What is the best strategy for a salary cap draft?

Yahoo Sports Andy Behrens is joined by Rotoworld's Kate Magdzuik to discuss the best strategies when drafting in a salary cap league. Subscribe to the Yahoo Fantasy Football Forecast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Video Transcript

ANDY BEHRENS: Kind of takes me to one of my-- I don't know. I put together a list of things that I think are-- maybe they're not guiding principles for salary cap drafts. But they're things that I generally like to do.

And first item on the list for me is to try to build a roster that is impossible to construct in a snake draft, by which I mean I want to get two guys who can deliver first round value. And maybe I want to get two more guys who are second or third round values. Right. It's just the sort of team that, unless you're in like a hometown draft and people aren't very sharp, there's no way you could possibly draft it.

I think that's the kind of thing that I generally like to do. And I have a take on football drafts that I don't know if everybody else shares because I always see people in salary cap setups like this clearly try to save a bunch of money for the end game. And they want late leverage in this sort of format.

For me, it just doesn't matter at all in football. And I just don't care about the difference between the $2 guys and the $1 guys. I don't know. What is your approach? Did you guys kind of save the hammer for very late in the bidding, or do you-- I mean, the way that I almost always end these things is my last five guys are $1 each.

KATE MAGDZIUK: That was exactly how we approached it. I think the biggest takeaway for us was to walk away from this draft with players that we have a lot of trust in. Like you said, sort of maximize your value in drafting, as many of these running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, whatever position you're looking at-- getting as many of those earlier round guys at a value price. So we went for James Conner, Mark Ingram-- all of these sort of mid-tier guys that you know necessarily-- you don't have to pay the Zeke premium for, but that--

ANDY BEHRENS: Right.

KATE MAGDZIUK: --can still return tons of value in redraft leagues. I think that was sort of our approach. Who are the heavy hitters that we can acquire for lower draft capital.

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