Draft Strategy: How To Attack Your League This Season (Episode 1012 with Adam Levitan, Mark Dankenbring, Jack Miller)

**Adam Levitan** (0:15)
Hello, and welcome to episode 1012 of the official establishtherun.com podcast. My name is Adam Levitan.
We have talked about a ton of very important things over the last few months, such as players and rankings, but we have not dedicated a full show to draft strategy. And to me, that is a huge part of the battle. To discuss this today, I'm joined by two young men you know and love, Mark Dankenbring. How's it going today?

**Mark Dankenbring** (0:43)
Going great, Adam. I'm excited to talk through this. I have my first redraft league of the season kicking off tonight. So a lot of the strategy we'll talk through, I'll be employing tonight during the draft, which will be a fun time.

**Adam Levitan** (0:55)
Indeed. Jack Miller, how goes it?

**Jack Miller** (0:58)
It's going okay. I'm excited to talk about redraft and get shifted into redraft mode. But the reason I am excited for that is because my best ball portfolio has taken a huge hit over the past seven days with Jordan Tyson out two months with a hamstring injury and Jayden Higgins out for the year with a torn ACL. So we might be on to 2027 for best ball, but it's still 2026 for redraft. So I'm excited to get into it.

**Adam Levitan** (1:22)
Exactly. Well, there's still plenty of time to draft more teams regardless. That's how I'm rationalizing the Jordan Tyson and Luther Bird and stuff. Okay. And Ricky Pierce, all stuff. Okay.
On today's show, we are going to talk all things strategy for 2026 season long snake drafts, early rounds, running back strategy, picking from different pick ranges, middle round strategy, late round tactics, kicker defense and more. If you have a fantasy draft coming up, and I know you do, we can help. I promise no one dedicates more time and frankly money to ensuring we have the best and most up-to-date rankings. Our Draft Kit Pro is just $55, includes Silva's top 150, Silva's tiers, all our ETR rankings, my draft strategy article, player-by-player notes, Foreman's rankings in season and tons, tons more. So if you've not yet picked up the Draft Kit, again, $55, head to establishtherun.com, find the subscribe tab and get access to everything we are working on to get you set for your draft.
All right. Let's get into it here, boys. I've had, you know, a lot of people ask me, I can pick where I want to pick in the first round, Adam. Where should I pick? And normally each year, I have a pretty strong feeling about where I think is best based on how I feel about the players in round one. Who comes back in round two slash three? This year, I think you can actually make a case for a lot of different pick spots being the best. Jack worked on the articles for us. If you have Draft Kit, you can find them about picking from each spot. Jack, where do you think is the best place to draft from this year if you could pick anywhere?

**Jack Miller** (3:11)
Yeah. So my favorite pick to have this year is the first pick and my second favorite pick is the second pick and that's because it gives you access to Jameer Gibbs and Bijon Robinson at the top of the board. I do think that there's quite a gap from Robinson to the next running back in Christian McCaffrey and Jonathan Taylor. McCaffrey has the injury concerns and Taylor isn't quite the pass catcher that Bijon Robinson is.
And then Jameer Gibbs has the same combination of rushing workload and pass catching volume and he's on a significantly better offense. So those are the clear top two for me with Gibbs at the top. I think after that, it becomes a lot more interesting. And with the run of running max that you see at the end of the first round, I think it's pretty defensible to prefer a late pick in the first round after Gibbs, if you can't get the first or the second pick. But for me, if we're talking, you have the choice of any of the 12 picks in the first round, where are you going? I'm going first pick. If I can't get first pick, I'm going second.

**Adam Levitan** (4:09)
Yeah. And see, I think that there's a big gap for me, at least, between Gibbs and Bijon.
So the first pick, to me, is huge. I absolutely love getting Gibbs there. I'm going to make a case, and I'm curious what you guys think about this. I'm going to make a case for a late pick being best this year. And it really depends how you think your draft is going to go or how it's going to go. But let's say you get a pick between pick nine and 12