For those of you out there in fantasy world who haven't drafted yet, here's some advice to help you start off your season on the right foot. If you have already drafted your 2010 fantasy team, then just bookmark this post for next year ;)
1) Show up!
They say that half of life is showing up. That's just as true when it comes to a fantasy football live draft. These days, most fantasy leagues are managed with a fantasy site like Yahoo! (who needs the hassel of tracking and calculating all the stats themselves?). So if you don't show up to your live draft, the computer will just make your picks for you either based on your own personal rankings or the default rankings of the fantasy site. Don't rely on this! Simply put, the computer isn't as smart as you. When you participate in a live draft, you can consider things such as where there is still a deep value pool, which position you need a player to fill more, and who your opponents will likely draft next (here's some foreshadowing for the rest of this advice column). You probably don't want your draft based on a fantasy site's model, and creating your own draft rankings that includes every position is not as easy as it sounds. Someone ended up taking a kicker in the fifth round of our draft because he wasn't present and that's what his draft rankings did to him when autopick was turned on. Show up!
2) Come prepared
Know your league's rules and settings including roster configuration, how scoring is calculated, if your league rewards points per reception, etc. Keep up with what's happening in the NFL. That is to say, you should know who the high profile draft picks were, who was traded, who was cut, who was injured, who was suspended, and who is holding out over a contract dispute.
Once you know what's going on, try to put that information together into a draft list or "cheat sheet" that ranks the players according to what you think their relative values are. The list should spell out their values in more specifically than just rankings: include what round they should be taken in or if players have near equivalent value, or if there is a big drop-off between two adjacent players. You may want to have ADP (average draft position) values handy so you have an idea on how long you can wait on a player for so you don't draft him too soon.
If you show up with to your draft prepared, you will have a clear advantage over those guys who decide to wing it. Trust me!
3) Have a plan
Admittedly, this advice begins to enter murky waters because having a rigid draft strategy can ruin a draft. As such, try not to think of your plan as a blue print where you have to follow the instructions exactly. Instead, your plan should be more like a map which shows you all of the different possible routes you can take: the best option available to you will change depending on the traffic.You might say to yourself, "I don't want to draft a quarterback early because there will be solid options still available in the middle rounds, but if I see a huge value pick like Aaron Rodgers at the end of the second round, I'm jumping on that!"
There are many different ways to put together a solid team, and while you should have several ideas on how you can do it, remember that the best strategy will depend on what everyone else does.
4) Practice
If you aren't already aware, you can participate in a draft on most fantasy sites now where the results means absolutely nothing. You don't have to keep and play with the team you end up with; it's just for practice and to test out draft strategies. This is called a mock draft.
Do a few of them, maybe three or five. Try drafting from different positions and using different strategies. This will help give you an idea on which plans of attack are winners, and which ones can bite you in the later rounds.
Make sure you treat your mock drafts as you would a real draft. This year I ignored bye weeks when doing my mock drafts because I was just worried about what value I could get with different strategies. When the real draft came along, I automatically drafted the same way I practiced. If you treat a mock draft like it's the real thing, you'll learn a lot more, like if you try to have your draft list open in one window and your draft open in another, the screen will be too small for you to see everything (something I learned in a mock draft this year).
5) Know your opponent
Chances are that if you have played fantasy football before, this year you are playing with many of the same people. Look back at last year's draft (if you can) and see what they did. Chances are that they will draft in much the same way. In my league last year, my brother waited into the deep rounds to select his quartbacks and ended up with Brett Favre and Kurt Warner. It worked out for him, and I had every reason to believe he would employ the same strategy again this year.
He did.
6) Bring your poker face
We all do it... the draft begins and after only a few picks, people start talking. They talk about which picks were smart and which ones were mistakes. They start cracking jokes and reminiscing about last year's league. There's nothing wrong with that, but don't let it get in the way of businness. When you enter a live draft, you are entering a battle field and EVERYONE is your enemy! Pay attention to the picks, because you need to know who's still available and you should be keeping track of what others are doing. It will pay off later when you can predict their next picks. Someone may even show some love for a player you take (now you know you've got some potential trade bait, make a note).
Look closely for hints. Someone might drop a strong hint that he is going to reach pick the New York Jets defense. Good to know. At the same time, don't give away what you're doing. If The Annihilators is eyeing Ronnie Brown in the fifth round and you make it clear that you're going to take him sooner, you may have just cost yourself a player.
7) Make your picks carefully
When you are making a pick you need to consider three things. What position do I need to fill now? Which remaing players have the most value? Who will still be there for my next pick?
Let's say there is one super stud wide receiver left on the board, and a handful and a half of what you consider to be "decent" running backs. You already drafted two wide receivers and desperately need to fill that second running back spot. Well, chances are one of those running backs will still be around and the wide receiver will be gone. You can even look at the players that will be drafting between your two picks and confirm that they need receivers and will likely draft them. Now you can avoid the mistake of addressing a need and take the receiver now and a suitable running back a few picks later. When it comes to a fantasy draft, there's no rule that says you never get to have your cake and eat it too.
8) Don't reach
You absolutely love, are over the moon for, simply have to have Greg Jennings this year. With Donald Driver over the hill and Aaron Rodgers peaking, you know Jennings is going to be a monster and plan to draft him that way. Well, check out Jennings' ADP that you conveniently included on your draft sheet, and you might see that he typically gets drafted in the early fourth round. (Maybe not, I'm not sure where is ADP is at presently, but just go with it). You may love him as a second round pick, but you're going to do the smart thing and take a solid second rounder confident that Jennings will still be there when the draft snakes it's way back to you in the third round.
Simply put, try not to spend too much on a player. If you think someone is way undervalued, then draft him a round or a round and a half early to be sure you'll snag him, depending on your draft position, and get value out him. If you reach too far, you'll miss out on a golden opportunity that spotting the "sleepers" gives you. No one puts together a great fantasy team by always paying "fair market value." Pay less than what a player is worth a couple of times in your draft, and you have set yourself on the path to a championship!
9) Don't waste a pick on a backup defense or kicker
I decided to write this blog so that fantasy managers could learn from the mistakes I have made, and likely will make in the future. Last year I drafted backups to my defense and kicker, and to say it was an error in judgement would be a major understatement.
First of all, defenses don't get injured. Brian Ulacher and Troy Polamalu (did you hear his hair is insured for $1 million now by the way?) can get injured and hurt the value of your defense, but your defense isn't going down, and you don't need to back them up as if they could.
Secondly, kickers aren't worth much. This isn't because they won't, on occassion, help you win a game, but you will be hard pressed to predict who will have a good season, let alone a good game. If your kicker gets hurt, there will be other options out there in free agency.
Thirdly, they each have only ONE bye week to cover. If you're starting two running backs in your league, your backups will have to fill in twice, and with three wide receivers, your backups will have to fill in three times, and that's assuming your starters don't get injured. With three wide receivers, chances are good at least one will get injured over the course of the season and be out for at least a couple of weeks. Use the extra two roster spots you didn't waste on another kicker or defense to shore up your depth at wide receiver and running back. At the very least, they will serve as trade bait when everyone else's players start getting hurt.
For that matter, don't draft your kicker or defense too early either. Many experts will say not to draft a defense until the second to last round, and just about all will tell you not to draft a kicker until the last round. I won't take my advice to that extreme because in the "real" world of fantasy football, the other people in your draft might not have gotten the memo not to draft a defense earlier, and if everone in your draft takes a defense in the tenth round, you could be left with the bottom of the barrel. Let's say as a rule, don't draft a defense or kicker until you have filled all your starting positions and have at least one backup running back and one backup wide receiver.
10) Have fun!
Always remember that fantasy football is a game, and from draft day to the championship you should treat it that way. Sure, if you end up with a terrible team because you didn't draft well you'll probably be grumbling about it until next year's draft, but if you're not going to have fun in the first place, what's the point? This year, I was all bussiness in preparing for my draft. I looked over stats, read expert advice, payed attention to the moves and injuries, and participated in mock the drafts, always like I was being payed to do it. But when the draft finally came, it was more about the fun of playing a game with my friends. We chatted, we joked, and we caught up (all the while I was paying attention to the draft, of course).
Make sure you enjoy yourself in the draft, and all season long. If it isn't fun for you, find a new hobby. Building a ship in a bottle has sadly gone out of fashion, and it can be quite stimulating!
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Good luck with your drafts, and your season as a whole. I look forward to hearing how it works out for all of you.
TOMORROW'S POST: My Fantasy Draft
