective average draft position (ADP). You could stick with receivers, but either way, you're not going to end up feeling great about that third-round pick.

That's what picking in a dead zone is like, and we should be going great lengths to avoid it. Thankfully, by visualizing ADP tiers, we can largely do exactly that.

If we know in advance that there's going to be a lull at running back when we make our third-round pick, we may be more inclined to take one in either the first or second round. Conversely, if we know there's a major drop-off at wide receiver once we hit the fourth round, we may be more comfortable pounding that position hard early on. Regardless, we need to know what these positional ADP tiers look like before we enter our drafts.

Let's go through each position to show what the tiers look like right now. All ADP data comes from Fantasy Football Calculator for 12-team, PPR drafts that took place from August 19th through August 21st.