It’s really difficult to get TWO top-10 QBs in a SuperFlex auction league–especially one with QB-premium scoring–and still have a decent team behind them.
It’s also really difficult to get THREE top-10 RBs in a SuperFlex auction league–especially one with RB-premium scoring–and still have a decent team around them.
But to do BOTH of those things in the SAME SuperFlex auction league with premium QB and RB scoring? Well, your name must be Axe Elf.
Granted, it required a non-traditional scoring system–as Axe Elf is significantly better at these kinds of fantasy football Rubik’s cubes than your typical player–but still. Here are the deets on the stats:
Completed Pass: 1 pt
Incomplete Pass: -1 pt
Passing Yards: 25 yards per pt, 1 pt at 300 yds, 2 pts at 350 yds, 3 pts at 400 yds
Passing TD: 4 pts
Interception: -1 pt
Pick Six Thrown: -4 pts
40+ Yard Completion: 1 pt
40+ Yard TD Pass: 2 pts
Passing 1st Down: 1 pt
Rushing Attempt: 1 pt
Rushing Yards: 10 yards per pt, 1 pt at 100 yds, 2 pts at 150 yards, 3 pts at 200 yds
Rushing TD: 6 pts
40+ Yard Run: 1 pt
40+ yard TD Run: 2 pts
Rushing 1st Down: 1 pt
Reception: 1 pt
Receiving Yards: 10 yards per pt, 1 pt at 100 yds, 2 pts at 150 yards, 3 pts at 200 yds
Receiving TD: 6 pts
40+ Yard Reception: 1 pt
40+ Yard TD Reception: 2 pts
Receiving 1st Down: 1 pt
Kick/Punt Return TD: 6 pts
Offensive Fumble Return TD: 6 pts
2 Pt Conversion: 2 pts
Fumble Lost: -2 pts
Kickers get typical 3/4/5 FG-1 PAT scoring, with -3/-2/-1 for missed FGs inside 20/30/40 yards (but nothing for a missed PAT, for some reason), so they’re even less valuable than usual–there were only 2 points per week difference (35 total points) between the #20 K and the #1 K in the league last year–so streaming is the way to go here.
Defensive scoring is a little inflated, due to extra 1 pt bonuses for 4th down stops, tackles for loss, and 3-and-outs forced–in addition to all the typical DST scoring categories (including scales for points allowed and yards allowed). So Defenses score about twice as many points as Kickers–but again, the difference between the #5 DST and the #20 DST last year was about 3 pts per week, so streaming seems to be the rational option here as well.
Lineup requirements: 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex, 1 SuperFlex, 1 K, 1D (6 Bench, 2 IR)
And perhaps most helpful of all, it was only a 10 team league–and a standard $200 budget.
TL;DR: Elite QBs rule in this league, followed closely by workhorse RBs. WRs, and especially TEs, are poop, relatively speaking, despite the shiny full-PPR scoring.
I went in loaded for bear and ready to execute an extreme “Studs & Scrubs” strategy–I was willing to blow most of my budget (maybe down to my last $25-$30, anyway) on Mahomes, Bijan, and Derrick Henry–and then just hope that everybody else blows their wads on QBs and RBs too, leaving a few quality WRs in the dollar store for me to plug in.
I kinda wasn’t prepared for the Mahomes feeding frenzy on the very first nomination, though. I mean, I knew he’d go for at least $40. I was hoping I could get him for less than $50. When he went north of $55, I just couldn’t bring myself to hamstring my team like that, right off the bat, so for the first time this season, I have a managed league without Patrick Mahomes as my QB.
But I had done my homework. I knew that under this scoring system last year, Geno Smith was the QB5, and Daniel Jones was the QB7 (basically with poop for WRs), so I had hoped to get one of them to pair with Mahomes–but now that Mahomes was off the table, they became my two primary QB targets. I got a little unlucky in that Daniel Jones came out early, with the 15th nomination, so I ended up paying the 10th-highest price for a QB for Jones at $34. QBs continued to fly off the board at a furious pace, but Geno Smith lasted three more rounds, until nomination #45, where I got him for $28, the 12th-highest price paid for a QB. Other QBs going in that round were Deshaun Watson at $36 and Russell Wilson at $27.
Essentially, I got both my top 10 QBs for the price of Mahomes.
My own nomination in the first round at #6 (waivers reverse draft order–woohoo!) was Rhamondre Stevenson, which turned to be a genius nom in retrospect. Stevenson, of course, is currently the most threatened by a potential Dalvin Cook signing, yet he was sold for $33–which turned out to be tied for the 8th-highest price paid for a RB in the draft–and he may not even be starting! LOL!
And it also made me feel awfully warm inside when I almost accidentally got Jonathan Taylor–a RB with one of the league’s heaviest projected workloads–for a mere $36 at the 11th nomination! I wasn’t REALLY trying to get him, but I wasn’t letting a potential top 5 RB go for less than $40, either, and then the timer ran out. BOOM! It sure helped me feel better about having to pay $34 for Daniel Jones a few picks later.
Down to a max bid of $117… Is it possible I could still land both Bijan and Henry–and still get a viable QB2 at the prices I’m seeing?? Nailbiting time for the next 25 noms… and then Bijan comes up–and I land him for $41. Still a very fair price, in my opinion. I land Geno four noms later, and I’m down to a max bid of $50. Enough to get Henry?
Barely. I didn’t have to wait long; Henry was nominated six players after Geno, but someone with a max bid in the $70s was countering my every bid, and as we climbed into the $40s, I began to get scared. But at $46, the timer ran down, and I walked away having paid the 2nd-highest price for a RB in the draft (McCaffrey went for $54), the absolute picture of an ironman workhorse at the position for the past five years anchoring my team, and a max bid of $5–and I still don’t have any WRs!
The guy asks me in the chat if I was just trying to bid him up, and I was like, “Nope, I just landed my #1 target!”
So that would be the “Studs” portion of the “Studs & Scrubs” strategy. I now have top 10 players (and maybe even a couple top 5 RBs) at 5 of my 8 starting skill positions. Now for the “Scrubs” portion…
I drafted Henry at the 51st nomination. I waited almost that number of nominations again until I bid on another player–landing Desmond Ridder at the 98th nomination for a token $2–and another 20 players until, by some miracle, I was able to secure the services of Brandon Aiyuk at the 120th nomination by throwing my full $4 max bid at him–and it stuck!
My next two nominations were TEs. Well, my next THREE nominations were TEs, axually, because my first nom was Mike Gesicki, and the fool who paid $58 for Mahomes and also foolishly paid $36 for Kelce sniped him from me for $2. Go figure. This guy also spent $5 total on his K/D starters (Evan McPherson $3, Buffalo Bills $2, lol), so he wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box. But anyway, since I couldn’t get Gesicki, I hedged by spending the next two noms on Cole Kmet and Dalton Schultz, both of whom I landed. I can probably play matchups between the two for the course of the season.
In fact, I literally drafted half of my team from nomination #141 to nomination #160–8 players in the final 20 picks/2 rounds of the draft! Once I acquire a K and a D, I will have dollar players starting in 4 of my 10 starting positions, including TE and my WR2.
And who did I find for my WR2, you may be wondering? With the 147th nomination in the draft, I signed Diontae Johnson as my $1 WR2. So yeah, as weak as WRs are in this league, I’ll be sporting two top 20, maybe top 15 WRs to go with my stellar QBs and RBs.
But my WR options don’t stop there. I then had 6 of the final 10 picks in the draft, and they were Kadarius Toney at #152 (whom I homered over the possibly better option, Michael Thomas, who was then promptly taken at #153), and #156 through #160, who were Jahan Dotson, Curtis Samuel, Romeo Doubs, Kareem Hunt and Jaylen Warren.
I love it when a plan comes together!
One of the Commanders’ WRs and one of Hunt or Warren will probably be cut to sign a K and a D when the season starts, but if Najee Harris can’t make it through training camp–BOOM! Another workhorse RB in the Axe Elf stable!
To summarize:
QB: Daniel Jones (13) $34, Geno Smith (5) $28, Desmond Ridder (11) $2
RB: Derrick Henry (7) $46, Bijan Robinson (11) $41, Jonathan Taylor (11) $36, Kareem Hunt (?) $1, Jaylen Warren (6) $1
WR: Brandon Aiyuk (9) $4, Diontae Johnson (6) $1, Kadarius Toney (10) $1, Jahan Dotson (14) $1, Romeo Doubs (6) $1, Curtis Samuel (14) $1
TE: Cole Kmet (13) $1, Dalton Schultz (7) $1
K: TBD
DST: TBD
Remaining: $0
And that, my dear students, is how you perfectly execute a Studs & Scrubs strategy in an auction draft.