With the NFL regular season fast approaching, an increasing amount of fantasy football leagues are beginning to have their drafts. To fantasy football players, the draft is one of, if not the most crucial point of the season, as a great pick in round five can dictate your happiness on Monday mornings for the next three months.
To ensure your happiness, one should have a strategy for their fantasy football draft. Considering that standard leagues usually consist of twelve teams that each have one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, a tight end, a kicker and a team defense, there is a commonality that can be the key to winning a championship. As an experienced player, I have a few suggestions that should help any fantasy player rise to the top of their league.
- 1.Consider only top RB and QB options in early 1st round
Nine times out of ten, the top five picks of your league’s fantasy draft will clear the board of the NFL’s top running backs. If a top star at that position is no longer there, the best move is to look at the top of the quarterback board, and select either Andrew Luck or Aaron Rodgers. The only time it is acceptable to look away from these positions in the first round is at the later picks (9-12) where Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski and Lions receiver Calvin Johnson can get some consideration.
- 2.Make a pre-draft ranking; stick to it
I love making pre-draft rankings. This is mostly because I do not trust the official rankings of most fantasy football league websites. I often find that they rank rookie players too high, or value some running backs or injury-prone players highly as well. When I make my rankings, I do it about a month before my draft so I’m able to tinker with it and remove players that get suspended or injured. When it comes to draft day, I find myself looking at my rankings and remembering what I was thinking when I put players at certain spots. It helps me to keep my focus on my strategy as well as on remembering my target players.
- 3.Grab consistent options early, take chances in mid rounds
In my early rounds (1-3) I want to draft players who I know are going to give me consistent points on a weekly basis. If you don’t have a solid core of those three players on your team, you’re likely not to be very good. That is what makes the middle rounds (4-8) of the draft so important. The middle rounds contain the hidden gems; some players that will put up top fantasy numbers but are not selected until later for various reasons. For example, if your league has drafted heavy on receivers early and you are not left with a lot of options, selecting a rookie like Raiders’ receiver Amari Cooper could make a huge impact on your team despite being selected later. All in all, you should have a few players in mind that you believe will have good seasons and that will be under the radar in your league. These picks often make the difference.
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