Prepping for Your Fantasy Draft
7 Steps to Maximizing Your Fantasy Football Draft Experience
Jun 25, 2008
1. Find yourself a good league
If you've been in the same fantasy league with the same great guys forever, then cherish it. Make sure your league sticks together, even if that means you have to step in as commissioner for a year or two. Good fantasy leagues, like consistently productive wide receivers, can be hard to find. If you're new to the fantasy thing, check with your friends and coworkers to see if they'd be interested in starting a new league. It's always more fun to compete against people you know (except when you lose). If you can't find enough folks to start up a new league, find yourself a public league on the world wide internet. For my money Yahoo.com is still the most consistent and reliable fantasy sports host out there. Plus it's free, so I don't actually have to use my money (always a plus).
2. Conduct your draft in person
Drafting online can be convenient - and sometimes necessary if your league is scattered all over the country – but there's nothing like sitting in a room with a bunch of idiots pretending to be football GMs for a couple hours. If at all possible, be a part of a live draft where you can see the faces of your competitors when you steal away the pick they were about to make. It's a fun way to kill a few hours, and you'll probably walk away with a few running jokes that will last the whole season.
3. Make your own player rankings
Start by picking up a Fantasy Football magazine at your local grocery store like everyone else, but don't stop there. Make your own master list of players in an Excel spreadsheet that you can print out and bring to the draft. You can use the magazine's rankings or mock draft as a guide, but tweak the list to make it personal, shifting guys up and down based on your personal thoughts. See a player that you think will have a breakout year? Slide him ahead a few spots. Have you always wanted to root for a certain player? Move him ahead of a similar player you don't care for. Know your local team's RB put on 20 pounds eating a fourth meal at Taco Bell this off-season? Drop him lower on your board. In the end you want to be drafting from a list of players that you had some input in creating.
4. Check the injuries
It is always a good idea to check the latest injury report a day or two before you draft. Plus, there's no worse feeling on draft day than silencing a room by picking a player who just lost a leg in a freak boating accident. (Here's one of a myriad of great NFL Injury Resources)
5. Pick a strategy, any strategy
There are a bunch of different drafting strategies you can employ, and all have been used to win leagues throughout the years. Some folks insist on taking RBs in the first two rounds, some like to stockpile one position in order to make trades during the season, and others simply take the best player available regardless of position. The point isn't which strategy you pick, the point is that you DO pick a strategy and stick with it. It won't guarantee that you'll win the league, but it will ensure that you're not the guy at the table sweating like Richard Simmons because he's on the clock with no idea who to take.
6. Go with your gut
At some point in the draft you're going to stare down at your list to see who the best available player is and you're going to notice that the guy listed right below him suddenly looks more appealing. You'll question why you ranked Player A ahead of Player B, and you'll wonder which player deserves a spot on your team. My advice: go with your gut. The list is only there as a guide. Last year I was waffling with my seventh round pick in one league I was in. Should I take Chris Cooley, the highest guy on my board at the time? Or should I take rookie running back Adrian Peterson - an unknown commodity as a pro with a lot of upside. Despite the fact that I had 2 RBs and no TEs on the roster at that point, I went with my gut and took Peterson, which worked out fairly well. But even if that hadn't worked out well, in the end I'd rather make the wrong pick because I trusted my gut, not because I trusted a list.
7. Love the team you draft
Look, the truth is the teams that look the best on paper before the season starts have just as good a chance at winning your league as the teams that seemed to draft poorly. A good draft can help you win your league, but a bad draft doesn't count you out. Fantasy football is a game of luck and chance, with a little skill sprinkled in. Since you have no idea how this ragtag bunch of players you've assembled is going to perform over the next 17 weeks, you might as well be optimistic and learn to love your players. Going negative about your draft isn't going to do anything except put you in a bad mood when you get home and get you in trouble with the queen. So stay positive, enjoy the competition, and engage in trash talking as much as possible.
