Fantasy Football Draft Strategy From The 1.11: Ashton Jeanty And Justin Jefferson To Start

ADP Isn’t Gospel … More of a Guide

Drafting at or near the turn comes with a nasty combo of pain. The first attack is obvious. As I mentioned in the intro, the wait until you’re on the clock can feel like an eternity. Sure, use your time wisely. Make plans and backups to the strategy that will certainly go awry. But the delay only confirms the fantasy gods aren’t on your side. And as soon as you feel the excitement of adding a player to your roster, the second hit comes.

The names on the board are irrelevant. Look at all that space. The emptiness separating you from your next selection. Typically, two thoughts run through your head as the clock ticks down. One is about who to click. The other contemplates all of the players you’re forfeiting. A lot can happen in 20 picks. And the temptation to buck fantasy football ADP and “get your guy” becomes a real decision point. However, there’s a cost to our desire.

I pulled every pick from the last four seasons of Underdog’s Best Ball Mania drafts to measure what happens to your roster when a reach occurs. Now, I realize best ball and redraft formats are different animals. But it can serve as a viable proxy to point us to a couple of takeaways.

Unsurprisingly, pulling a player forward costs you. And the earlier you do it, the larger the impact. A reach in Round 1 runs you about two points of season-long roster value for every pick you jump the market. Thankfully, the significance lessens as we get into the middle rounds. Regardless, the area of the draft where we have the most information and has most of our attention carries the most weight.

However, there had to be an exception. I’m looking at millions of picks across thousands of teams. If giving ADP the middle finger was the right move, we’d see it in the aggregate. Unfortunately, the data largely agrees no matter how you slice it.

The key word there? Largely.

There is a specific combination where reaching stops being a cost and turns into an edge. But it only applies to a certain type of skill position.

A major caveat: this behavior only applies in the later rounds. As you saw earlier, the first nine rounds bear the greatest burden. When uncertainty and ambiguity enter our evaluation, ADP becomes more pliable. And the timing of the market working to our benefit should line up with how we collate news throughout August and early September.

Think back to the late spring and early summer of 2025. Collectively, we thought Drake Maye could be a QB1. He showed the mobility at North Carolina. But having a new HC, a retread OC, a 30-plus-year-old WR coming off of an ACL tear and a lackluster receiver corps was enough to depress Maye’s value.

But as we saw more, confidence picked up. And yet, we didn’t react fast enough. Maye was the QB16 in redraft. As a result, gamers with late-Aug drafts and a willingness to bank on talent looked like geniuses as the eventual QB2 fell to them.

Ultimately, the “onesie” positions are where we should try to take swings. Backups with paths to becoming the starters don’t come out of nowhere. There are camp drumbeats every offseason. We just need to listen for their rhythm. Meanwhile, the RBs and WRs, positions requiring injuries or massive shifts in scheme to jump in value, are harder bets to make if you’re looking to pay an even greater price than their draft-day sticker. Besides, we can learn a thing or two by following the wisdom of the crowd.

On the one hand, we (and I’m using the royal “we” here) play with fire about as often as we ever have. A reach might be five picks here or 10 picks there, but they add up by the end. However, the size of the reach has dropped by 20.8% since 2021. We’re getting smarter with more information at our fingertips. Everyone's reaching a little less blindly than before. And the reward for reaching well, instead of just reaching, isn't shrinking with it.

Now, let’s draft!

For reference, here’s the format I chose for our Draft Champion tool:

• 12 teams
• 0.5 PPR
• 1QB, 2RBs, 2WRs, 1TE, 1FLEX, 1K, 1DST

You’re On the Clock With the 1.11

Again, we shouldn’t let the table dictate how we operate. We’ve got the same chance as the other 11 drafters. But the landscape isn’t all too inviting after 10 picks.

If you’re using our fantasy football rankings and tiers to whittle down your options, the rest of the league has wiped out the first two classes of RBs and WRs. I opened up the Draft Assistant and the word “bleak” came to mind. However, preseason action couldn’t have come at a better time. I happened to catch a bit of hope last Thursday.

I recognize the game won’t have any sway on playoff standings come December. But let’s remember where we left Ashton Jeanty at the end of his rookie season.

You could find the Raiders’ RB1 at or near the bottom of every ranking for any rushing efficiency metric. The Boise State product was also sixth in routes run with a double-digit target rate. In any other situation, we’d fight over placing an RB with a similar profile in any of our starter slots. But Jeanty couldn’t overcome his situation.

• (2025) Offensive Points Scored per Game: 14.1, 32nd
• Yards per Drive: 22.9, 31st
• Plays per Game: 55.8, 32nd

The Raiders ran 149 plays in their opponents' red zone in 2025. Half the league hit that mark by Week 13. Combined with the fewest converted third downs, Jeanty’s touches became the empty-calorie variety. How often defenders met him at or behind the line of scrimmage became an oft-recited stat. But the changes at playcaller and QB at least indicate better days are ahead.

I’ll admit that we’re talking about a handful of plays in a matchup we’ll forget about in three weeks. But if the offense came out looking shaky (like a team with a name that rhymes with “Hennessy Hitans”), the reaction would shake up the first two rounds. Luckily, the news and at least one week of “real” action lend credence to the idea that Jeanty’s talent AND situation match his first-round ADP.

The Rest of the Early Rounds From the 1.11

Let’s try to build on what we learned earlier. I’ll set the stage.

We’re three picks into the draft, and I’ve applied a balanced approach. Remember, we already had to wait 20 picks before. But picking up Justin Jefferson wasn’t a tough decision. We weren’t going to find a receiver with a similar usage profile at 35th overall. However, that’s not the case at the 4.02.

You’ll notice a couple of details here. First, the Draft Assistant orders its recommendations by our ranks. However, look about two rows down. Ranks and ADP differ. And in some cases, the gap can put you at risk of reaching.

My intuition is to look at players like Tee Higgins as a positional-scarcity problem. Our pick predictor is already telling me I have a 26% chance of Higgins still being available at his ADP. And you don’t have to twist my arm to add a Bengals receiver to my squad. However, let’s add another side study to our discussion.

• No early reaches: 5.9th place, 57.8% (playoff rate)
• Made only “unnecessary” reaches: 6.4th place, 51.1%
• Made at least one “necessary” reach: 6.5th place, 49.7%

Best-ball drafters who never reached in the first five rounds finished better than half their pods at a 57.8% rate. That same mark plummets as other gamers deviated from ADP. Even picks that felt justified, like our Higgins dilemma above, turned their chances of advancement into a coin flip. As such, keeping an eye on the market should still give us a competitive roster.

Late-Round Lessons For Fantasy Drafts At The 1.11

Let’s look at the roster through nine rounds.

• QB: Lamar Jackson
• RBs: Ashton Jeanty, Bhayshul Tuten
• WRs: Justin Jefferson, Garrett Wilson, Christian Watson, DK Metcalf

Grabbing two RBs in the early rounds allowed me to make WR and QB the strengths of my team. Outside of bye weeks, I won’t have to take Jeanty or Williams out of my lineup. However, I’ve left myself open at TE. And usually, I’d look at who’s available but continue to wait.

However, Jordyn Tyson’s hamstring aggravation presents a buying opportunity. Jake Ferguson will be behind two star WRs. Washington added Stefon Diggs to the mix, lowering Chig Okonkwo down the passing totem pole. Meanwhile, Johnson looks to be moving up within the Saints’ offense after a half-season with his former college teammate.

• Target Share (w/ Shough): 17.4%, 15th
• Route Rate: 73.4%, 14th
• RZ Target Share: 15.8%, 24th

We were already getting fringe-TE1 usage out of Johnson after Tyler Shough took over as the starter. With an offseason to get more acclimated, and now an injury to a legitimate target earner, Johnson profiles as the type of TE whose ADP we can ignore in the later rounds to secure productivity.

Building a Championship Fantasy Football Roster When Drafting From the 1.11

Before we get to the simulator’s evaluation, let’s think through our roster. Despite grabbing a QB early, we not only waited on TE, but pulled one ahead of their ADP. That’s two no-no’s in quick succession. By projected total points, we’re likely behind our leaguemates.

No surprise. But let’s actually look at the squad.

Not only have we kept to our ADP guidelines, but we've also come out of the early rounds with high-end talent at our starter positions. Plus, the reaches in the later rounds should pay dividends. De'Zhaun Stribling has a similar setup to Johnson, as Ricky Pearsall’s injury paves the way for an increased role in his rookie season. And Josh Jacobs’ groin strain puts MarShawn Lloyd in a prime position to capitalize on any missed time. So while the projections might not favor us, the information we’re getting out of camp and preseason can allow us to attack the 1.11 spot and form a strong roster.

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