Most fantasy football drafts happen at the end of August or over Labor Day weekend. This gives you just about a month before the big day. If you are new to the game, allow me to help you walk into your draft with confidence and not look like “the newbie”.
There are three things that people cannot stand during the draft: when someone takes too long to select their pick, watching someone attempt to draft a player who has already been selected and finally the person who loses interest midway through and they begin to make bad pick after bad pick. Please do not be that person.
To help you avoid these bad habits, here are a few pointers for you. First, come to the draft prepared. This means have a list of seven positions that you will need. I type up my own rankings for each position (quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end, flex, defense/special teams and kicker) and go off that. When creating my rankings sheets, I always go in depth. For quarterbacks I create a list of top 50, I go top 110 in running backs and for wide receiver I roll 115 just to give you an idea. Organization will go a long way in a draft and it will keep things moving along on draft day and it will also prevent you from the embarrassing mistake of calling out someone’s name that has already been drafted.
Know before you draft! As I mentioned in a previous article, I begin to prepare for my draft following the NFL draft in May. Things to key in on: old faces in new places. With the NFL free agency, usually no one stays on a team for their entire career. Over the years we have seen Brett Favre, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady (just to name a few) switch teams and this offseason Aaron Rodgers left Green Bay and is now with the New York Jets. Other big names that moved this offseason include Deandre Hopkins, Deandre Swift, Miles Sanders, Derek Carr and Darren Waller.
In order for you to make the playoffs in your league you must be built for depth. Most drafts are set up for 15-18 rounds so you need to make the most of them. Build your team with handcuffs. This means grab the back-up to your studs. Example, if you draft Steelers running back Najee Harris in the second round, be prepared to select his back-up (Jaylen Warren) in a later round. Truly not a worse feeling in fantasy than seeing your player go down with injury and knowing that you did not handcuff his back-up. Trust me the vultures of your league will be searching for him and making him a top priority when the waiver wire opens. So, avoid that at all costs.
My final advice for this week is understand the depth chart. Oh, how things have changed from last season. The NFL draft pre-determines how things are set up in both reality and fantasy. Last season the Atlanta Falcons’ backfield included first round draft pick Tyler Alger. He had a great rookie campaign (over 1,000 yards on the ground and three rushing touchdowns) but to our surprise the Falcons used their first-round draft pick on another running back, Bijan Robinson. Robinson is widely considered the future of the Falcons and has been a first-round pick in many early fantasy drafts. The lesson here is doing your research and know that last year means nothing in fantasy football.
