I.Draft Strategy
a.Know Your League’s Scoring System - You would be surprised how many fantasy owners overlook their league’s own scoring system. Leagues that place emphasis on yards and catches will drastically change the value of a player such as RB T.J. Duckett, who has very good value in leagues that emphasize touchdowns. While knowledge of your league system isn’t a tool that you are going to use to grade the value of the premier fantasy players usually, it will help you find value in the later rounds. The top fantasy producers are generally going to be consistent throughout leagues. Knowing that your league gives significant points for yardage receiving will allow you to draft a WR who gets significant yardage, but doesn’t necessarily see touches in the end zone. Scenarios such as this will allow for the assembling of the most complete fantasy team possible for your specific league.
b.Knowing when to take a risk and coming prepared - Every year there are those draft-day steals that everyone in the fantasy league wishes they had executed, often hearing about it for the whole year from their competition. If you want to be able to pull off the steal of your fantasy draft, you should first put together a list of “target players.” These are the players who you feel have the potential for a breakout year. There are some common trends that can generally help you develop your list. Look for:
i.Players who will be entering their positions as the #1 for their first time
ii.Getting back-ups for players who tend to get injured, called “handcuffing”
iii.Players who finished the previous season very strong
iv.Off-season acquisitions that may improve a players stock, such as RB Edgerrin James coming to the Cardinals, giving WR Larry Fitzgerald and WR Anquan Boldin an established running game.
c.Make your own cheat sheet - After organizing and establishing whom you feel is ready for a break out campaign, you must be careful as to know the limit of when to draft the player. It’s all about getting the player you want as late as possible. Find generic cheat sheets and player rankings, this will help you understand how your opponents will be drafting and allow you to risk letting a player you want fall if you believe he is under your competition’s radar. There is a big difference between grabbing a player in the 6th round who you could have gotten in the 10th round. You must take chances and differ yourself from your competitors, or else you will find yourself in a toss up where everyone drafts the exact same way. Create your own personal cheat sheet and be able to calculate when certain players should be taken, giving yourself a huge advantage over your opponents who will all be using their own standard cheat sheets.
d.Risk vs. Reward - It is also important to remember that when analyzing risk vs. reward, you must also keep in mind those who you don’t draft. Sometimes, it is the players that you leave off, aware of the potential risk that could make your fantasy season. When preparing your target sheet, you should also take the time to throw in some players you think are overrated, and stand a good chance to perform well below their expectations. Injury prone players or those with off the field issues might raise red flags as considerable risks in any fantasy draft.
e.Help Hints
i.Handcuffing - One of the latest strategies in has been the use of “handcuffing,” in which backups to stars are drafted in case of an injury. This can be used to ways. The first is simply to defend your star player, as a form of
insurance. In 2005, someone selecting RB Priest Holmes will have hoped to also have added RB Larry Johnson at some point as insurance. This puts a fantasy owner a little more at ease, knowing that they stand the chance to not completely miss their star’s production if he goes down. The other strategy to handcuffing is the ability to steal a player from your opponents. Take the previous example, the owner who took RB Priest Holmes, but chose to neglect RB Larry Johnson received a nasty surprise when Holmes went down. Meanwhile, the owner who took a chance on Johnson was able to cash in on one of the most productive players in fantasy history over the last part of the 2005 season. Another benefit to this is the ability to use backups as trade bait, especially to those starters who are injury prone
ii.RB-Centric - Inarguably the most important players in are RBs. It is important to get your RBs early on, unless there is a player at another position that has fallen too far down the draft board. Finding a reliable and productive RB throughout a season is one of the toughest parts of fantasy football, so you are going to want to make sure you draft quality ones early. RBs are a key to fantasy football, and you don’t want to get stuck with a weak one as it could kill your entire team.
iii.3rd year WR theory - There is a general fantasy rule among WRs, and this is the 3rd year theory. Among fantasy circles it is a popular belief that WRs entering their 3rd year are much more likely to explode as they have acclimated and adjusted to the NFL game. Be sure to look for those WRs who are entering their 3rd years, possibly analyzing them in your target sheet. These 3rd year WRs could be the sleepers that make a fantasy team. There are some excellent candidates heading into the 2006 season that owners should keep an eye on, specifically WRs Roy Williams, Lee Evans, and Michael Clayton.
iv.QB / WR Combo - The QB/WR combo is another aspect of that can not go unnoticed. Some QBs and WRs have good relationships while others, have off the field issues (see T.O. with both QB Jeff Garcia and QB Donovan McNabb). The QB Peyton Manning to WR Marvin Harrison hookup has become one of the all-time greats, but this isn’t necessarily what you are looking for in a fantasy situation. Both are great picks, but when looking at a QB/WR relationship, it is important to not just look at past production. QB Jake Delhomme and WR Steve Smith are good examples of this. Delhomme is known for targeting only one WR, he did it 2004 with WR Muhsin Muhammad, and did it again in 2004 with Smith. This means taking Carolina’s #2 WR is no longer a very good option, as he is likely to produce less than a typical #2. Looking at it again from another view, take the relationship of QB Carson Palmer and WR Chad Johnson entering the 2005 season. They practiced consistently over the summer, working on routes and timing, while becoming very close. This led to the establishment of one of the league’s elite, young passing combos. However, be weary that when drafting a QB/WR combo that although they can put up big numbers, if the QB struggles that game so will the WR, so instead of a bad game only hurting one player it will hurt both. There is a risk when taking a QB/WR combo but also the potential for high reward.
v.Bye Week Strategy - One of the last helpful hints of is the bye week strategy. Every player is going to have a bye week at some point in the season, and it is important to look at serviceable candidates. This is when match-ups become very important. Look for players who tend to have big games against certain teams, and then snag them off waivers for a one week fill-in start. This brings up a larger point in general and that is during the season, understand your players’ histories against opposing teams. There might be a week where one of your players is playing one of the NFL’s best defenses, and it is wiser to start someone going against one of the weaker defenses. Playing specific players is a huge part of fantasy football, as everyone always hates the feeling you get when a player explodes for a huge day, only to notice that you had him sitting on your bench.
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