Breaking Down the Draft Room

 

You are able to enter the draft room before the draft begins -- you have to click ENTER DRAFT for the draft room to load.  Once the screen loads, you will see the above image. There's quite a bit going on here if you are a beginner, so I wanted to break things down.

The box on the far left is your QUEUE. Some managers like to make a list of their favorite players they want to draft and put them here. There is no need to do it, though. You are fine if you are just paying attention to the middle screen of available players.

The box on the far right shows you the players you have picked for your team. It fills up automatically as you choose each player. Pay special attention to "bye." This show the week the player has an off week and is not playing. You do not want to have too many players with the same week.

The players are arranged in order according to their xR rank. What exactly is the xR rank?

  xRank, short for ‘Expert Rank,’ represents Yahoo  Fantasy Football’s aggregate ranking of a player based on the opinions and projections of fantasy football experts curated by the platform. Unlike Average Draft Position (ADP), which reflects the order in which players are actually drafted, xRank provides a theoretical optimal draft order according to expert consensus. It’s a crucial data point because it offers a benchmark against which fantasy managers can assess a player’s potential value relative to market expectations.

What if you want to see the next-best available player at a certain position? This is where the drop-down menu under "Board" comes in handy. Click the drop-down menu, and it will show you different categories of players. In the example above, I chose "Quarterbacks" and I saw that Jalen Hurts on Green Bay was the next best player available. I chose Hurts, and then I clicked "All Available Positions" again to see full list of all available players again.

If you want to see a list of players that all the teams in your league have drafted, click "Board." I may have checked this once or twice during one of my drafts today, but mainly out of curiosity. At the end of the draft is when I usually take a deeper look at the various teams in my league. Each team will also be assigned a draft grade from A to F when the draft is complete.

If you click "Results", this will show you a list of the players you have drafted so far. You can also look at other teams by clicking on other team names in the drop down menu. Again, it's best to stay focused on the available players list since you have to keep an eye on good players coming up at your turn.

"Standings" shows the number of points your team is projected to score during the upcoming fantasy season. In actuality, this often has little or no bearing on who the eventual champion is. Feel free to ignore it until the draft is over.

Keeping all this in mind, also be aware of the draft clock that is ticking down when it is your turn to choose a player. I did a draft this morning and was lucky to have the first overall pick. I took two running backs and two receivers before picking a quarterback. Then I filled the rest of my positions and waited until the last two rounds before drafting a defense and kicker. It is ultimately up to you how to choose your players. Good luck, everyone!