Fantasy Football Draft Strategy 2024: How To Navigate TE Premium Leagues
Here at Fantasy Alarm, we’ve been known to take the tight end position kind of seriously. The Brotherhood of Tight End Whisperers has a reputation to uphold, after all. So, you better believe we play fantasy football over at FFPC, which is not only the top high-stakes platform – it’s tight end premium!
If you thought finding breakout tight ends like Sam LaPorta or Trey McBride created leverage in your hometown league, just imagine how RICH you’d be if you were playing over on FFPC?
Yes, the scoring over there is full-point PPR for wide receivers, quarterbacks, running backs and kickers, but it’s 1.5 for tight ends. That creates an even more unique positional advantage that we can take advantage of.
And you can take advantage even further by using promo code ALARM when you sign up at MyFFPC.com, where they will give you $25 in bonus credits when you deposit $35 or more! Now, let’s dig into the tight end premium tips and tricks so that you can crush it this year and put “2024 FFPC Main Event Champion” in your Twitter/X bio this year!
2024 Fantasy Draft Strategy: Make A List Of Your “Standalone” Tier
We’ve got a little strategy we use called Yin & Yang Tight End – which has served us well for years now. This year’s rankings and write-up are available in the Fantasy Alarm 2024 Fantasy Football Draft Guide now, but the short and sweet of the strategy is this…
First, you make a list of the tight ends you believe are “elite”. If you get one of them, you only need to worry about bye weeks. If we don’t get one, we are waiting and drafting TWO. A “safe” guy to start early (Yin) along with the highest risk, highest reward options (Yang).
In this format, you can keep drafting tight ends even if you do get an elite one because the bonus makes them flexworthy. But it’s still important to make that standalone list. In virtually every tight end premium draft I’ve done, the flow is almost always the same.
Elite tight ends are generally valued properly. Then, the mid-tier tight ends are often overdrafted. Then, after the top 15 or so, the tight end rush slows down – and there is BIG value to be had here.
For us, our “Standalone” group of tight ends can be found in the draft guide. That will help you make your own list. Right now on FFPC, there are about seven tight ends going in the top ~40 or so picks and we honestly don’t mind any of them if you get a good price.
If you get one of those guys, it really takes the pressure off and allows you to focus later on upside only. If you have an elite tight end, who cares about the floor with your bench TE? They’re only cracking the lineup at flex, so they need to hit big.
2024 Fantasy Draft Strategy: AVOID The Middle Tier
The “Fear of Missing Out” (FOMOS) is human nature. And you can FEEL it when it forces you to make a mistake in your fantasy drafts. It’s especially bad at quarterback and tight end after the elite tier gets taken. And then you draft a player that you don’t even like for one reason: because everyone else has one and you need one. Stop doing that.
Just like going “Zero RB”, it’s okay to skip the entire tight end dead zone. We’ll find the breakouts. This is where fantasy ADP needs to be abandoned. Because the entire community is making this mistake, chasing last year with guys like T.J. Hockenson, Cole Kmet or Dalton Schultz. Conditions have changed drastically for all of these players – yet folks that don’t care about the tight end position just draft them because they had them last year and it was okay.
And, once that ADP is established, it’s so hard for it to change. Don’t fall for that trap. The guys I’m fading are here in the guide but it’s basically all the guys being taken from TE9-TE14 or so in most drafts. Don’t worry about it.
2024 Fantasy Draft Strategy: CIRCLE BACK For Upside
We have the FFPC ADP up over on Fantasy Alarm along with ADP for a number of different sites. It keeps us plugged in. You’ll notice that you have the top couple of tiers of guys going top 40. Then you have that group in the middle that are being taken way before their ADP on non-tight end premium sites, despite not offering a huge advantage vs. tight ends being taken later.
From round 9 to round 13, you basically only have five tight ends taken – because every team already has one or even two tight ends and they don’t think they need anymore. THIS is where there is value to be had.
In our FREE article, What Makes An Elite Tight End, we break down what goes into high-end tight end production. But the number one cheat code is this: find guys who can be a top two target on their team.
Every tight end in full PPR last year was a top two target on their team. That’s not the case every year, but that’s often the best way to find both upside and consistency. And one thing that has been the case every year has been a late breakout tight end. For seven straight years now, a tight end has come from outside the top 17 in ADP to finish top five.
In these rounds, you need to use your imagination. If we can’t get certainty with the elite guys early, let’s lean into uncertainty late. Who will be the top two targets on teams like the Patriots, Steelers, Chargers, Broncos, Saints, Colts, Giants and Commanders? Some of those teams could be a straight-up trainwreck, but a lot of folks thought that the Texans would be a trainwreck last year.
The Cardinals were kind of a mess, but that allowed Trey McBride to get a million targets. I shared my picks in the Draft Guide this year in our Yin & Yang Tight End article, but even I don’t quite know for sure. But I would not be shocked if one of those uncertain teams there had a tight end that helped win some leagues this year. Especially on tight end premium sites like FFPC.