Return to Fantasyland

As the summer doldrums begin their inevitable ascension into fall foliage, few things bring me more joy (outside of my family, of course) than fantasy football.  Of course I say that now ... but many times by December I’m cursing myself for not having the foresight to draft the next Arian Foster. 

In late August, the baseball season is beginning their pennant stretch, the NBA and NHL release their respective pre-season schedules, and millions of Americans will stagger up to big, blank boards and begin their selection process which will eventually bring home a fantasy football trophy.  They hope.  In other words, it’s a great time to be a sports fan.  Having “managed” numerous fantasy teams with varying success over the past 12 years, I have picked up a thing or two on what builds a winning formula.  To be honest ... it ALL begins on draft day. Your post-draft analysis will define the tone of your season and determine how many (or how few) waiver wire pick-ups you will have to endure in order to hit pay dirt.

I have completed live drafts in two of my four fantasy football leagues this season, with the other two on deck shortly. For anybody new to the fantasy game, or anyone else looking for assistance in shutting up their buddies on draft day, I have compiled a list of five helpful hints. These tips should help you dominate your draft, and leave your league-mates with a feeling of envy and impending doom, before the season even begins.

1. Do Your Homework

If you think you can show up at the draft, and select a strong team without doing any research, it’s not going to happen. Keeping up on the latest positional battles emanating from each team’s training camp, as well as up-to-the minute injury news, is incredibly important. Luckily, with the proliferation of the NFL Network and hundreds of fantasy football advice websites (including those of ESPN, Yahoo, etc.) this process is easy.  There are also dozens of free advice apps that are accessible at any time, including while you’re sitting down waiting to make your next selection. My favorite is Roto-Wire.

And of course, every league has the guys that buy those big fantasy football guides from any newsstand for like $10 a pop.  Those magazines may have been okay a few years ago, but with the instant availability of information that method doesn’t fly nowadays. The problem there is ... those are written in May.  By the time the draft actually comes around, the information and rankings are horribly outdated. My advice is to seek out one of the bigger websites (my go-to is CBS Sportsline) and print out their free downloadable draft kits.  Most are updated daily, and you can’t get more current than that.

2. Know Your League's Scoring System

Is this a PPR (Points Per Reception) league? How many at each position do we start? Do we start a team defense, or is it an IDP (Individual Defensive Player) league? All of these are questions that you HAVE to know the answer to, because they should dictate your draft strategy.

Wide receiver extraordinaire Wes Welker holds a lot more value in a PPR league than in one with standard scoring. The reason? While he catches a lot of passes from his buddy Tom Brady, more often than not those connections do not result in a touchdown.

Same goes with running backs who also catch passes out of the backfield. Atlanta’s Michael Turner has been one of the premier runners in the league for a few years now. So why does Philly’s LeSean McCoy hold significantly more fantasy value? Because he's contstantly catching check-downs from his QB, making him PPR gold.

Do not draft three quarterbacks when you can only start one. Having two backups doesn’t make sense, especially considering you could’ve picked up a sleeper at another position with the last pick (more on “sleepers” later). Bottom line ... know your league’s scoring system so you can pre-rank the players accordingly.

3. Let the Draft Come to You

Have an idea (based on where you’re picking in the first round) of which players would more than likely be available when it’s your time to choose, and draft the best one. But after that point ... you have to select the best player available in each round, regardless of position.

You may want to draft running backs (the darlings of most fantasy football league) with back-to-back picks, but if you have the opportunity to take an elite wide receiver or quarterback as opposed to a second- or third-tier back, the smart money is always on the impact player.

Don’t worry about being shut out; for each position, there are always big-time players that emerge throughout the season. Just make sure to be active on the waiver wire through September and October, and things should be fine.

While I’m at it, my philosophy is to never draft a kicker or defense until the very end of the draft. The point differential between the very best and 10^th or 12^th best at these positions is not large enough to justify passing up an impact rookie to take, let’s say, the 49ers defense six rounds too early.

Tight ends, after freaks-of-nature Jimmy Graham and Rob Gronkowski are off the board, are also not worth drafting before the 6^th or 7^th round. Load up on impact players, regardless of position, and things will invariably work out.

4. Don’t Forget the Handcuffs

A handcuff is considered to be any running back on a team that backs up that team’s starter. Sometimes, as is the case with Carolina’s Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams, two running backs actually split the workload equally, creating additional headaches for fantasy owners. But handcuffs are important because they essentially act as insurance for your biggest stars (Foster, Ray Rice, etc.), and can save your season if one of those guys misses any extended period of time.

Occasionally handcuffs hold immense value for other reasons, as this season’s contract holdout by Jacksonville’s Maurice Jones-Drew illustrates. His backup, Rashad Jennings, will actually be the starter for the foreseeable future ... or until the billionaire owner and millionaire player can end their public staring contest.

Of course, watch out for the "snipers" ... those other owners in your league that will look to take your handcuff early. Their sole purpose is to beat you to the punch, and force your hand. It’s a constant game of one-upmanship at the draft, and one that you have to be prepared for.

5. Don’t Wait on Sleepers

If this season’s early drafts have taught me anything, it’s that the secret is out on those rookies and under-the-radar players that I thought I could steal late in the draft.

On two separate occasions I’ve had Jacksonville receiver Justin Blackmon and New England running back Stevan Ridley pulled out from under me, a full two rounds earlier than I was willing to take them. My plan on waiting for unproven players until the later rounds is usually flawless (solidified by my thefts of Jimmy Graham and AJ Green in every single one of my leagues last year), but despite every expert’s pre-draft rankings these guys are going much earlier than expected.

My point: If you love a player, go out on a limb and scoop him up before someone else does. If Blackmon ends up having a Randy Moss circa 2007 type of year statistically, I’ll be kicking myself for not being more pro-active. If you end up being wrong about a player’s potential, then at least you won’t be regretting not pulling the trigger early enough, which is far worse.

So that wraps up my fantasy football pre-draft advice column. Again, these are strategies and tips that have helped me to make informed decisions on whom to draft, and in which rounds. Remember that no league can be won at the draft, but they surely can be lost at one.

For those Patch readers that play fantasy football, I’m curious ... did you have your league’s draft yet? How do it go?