Salary Cap Drafts and How to Navigate Them

Everyone involved in fantasy football immediately flocks to the snake draft: Everyone gets a random position in the draft and hopefully the players that they want fall to them at their stationary position. There’s so much ambiguity when it comes to where you pick and the roster you are able to select.

What if you could be selective in which players you want to go after?

For those of you looking for an alternative, let me introduce you to my friend: Salary Cap Draft!

It’s actually quite simple, you see. Everybody starts with the same amount of “money” to spend. In a standard 10 or 12-team league, everyone will start with $200. It is your responsibility to use it wisely to bid on specific players when they go up for auction and assemble a standard 15-player roster (1QB, 2RB, 2WR, 1TE, 1FLEX, 1K, 1DST, 6 Bench). 

Are you desperate to have Ja’Marr Chase? You don’t need to have the 1st overall pick in a Salary Cap Draft! You simply just need to outbid your leaguemates. You no longer have to fit within the guardrails of a draft position as to which players fall to you. You are in control of who you spend your salary cap on.

Here are a few tips, tricks and risks you need to be aware of when entering a Salary Cap Draft:

TAKE THE KICKER AND D/ST OUT OF THE EQUATION

Let’s start with the easy part in saying you can take two roster spots out of the equation and $2 from your cap. You shouldn’t spend any more than a combined $2 on the kicker AND D/ST spot. They aren’t as impactful as the rest of your position players that are to be assembled into your lineup. Don’t make the easy mistake in wasting extra money on the top projected defenses and kickers. 

When you take this into account, you have $198 left to spend on 13 players. That’s a little over $15 a player. 

DON’T SPEND IT ALL ON STUDS AT THE START

Just be careful: The more money you use on your studs, the less money you will have to fill out the rest of your roster. 

For example: If you start with $200 and win bids for $60 on Ja’Marr Chase, $60 on Bijan Robinson and $50 on Josh Allen, you then only have $30 left to spend on the remaining 12 players on your roster. That’s an average of under $3 a player! You’re not going to get very good supplemental players to round out your roster if you blow your metaphorical load on too many big names. 

A good way to start a draft is limiting yourself to only two studs. Whether it’s an elite RB tandem, 1 elite WR and 1 elite RB, or maybe adding in one of the top 3 QBs, spending a total of $110-120 on your top 2 players leaves you with at least $80 to spend on 11 players (a bit over $7 a player) This helps you have a bit more control over who you will be able to surround your studs with. 

KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR LEAGUEMATES’ CAPS

Nearly all Salary Cap Drafts will take place in online draft rooms where everything is computer-monitored. Whether it’s the auction clock, the highest bidder and how much money each person has left, the app you are drafting in should be fully capable of telling you all of this important information. Use this to your advantage when managing your own cap! When you watch the rest of your league draft players you have no interest in drafting, you then see their budget drop. 

What you need to know is that the app won’t let you spend more than you’re allowed. So if one leaguemate blew their load on 4 studs and spent $189, they can’t spend anymore until they win $1 bids at the end of the draft for their remaining 11 roster spots. When these leaguemates overspend early, take advantage of what their max bid is and how many roster spots they have yet to fill. This is key in managing your cap and being able to control the auctions. 

DON’T TRUST THE AVERAGE AUCTION PRICE FOR A PLAYER

The values next to a player are the only thing ambiguous about these Salary Cap Drafts. It’s only the average value for what the player is going at for their winning bid across all auctions in the app. Don’t let this deter you if you are dead-set on a specific player. If it goes $1-5 over the average value of the player, don’t sweat it! Be careful if it goes any higher than that, though. As long as you’re constantly aware of the cap that you have, you are able to adjust on the fly which players you’re more likely to afford.

What you also need to know about these values is that when it gets towards the end of the draft, these values won’t matter much at all. You will, more than likely, be spending $1-5 on your final couple of players. Don’t fret the thought of overspending by a couple bucks on players you have your heart set on.

IF YOU’RE PATIENT, THE VALUES WILL COME TO YOU

When you watch your league spend on all of the top players at each position, you may be able to snag tremendous value on some of the mid-level players in the middle of the draft. 

For example: You decide to be patient on drafting a WR. You watch the first 15 WR’s go and the rest of your league seems content. You spot a guy that might’ve waited around too long and wait until he’s up for auction. Your leaguemates aren’t as likely to spend on these guys after going after the higher ranked players. They may not offer the same level of production as the top names like Chase, Jefferson or Lamb, but a guy in the range of Mike Evans, Tyreek Hill and Garrett Wilson offer exceptional upside for the deal you would potentially get them for if you decide to be patient. 

Remember, people will spend early to get the big names. It’s never a bad strategy to wait and fill your team with the incredible depth that your leaguemates won’t have.

No matter which route you decide to take in a Salary Cap Draft, you can be successful if you spend wisely. This is a kind of draft that you can really take advantage of if you do it right; you can’t quite do that in a normal Snake Draft. Happy Auctioning!