FANTASY FOOTBALL DRAFT STRATEGY
As a Fantasy Football enthusiast, Draft day is better than Christmas morning. It is this day that your look forward to all year long. The day that you assemble the best team that you have ever had. After watching the NFL draft and all the excitement of new coaches, new players and the hopes that your favorite team will finally make it to the playoffs. Then comes the preseason games, and the NFL experts on the TV giving their projections and analysis of the off season moves for each team. But before we get too far ahead or ourselves and you settle into your draft there are a lot of factors that you need to consider.
YOUR LEAGUE SIZE AND SETTINGS
Everyone wants to figure out how to make your draft day a success. The first thing you should do is to log into your league online and check out the size of your league. The average league has 10 players, if you have more teams than that you are in for a bumpy ride. The more teams the more you need to have a handle on who you want to draft, because the pool of talent gets thin fast. In a 8 or 10 team league, there is usually enough talented players to get most of your roster filled out before you start to take long shots.
LEAGUE SETTINGS AND ROSTER CONSTRUCTION
Once you have determined the size of your league, you will want to look the league settings. This will determine your roster construction and scoring settings made by your league commissioner. First let’s discuss the roster, this can vary by the number of starters you will need in your lineup each week. Most teams consist of 1 Quarterback, 2 Running Backs, 2 Wide Receivers, 1 Tight End, 1 Flex ( RB, WR or TE), 1 Team Defense and 1 Kicker. While this is standard your commissioner could add a starting player at any of the positions. For example, you may be in a 2 quarterback league. If this is the case, you will want to prioritize this position in your draft. You will want to select QBs with your first picks, because the scoring at this position can make or break your team. Some leagues may also have 3 WR positions in the starting lineup, rather than 2QBs. In this case you will want to prioritize the WR position in your draft by selecting top WRs at the beginning of your draft. Some fantasy football experts will advise on a “ZERO RB” system or “ZERO WR” draft, I would avoid any draft strategies like these. You really want to tailor your draft strategy to your individual league settings. Once you see what positions you must fill in your starting lineup, then you can determine what positions to make a priority during your draft.
LEAGUE SCORING
The first thing you want to know is whether your league is a standard scoring league or a PPR scoring league. A standard scoring league is when your players only score points for yardage, and touchdowns. In a PPR (points per reception) your players score points for each reception, yardage and touchdowns. After you have determined the scoring system, then go back to the league settings and see if there are any scoring bonuses by position or yardage bonuses. Most leagues do not award any points for special team’s players, except for touchdowns. Generally, if there is any variations in the scoring system your commissioner will make it known to the league, so that each owner can adjust their teams accordingly to the scoring system.
ROSTER CONSTRUCTION
Now that you have figured out your roster construction and the scoring system, you are ready to get to the fun part of drafting your team. Preparation is very important to a successful draft, if you do not take the time and do the research your draft can get away from you in a hurry. Get a cheat sheet, this is a list of players ranked in order of their fantasy scoring projections for the upcoming season. Generally, these lists come in two different formats top 200 or 300 players in order, or tier-based list broken down by position. I find that the tier-based list is the easiest to use and most effective to creating your best lineup. When you begin your draft the first thing you will want to do is to fill out your starting lineup with the best available players at each position. Once you have filled out the starters you start to stash bench players. It is here where you will want to swing for the fences with a few rookies, and high upside players.
AFTER THE DRAFT
You finished your draft and you’re ready for the season to begin. The work is not over, you must stay active and monitor your players for injuries and set your lineup each week with the best players.
