One of the funnier quirks of our new FOX Fantasy Quick Challenge games, and Fast Draft in particular, is the overconfidence that people seem to have in the teams they draft. It's a natural reaction, I think. When you play a normal commissioner game, you're basically stuck with the same players for an entire season. There's a certain amount of turnover to account for injuries and bye weeks, but for the most part, if you drafted Jay Cutler, he's going to be in the back of your mind the entire year.
With Fast Draft, you get to create a new team every single week -- sometimes even more than once a week, if you're particularly active. The ability to draft players you've been drooling over all year leads to the logical conclusion that your victory is assured. What we often forget though is that other people have that advantage as well. So to be a true Quick Challenge master, you have to learn to quiet that inner voice and learn to draft in a different, more directly results-oriented way.
Let's say you've just joined a 10-team league. That means there are going to be 10 QBs, 20 RBs, 20 WRs, and 10 TEs drafted. What you have to do to really maximize your returns in a Fast Draft game is weigh the point-gaining ability of the player you're looking at against the 10th best player for QBs and TEs and the 20th best player for RBs and WRs. Why? With Fast Draft, you're not making a season-long commitment and there's no benches or hoarding of players involved.
Consider the RBs and QBs and their projected points for Week 10:
| Rank | Player | Proj. Pts | Diff. |
| 1 | Adrian Peterson | 21.46 | +10.05 |
| 2 | Ray Rice | 18.59 | +7.12 |
| 3 | Chris Johnson | 17.95 | +6.48 |
| 4 | Ronnie Brown | 16.63 | +5.24 |
| 5 | Frank Gore | 16.34 | +4.93 |
| 6 | Ricky Williams | 16.18 | +4.77 |
| 7 | Pierre Thomas | 16.02 | +4.61 |
| 8 | Thomas Jones | 15.92 | +4.51 |
| 9 | DeAngelo Williams | 15.63 | +4.22 |
| 10 | Cedric Benson | 14.77 | +3.46 |
| 11 | Steven Jackson | 14.59 | +3.18 |
| 12 | Ryan Grant | 14.56 | +3.15 |
| 13 | Rashard Mendenhall | 13.20 | +1.79 |
| 14 | Maurice Jones-Drew | 13.10 | +1.69 |
| 15 | Knowshon Moreno | 12.98 | +1.57 |
| 16 | Joseph Addai | 12.49 | +1.08 |
| 17 | Tim Hightower | 12.36 | +.95 |
| 18 | Matt Forte | 12.09 | +.68 |
| 19 | Michael Turner | 11.73 | +.32 |
| 20 | Brian Westbrook | 11.41 | 0 |
| Rank | Player | Proj. Pts | Diff. |
| 1 | Drew Brees | 27.98 | +11.92 |
| 2. | Aaron Rodgers | 22.82 | +6.76 |
| 3 | Ben Roethlisberger | 21.17 | +5.11 |
| 4 | Brett Favre | 20.34 | +4.28 |
| 5 | Peyton Manning | 20.31 | +4.25 |
| 6 | Donovan McNabb | 19.75 | +3.69 |
| 7 | Philip Rivers | 19.51 | +3.45 |
| 8 | Joe Flacco | 18.38 | +2.32 |
| 9 | Kurt Warner | 18.33 | +2.27 |
| 10 | Tom Brady | 16.06 | 0 |
It's virtually guaranteed that the 10th-best QB and 20th-best RB are going to get drafted. So while it may appear at first glance, for instance, that drafting Kurt Warner and his 18.33 projected points is a more solid bet than Thomas Jones and his 15.92, that's not actually the case. The number you want to look at is the point differential between those guys and the guy most likely to be drafted last. In Kurt Warner's case, he's only got a +2.27 point differential over 10th place Tom Brady, where Thomas Jones has a whopping +4.51.
That's one case where sound strategy reinforces conventional RB-first fantasy wisdom. Astute statisticians though, will see that RB-first doesn't always work. Let's say you've got the first pick in the draft then. What fantasy nut can resist the urge of taking Adrian Peterson in the first round? A smart one, that's who. Drew Brees has a stunning +11.92 point differential against the 10th-ranked QB, which easily trumps Adrian Peterson's +10.05. (Nevermind the fact that Peterson won't even play in the second half against Detroit, but that's another blog.) If you're going purely on the logical pick, you have to go with the guy who is going to make the biggest difference for your team. And if Brees has a nearly 12-point advantage on the 10th-ranked QB (and a 5-point advantage over the next-highest QB to boot), you have to go with him.
Of course, a lot of this goes out the window when people doubt the statistical veracity of projected stats and base their decision largely on unquantifiable hunches, but I can only help guide your fantasy decisions, not make them for you. Things never turn out as cleanly as they appear in the days leading up to NFL Sunday, but in order to play the odds you have to know them in the first place.
