Fantasy Football: 6 Rules To Help You On Draft Day
The key to a good Fantasy Football season begins at day one… The Fantasy Draft. The NFL Draft is done and over with, but the Fantasy draft is right around the corner. I have composed 6 basic tips to help you succeed during your Fantasy Draft.
1.) Expect the Best, Prepare for the Worst
2.) Know your Bye Weeks
3.) Have A Game Plan
4.) Use Judgement
5.) Don’t Be That Guy
6.) Don’t Be Sleeper Hungry
1.) Expect the Best Prepare For The Worst
Not everything can be handed to us in Fantasy Football. Sometimes you get gifts handed to you during the draft. Last year, LeSean McCoy slipped all the way to pick 24 in my Fantasy Draft. He was a steal for me, the bad part is I didn’t have a quarterback yet and all of the top ten quarterbacks were selected within the top 32 picks.
When I say expect the best, I want you to hope that you can be lucky enough to snag a player like LeSean McCoy late in the second round if you see him sliding down the draft board, but have an idea of a direction you would like to go just in case your player gets selected. It is always better to be safe than to be sorry.
2.) Know Your Bye Weeks
We have all seen it. Year in and year out, you get the one guy who selects two defenses, two kickers, and two tight ends, and they have the same bye weeks. We all laugh at this guy behind closed doors and make fun of him. Where does that leave you? You always end up either dropping a player you like in order to pick up a third kicker, tight end, or defense, or you end up having to drop the better kicker, tight end, or defense in order to get a less valuable player.
Always pay attention to these things whenever you are drafting quarterbacks as well. Once you draft your quarterback, you should already be taking the quarterbacks who share the same bye weeks off of your list of players, unless you are content with having three quarterbacks on your Fantasy roster.
3.) Have a Game Plan
In some Fantasy leagues, you will know where you are selecting in the draft weeks in advance. Others you will know 24 hours before. Either way, you should get comfortable with where you are selecting. By the day of the draft, you should have a general idea of what players you will be selecting with your first three picks in the draft.
Of course players slide, and get selected early, but this is why you have a game plan. You should be prepared for player availability. You should know who your sleepers are in every round as well. Mock drafts help you determine and practice at which players will be selected when. I always use mock drafts to test out different scenarios and different game plans and determine which one will be the best one to help my Fantasy team.
4.) Use Judgement
We all get put in tough positions during the draft. You need a quarterback and Eli Manning, Peyton Manning, and Michael Vick are all on the board. Common sense says go for Eli Manning because he just led the Giants offense to a Super Bowl. The past shows that Peyton Manning has been a top five fantasy quarterback every year since 1999, except in 2011. Mathematics show that Michael Vick can put up ridiculous numbers at times but lacks the consistency at times.
Judgement calls are hard at times, but its part of playing Fantasy. You should always make judgement calls based on what you think will be the best solution for your team. If you are willing to select Eli, have a good secondary quarterback ready in case his numbers aren’t as good as they were in 2011. If you select Peyton, make sure you know the risks of his neck injury. If you select Vick, make sure you know the risks of his consistency problems. In the end, it all comes back to being prepared in the draft.
5.) Don’t Be That Guy
We all see it happen every year in the draft. A guy will come in and select a kicker or defense extremely early and it throws off everybody’s fantasy game plans. There is two things to say about when this happens.
First, know the point values, and the values of your selections before you make them. If you select a defense early in the draft it is a bold statement, but can leave you left out to dry in the later rounds if high depth running backs or wide receivers get taken in your place. So value your picks and determine if it is the right time to select a defense or not. Two, if you select a kicker in the top 100 picks of the draft, you are a fool! No kicker is ever that valuable.
6.) Don’t Be Sleeper Hungry
Sometimes we all want to believe in the underdogs. But just like the NCAA Tournament for basketball, the underdogs usually get beaten. It is not bad to select a few sleepers in the draft, players who you think will come out and surprise everybody. Just know the consequences of selecting these players. I’m willing to bet more than 50% of the time, these sleepers will be selected then add-dropped before week five.
Be bold when selecting your sleepers, but don’t be dependent on them during the draft. Sometimes sticking with your bread and butter selections are much safer in the long run. We all want want to select Javon Ringer and Kendall Hunter and hope Chris Johnson and Frank Gore get hurt, but what are the odds it happens? Its not a guarantee, that’s why you should know the risks of selecting sleepers.
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