How to Prepare for a Fantasy Football Draft

Many fantasy football players are under the mistaken impression that their team’s fate rests mainly on their first couple of picks. In fact, many early draft picks turn out to be flops. The key to success in most fantasy football leagues is making shrewd picks in the middle and late rounds of the draft.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Computer with a good Internet connection

1. Consult at least half a dozen online fantasy football draft services in the weeks leading up to the draft, as well as other articles and analysis by NFL and fantasy football experts. You can choose paying services if you wish, but it’s not necessary. There is a lot of good, free, easy-to-find FFB draft information out there.
2. Consult several different sources and compile your own “cheat sheet.” A cheat sheet is a position-by-position ranking of all of the players that are likely to be drafted in your league. Rank the players by calculating the average of their positions on each of the rankings you are consulting, or, when you have a strong opinion about a certain player, trust your gut instinct and rank that player accordingly.
3. Combine your position-by-position rankings to compile a “master cheat sheet” that ranks all players regardless of position. You can use this during the draft to assess whether you are picking a player at about the place where he is “supposed” to be picked. This will ensure that you get maximum value for your selections.
4. Identify five to ten “sleepers” as you rank players. These are players that you expect to perform much better than conventional wisdom would dictate. Someone can be a good sleeper candidate for any number of reasons—-a young, talented player on the verge of a breakout season, a player who has changed teams and is now in a much better situation, a quarterback who suddenly has better receivers. If you identify several sleepers ahead of time, you should be able to select three or four of them in the middle to late rounds of the draft. If your instincts are good, these players will be instrumental to your team’s success.
5. don’t stick to the old fantasy football maxim of always drafting running backs in the first two rounds. The NFL is much more passing-oriented than it used to be and it can often be a shrewd move to select an elite quarterback or receiver in the early rounds if all of the elite backs have already been snatched up. Have a plan going in, but keep an open mind.