SuperFlex Draft Strategy Guide
Reading the Room:
This is the first, and most important piece of advice I can give for SuperFlex (I’ll call SF from now on) leagues. You need to read the room. Hopefully you’ve been in the league for a few years and can go back and review the draft history over the years. That’ll give you fantastic insights into how people are going to approach the QB position. But if you’re new to the league, or if this is the leagues first year, then you’ll have to adapt on the fly!
Every single SF draft is different. Sometimes QB’s start flying off the board in round 1…whereas sometimes it takes them a round or two to really get going. With this difference comes the most common question people have about SF leagues. Should I take QB early if people are waiting too long? And the opposite. Should I take the skill position value if people are taking QB’s way earlier than they should? I’ll try to answer both of these questions below.
Should I take QB early if people are waiting too long?
I think one is a resounding yes. And I’m confident in that answer. Sometimes people will get into a game of chicken, seeing who wants to start the QB run. Maybe Allen/Mahomes/Herbert go where they should…but then everyone is enamored with the early round RB’s and WR’s. So you’re sitting there at the 2.09 wondering why the heck only 3 QB’s have come off the board!
The simple answer is that SF information is more scarce around the industry. Very few sites specialize in this format, and no one puts SF first when producing content. So people listen to regular podcasts and start to apply those strategies to SF leagues. And for a moment, they let QB slip.
This is when you take advantage! Assume that you’ll be starting 2 QB’s every single week, which means you should absolutely be leaving your draft with 3 QB’s you feel good about. And if that’s my advice to every single team in your 10-12 team league (you can afford to be more passive in 8 team leagues)…then you don’t need to be a math major to see that the position is going to dry up quickly. There is GOING to be a run when people panic…and boy do people panic in SF leagues! So instead of falling in line with everyone else…take QB value when it presents itself. You’ll still get perfectly good value at RB and WR in the middle rounds.
Should I take the skill position value if people are taking QB’s way earlier than they should?
This answer is less obvious to me. Everything in me wants to say yes…since value is value. People will stop taking QB eventually, and if they gift you Justin Jefferson, Ja’Marr Chase and Deebo Samuel…then the polite thing to do is say thank you. But that’s risky because of what I talked about above. I’d make sure you leave the draft with 3 QB’s you feel good about…and if you keep passing on QB…then the pool of players you’re choosing from is going to be thin. You can technically still get Cousins and Matt Ryan in rounds 4/5 (at least using July ADP’s) but what if there’s a massive run? Can you really survive every week using Fields and Wentz…going up against Joe Burrow and Dak Prescott? There comes a time where it’s just not worth taking the value.
This is where reading the room becomes important to me. This season there’s a fantastic group of mid round (in redraft leagues) QB’s. This is the round 6-9 QB’s that I talk a lot about on the YouTube Channel. The group consists of (loosely) Lamar, Kyler, Hurts, Dak, Wilson, Stafford, Rodgers, Brady, Lance, Carr, Cousins. Some go in the late 5th, and Carr/Cousins can slip beyond the 9th…but this is the group of QB’s I’m talking about when I say the mid round QB’s. Personally…I’d want two from this group in SF. And that probably means you need to spend two of your first 4 pick to get them. And if people are grabbing them left and right…you better be getting insane RB/WR value to skip out on this range entirely. I like to think that we’re good enough at drafting to find value at skill players the rest of the way through the draft. But once QB dries up…that’s it! There’s no sneaky pick at the QB 40 spot! Once they’re gone, they’re gone.
So honestly, my answer to both of these questions is to draft QB early! I don’t think you need to take Allen/Mahomes/Herbert…and I might lean towards drafting a RB in round 1. But make it a point to attack mid round QB’s (my preference is two) no matter when that happens. If people are avoiding QB for some reason, grab two incredible options in rounds 2 and 3. If they’re going QB heavy, then make sure you get two mid-range QB’s, and we’ll figure out what to do at the other positions later in the draft. Again, most of the time this means you’d need to take 2 QB’s in the first 4 rounds. Though if you play the ADP game (figuring out who’s likely to get drafted so you can maximize the value you’re getting) then you might be able to grab the last mid round QB in round 5.
Do I really need 3 QB’s? Can’t I start anyone in the SF spot?
I suppose you’re right. Technically you can start any player in the SF spot. But you should really plan on always having 2 starting QB’s. They just have such an incredible floor, and many (especially the mobile ones) have a ceiling that almost no skill player can reach. Even the QB 20 last season scored 15 PPG, with the QB 32 scoring 13 PPG. So the QB 32 is basically David Montgomery! Unless you have an insane roster, you’re starting any QB you have each week. That’s why drafting with that assumption is important. It’ll force you to realize that you need 3 QB’s (byes and tough matchups will cause you to rotate in that third QB. Also you might just miss on one of them and draft someone that’s worse than you thought they’d be), and not take too many chances looking for value.
What should I do after getting two mid round QB’s?
This is the point where I’d attack RB and WR (and maybe TE if there’s a good value among the top 5 TE’s). There’s likely going to be a lull for a bit after this range is gone, as everyone will notice how thin they are at the skill positions. And since the next tier of QB is all pretty much the same, there’s no reason to be first in drafting this group. This also works to your advantage because you can assume that this 3rd QB is going to be started much less than the other two. So you can afford to be patient and wait for the best possible value. I always recommend looking at the rankings, but some I’d recommend later are Daniel Jones, Mac Jones, Matt Ryan, Jared Goff and Davis Mills.
Example teams
Here are some example teams that you could draft from different areas of the draft.
