The most overlooked edge in fantasy football drafts is tailoring your strategy to your specific league. Drafting the right players is universal, but it’s also very hard. As much as we all love talking about sleepers and busts, even the best fantasy analysts are wrong almost as often as they are right when it comes to player takes. On the other hand, using an effective strategy for your particular league is a foolproof way to increase your odds of winning a championship.
Within the realm of league settings, managers most commonly focus on the differences between PPR, half-PPR and standard leagues. But one oft-overlooked difference between league formats is much more important: Depth. The difference between a 12-team league with 16 roster spots and an eight-team league with 14 roster spots is massive.
Today, I’m going to focus on those shallower leagues. Whether you play in a six-team league, an eight-team league or even a 10-team league with short benches, these tips are for you. Hopefully, they will put you one step ahead of everyone else in your league who hasn’t adjusted their approach to the shallower format.
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Fantasy Football Shallow League Draft Strategy Tips
What Counts as a Shallow Fantasy Football League?
Before I get into breaking down strategies for shallow leagues, let me establish what counts as a shallow league. As a rule of thumb, a shallow league is any league with fewer than around 90 total players (not counting kickers and defenses) being started in a given week.
This could be a 10-team league with eight roster spots (e.g., 1-QB, 2-RB, 2-WR, 1-TE, 2-Flex), an eight-team league with 10 roster spots or even a 12-team league with seven roster spots. Some of the strategies in this article will be specific to leagues with fewer teams, but most will apply at least partially to any league that fits this rule of thumb.
Pay up for Elite Players at Onsie Positions
In shallow leagues, it is much more effective, often nearly necessary, to draft elite players at the one-off positions, which are traditionally quarterback and tight end. This is true for two main reasons.
First, waiting on these positions can leave you behind the eight-ball in leagues with fewer managers. In a 12-team league, it’s not too bad to wait and select a player like Brock Purdy for your QB1 slot, because many of the teams you face will also have mid-level options. But in an eight-team league, 50% of your competitors are rolling out Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Jayden Daniels or Jalen Hurts. You’re immediately at a disadvantage if you don’t have a truly elite option in your quarterback slot, and the same applies at tight end.
The second reason it is more viable to draft both an elite quarterback and an elite tight end in shallow leagues is the lower opportunity cost. If you spend two early picks on one-off positions in a deep league, you’ll often end up with some truly questionable options filling your all-important Flex spots. In shallow leagues, you either have fewer lineup spots to fill or fewer teams competing to fill those spots, so it’s much easier to find enough viable Flex options even after passing on some early-round backs and receivers
Pass on Boring, High-Floor Veterans
In deep leagues, a boring but stable player like Darnell Mooney can have real value. Mooney is the 121st overall player in FantayPros’ expert consensus rankings (ECR). In shallow leagues, these high-floor, low-ceiling players are worse than useless. They take up your valuable bench slots because they’re “too good to drop,” but never provide any value in return.
Players like Mooney won’t make your lineup in a shallow league unless your roster is so decimated by injuries and byes that you’re already doomed. Even in that worst-case scenario, there will probably be very comparable players on the waiver wire. No one else ever wants to trade for these low-ceiling options, as most managers will have players who are producing similarly on their benches.
While all of this logic applies across all positions, it is especially true for wide receivers. Running backs usually at least have contingent upside, while most managers typically roster only one or two quarterbacks or tight ends anyway (and kickers and defenses are irrelevant). But low-upside WR3/WR4 types are the ultimate roster-cloggers in shallow formats.
Upside, Upside, Upside
Instead of drafting boring wide receivers, stack your bench with high-upside players, even if they have nonexistent floors. This includes running back handcuffs, rookies and second-year players (especially receivers), and anyone in an ambiguous situation. These are the players to target in the later rounds of your shallow drafts.
Targeting these boom-or-bust players is incentivized for two reasons. For one, they are much more likely to force their way into your shallow-league lineup than the aforementioned Darnell Mooney types. For another, it’s less costly to miss on a home run swing when the waiver wire is loaded with valuable players, which it will be in shallow leagues. If the rookie receiver you drafted late is looking like a dud, don’t hesitate to drop them for someone who is looking like a potential breakout star.
Always Try to Trade Up
This applies both to draft picks if your league allows pre-draft trades and to player trades during the season. In shallow leagues, a two-for-one trade will almost always favor the manager receiving the single player. The best teams in shallow leagues will have certified studs at nearly every single position, and those studs are worth their weight in gold.
On the flip side, Flex-level players are much less valuable in shallow leagues. A shallower league means you have a good chance of replacing that mid-level production from the waiver wire, especially if you are making sure to stack your bench with high-upside bets. If you can turn two WR3s, or even two RB2s, into a true WR1 or workhorse RB1, it is worth doing.
If your league becomes wise to this trend (which most leagues will), a good trick can be to make a two-for-one trade seem like a two-for-two by also asking for a low-level bench player from your opponent’s team. If you can frame a trade as both teams upgrading at one position and downgrading at another while still making sure you receive the best player in the deal, your team will benefit in the long run.
Final Thoughts
Every league is different, and not all of these tips will apply to every league. If your leaguemates draft six quarterbacks in the first round, don’t force yourself to join the trend (just make sure you draft a high-upside option like Justin Fields or Drake Maye).
But the number one thing to remember about a shallow league is that the level of competition is always higher. The best teams will be dominant, with few, if any, holes and studs in nearly every position. This means you need to swing for the fences with every decision you make — in the draft, on waivers and in trade talks. Someone in your shallow league is going to have a juggernaut team; do your best to make sure it’s you.
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Ted Chmyz is a fantasy football contributor for FantasyPros.com. Find him on Twitter and Bluesky @Tchmyz for more fantasy content or to ask questions.
