QB & TE Average Auction Value Tiers (Fantasy Football)

For this series of articles, I’ve taken auction values from five auction drafts that occurred over the past few months with real money on the line(not from mock drafts). Thus far I’ve looked at RB Tiers and WR Tiers. The settings for these drafts were 12-Teams, $200 budget, PPR, QB-2RB-3WR-TE-Flex-PK-DEF, 18 players per team. These were BestBall drafts where lineups are optimized each week without the need for setting lineups, Head-to-Head matchups, or playoffs. Unlike most Bestball drafts, each team can make up to one waiver wire move per week. While these settings may not align perfectly with what you’ll see in your drafts, these values are a good way to ballpark values and create strategies for your drafts.

*A quick note about Average Auction Value Tiers(AAVT) because this isn’t a term that’s used very often (or ever since I invented it just now). Last year I used the term Auction Value Tier, but it’s too easily confused with values and tiers within rankings or projections. Average Auction Value Tiers are based solely on actual prices from drafts with buy-ins and cash prizes. They are what ‘is’ as opposed to what ‘should be.’

Quarterbacks

We’ve seen Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson go from cheap flyer options to league winners in back-to-back years. They’re now leading QBs in AAVs by a large margin for good reason, but we have to wonder if they can return value. Just as importantly, are there lower priced QBs that can challenge them and finish as the overall QB1?

QB Average Auction Value Tier 1

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I almost split these two up, but Lamar Jackson actually received the highest bid between the two. The weird thing is some of the splits within the individual auction drafts. Patrick Mahomes and Jackson were within $2 of each other in three drafts, but Mahomes beat him by $6 and $7 in the other two. I’m not a big fan of spending up for QBs, but $25ish is surprisingly reasonable for top-tier QBs especially compared to past years.

QB Average Auction Value Tier 2

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This tier is fascinating. If I’m taking a shot at a QB in this tier at cost, it’s Russell Wilson but look at the high/low bids for these QBs. Their bids have been volatile with fairly large splits between high and low bids, which means a couple of things to you in auction drafts. If you like the QBs in this tier, at least one of them has been $12 or less in every draft. You can wait it out and scoop up whichever QB comes with the discount. If you don’t like one or a few of these QBs, nominate them early and let someone else overpay for them. One of my core strategies this year is to hope Wilson falls and nominate Watson early.

QB Average Auction Value Tier 3

The GOAT tier:

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Tom Brady‘s high/low split of $16 is the largest among QBs. That $2 bid was from before Brady signed with TB, but that $18 bid was also an outlier. He’s been a $9-11 QB in the other drafts so his AAV is pretty accurate even with a couple of whacky bids.

Drew Brees has some oddball bids as well. His AAV ended up being $9.4 but his actual bids have been $5, $6, $11, $12, and $13. I don’t mind him in the $5-6 range, but I’d much rather get a cheap AAVT 2 QB than pay $10 or more for Brees.

QB Average Auction Value Tier 4

I was not expecting these two to be auction value rivals, yet here we are.

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Even though these auction values came from a BestBall draft, they will carry over into auctions heading into the season for the most part. Josh Allen is one of those players that I’m not so sure about. In this format, you don’t have to guess when his boom weeks will occur making him a fantastic QB at this price. He’s going to be much more difficult to trust in weekly leagues. Still, he could end up being a draft-day steal if he takes a step forward as a passer especially with the addition of Stefon Diggs combined with his abilities on the ground.

QB Average Auction Value Tier 5

If all else fails, this is my go-to QB tier:

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Matt Ryan is criminally under-priced. Matthew Stafford was on a tear before getting injured last year and has more weapons this year. Carson Wentz was a 4,000-yard passer with his top three pass catchers being two TEs and a RB. You could probably draft two of these guys for $10 combined and play matchups(***Message!!!***) to piece together a top-3 QB season.

QB Average Auction Value Tier 6

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If you really need to save money, these guys will be cheap, but watch out for Daniel Jones. The Giants open up with a brutal schedule. If you’re going to play Jones, wait to pick him up on the waiver wire after their Week 11 bye for a 3-game stretch against CIN, SEA, and ARI.

Tight Ends

Tight end is by far the most spread out position group. The top guys pretty much occupy their own tiers. The rest of the position group is a bunch of low priced flyers with unknown opportunity for targets.

TE Average Auction Value Tier 1

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The $23 bid brought Travis Kelce‘s AAV down a bit. He’s consistently going for around $34-right around that Julio Jones/Chris Godwin price point.

TE Average Auction Value Tier 2

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I find myself targeting cheaper TEs most of the time, but I’m targeting George Kittle if I do pay up for a TE. His value is reasonable and he has a great shot at being the overall TE1 if he can just find the endzone more.

TE Average Auction Value Tier 3

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TE Average Auction Value Tier 4

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Darren Waller‘s AAV looks pretty close to Zach Ertz and Mark Andrews, but it’s a $23 outlier bid that’s driving it up. He’s come in at $10-14 in the four other auctions. His AAV should probably be closer to $12.

TE Average Auction Value Tier 5

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It’s hard to fully trust these guys, but an $8 bid isn’t going to kill your team if they don’t pan out.

TE Average Auction Value Tier 6

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Jared Cook is the forgotten TE. Where Mike Gesicki and Noah Fant are trendy sleeper TEs, Cook is just sort of there-too good of a floor to be ignored, but not enough upside to be hyped.

TE Average Auction Value Tier 7

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I like Hayden Hurst a lot, especially at this price point. His bids were coming in around $3-4, but it did spike up to $9 in the last draft. As the season gets closer, I’m guessing Hurst will climb at least one value tier. I like this tier a lot where I can get at least one of them for $3 or $4.