The competition’s schedule is broken into 3 segments :

• Regular Season – The 2023 regular season will again be 12 weeks. Week 6 will be conducted as an “ALL-PLAY” week, where the 12 teams will be ranked according to points. The top 6 teams get a win, and the bottom 6 teams a loss.
• League Championships – Weeks 13 and 14 are a 2 week head to head elimination between the top 4 seeds coming out of the regular season (seeds based on overall record and win loss record).
• Championship Round – From each league, 2 to 3 teams will earn a berth to the Championship Round, which is a 3 week total points sprint in weeks 15 -17 (added to their one-game point average from the regular season) for the overall title. The regular season overall points leader and win-loss leader from each league automatically win berths into the Championship Round. An additional third team can make it to the Championship Round if they win the league championship, but were not the league point / win-loss leader (ie. seeds 1 and 2 entering the league playoffs).

In 2022, the contest was filled 333 total individual leagues of 12 teams. The drafts for these leagues were conducted over the course of the preseason, beginning July 4th, and running thru Sunday September 11th, the day of the Sunday Week 1 kickoff. Similar to our Best Ball Analysis, we have examined the drafts of the winning teams in this competition to identify trends on player selection and roster construction. Most of the analysis focuses specifically on what was done during online drafts because data from Live drafts held in Las Vegas is not available. Picks made on giant cardboard grids are not translated to digital format unfortunately. Even so, with so few drafts in Vegas, we have draft data from 86% of leagues to base analysis on where that is needed. However, when it comes to advance rates to the championship round, 100% of the teams are represented via roster capture upon the conclusion of league playoffs. There are no waiver wire pickups during the Championship Round. The roster you have at the conclusion of Week 14 is the roster you will use for weeks 15 – 17. This fact implies that you must massage your roster to make sure you have the desired depth across each position.

If you are a new player, the data contained in these reports should help provide you with a framework for drafting in 2023. If you are an experienced player, a lot of what you see may seem like things you already know, but seeing the numbers crunched should confirm a lot of the best practices that you have been implementing when drafting these teams in the past. Also note that unlike best ball, the drafts for these season long contests are only a partial component of overall success. Waiver wire pickups and weekly lineup decisions also play a huge part in determining your success. You may find reviewing the 2022 waiver wire pickups helpful to provide some guidance there. You can see how much FAAB is generally required to win players based on the particular week of the season. You can find that data HERE.

The analyses provided here are in the context of making it to the Championship Round. Success during the Championship Round is going to be based primarily on the production of players within that 3 week (15-17) sprint which can be unpredictable. In 2022, there were 832 teams in the Championship Round (about 20% of the overall pool). There is a lot of player overlap among the teams obviously. Having the top performers during weeks 15-17 (and actually starting them) is the primary determination of your success there. Unlike most best ball tournaments in the fantasy world these days, this is not a week by week elimination. Your total points accumulated over that 3 week period ( added to your weekly average from the regular season) is what counts. When you review the “Deep Dive into the Top 5 Overall Winners”, we note a player’s performance at a position specifically within that timeframe.

Enough of the chit chat, let’s look at the data! (FYI, the analyses themselves are premium subscriber material)