Docs / Runbooks / Draft Day — Interim Workflow (no Yahoo sync)

How to run a live draft on scoring.zone while the Yahoo Fantasy API is offline — host-runs-board plus optional league-mate self-entry. Written for the 2026 H-Town 2QB half-PPR draft.

Draft Day — Interim Workflow (no Yahoo sync)

Audience: the league (host + managers). The Yahoo Fantasy API is approval-gated and currently returns 403, so scoring.zone cannot auto-sync picks from Yahoo in real time. This is the manual-mirror workflow to use instead. The real draft still happens on Yahoo; scoring.zone runs alongside it as the live value board.

One-line summary: draft on Yahoo as normal. One person keeps scoring.zone in sync by typing each pick as it happens; everyone else opens a share link to watch the live board (and can optionally enter their own picks).

Roles

Role What they do
Host (you) Runs the War Room, enters picks as they happen on Yahoo, drafts your own team off the recommendations.
Managers (league-mates) Open the share link → watch the live board. Optionally claim their team and enter their own pick when on the clock (shares the typing load).

Host — before the draft

  1. Open /draft/live (the War Room).
  2. Set the format selectors to match the league: 2QB · half-PPR · snake · 12 teams (these default to the focused league; confirm they read QB: 2).
  3. Click Share board. You'll get a 5-character join code and a link (scoring.zone/j/ABCDE). Post it in the league chat.

Host — during the draft

  • As each pick happens on Yahoo, type it into the War Room. That single action updates the shared board for everyone watching.
  • For your pick, use the recommendation panel — it's roster-aware and 2QB-tuned (see Reading the board below).
  • If a manager is entering their own picks (below) and they lag, you can enter any pick for them via the normal pick box — nothing breaks.

Managers — watching + self-entry

  1. Open scoring.zone/j/ABCDE (no login). You land straight on the live board — best available, tiers, scarcity, and the pick log, refreshing every few seconds.
  2. (Optional) Claim your team from the slot dropdown. When it's your turn a "Record my pick" box appears — type your player, submit, done. It only shows when you're actually on the clock, and it checks it's really your turn.
  3. You can't corrupt anyone else's draft — watchers are read-only except for their own on-the-clock pick.

Reading the board (2QB-specific)

Because Yahoo ADP is frozen (and it's 1-QB-flavored anyway), the board leans on 2QB-correct signals:

  • Value rank — what a player is worth in this 2QB/half-PPR format (our model).
  • 2QB ADP — what he'll actually cost (real Fantasy Football Calculator 2QB market). In 2QB, elite QBs go 3–7 rounds earlier than 1-QB ADP suggests (e.g. Josh Allen ~pick 2, not ~pick 33).
  • QB starter-math bar — how many startable QBs remain vs open QB slots, so you feel the run before it strands you.
  • Tiers + cliff markers — where the drop-offs are within each position.

The one thing to internalize: the board won't reach for a QB for you — its value model says elite RB/WR first, QB in rounds 2–4. But the 2QB ADP column tells you how fast QBs will actually leave. If you want an elite QB, you'll have to take him above his value rank — the column shows you exactly how far.

QB BUY/FADE labels are intentionally hidden in 2QB — they were computed off the stale 1-QB Yahoo ADP and were misleading. RB/WR BUY/FADE still show.

Fallbacks (in order)

  1. Host enters all picks — the default; always works.
  2. Managers self-enter — spreads the load when the league is engaged.
  3. Pure manual — if scoring.zone is unreachable, draft on Yahoo only and reconcile later; nothing about the Yahoo draft depends on scoring.zone.

When Yahoo sync returns

Once the Yahoo API approval clears, live get_league_draft_results sync comes back and this manual mirror is no longer needed. Until then, this is the path.