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Free Fantasy Football Advice
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Free
Fantasy Football Advice |
1) Show up for the draft
Advice: I know - it sounds like obvious advice. Fantasy Football is like life, however, and showing up is half the battle. Hopefully you have spent time and hard work coming up with a master cheat sheet (get our free fantasy football newsletter to get ours) and now it is time to put it to good use. Pre-ranking players to let the computer draft for you is never helpful to draft a winning team. For example, you don't want the computer drafting your 3rd QB for you in the 5th round, simply because he is ranked that high. You need to "feel" how the rest of your league is drafting. If 8 RB's are drafted in the first 9 picks, and you are sitting there with the 10th, you need to make an informed decision as to what plan of action your team will take. After all, you are the GM of this fantasy team, you may as well act like it and at least draft your own team, good or bad. This obvious tip is the #1 tip in our fantasy football advice.
2) Don't have a favorite team
Advice: I realize you may hope the Chargers with the Super Bowl this year, but when you enter into the draft, you must cut off all ties with your favorite team and draft players in an non-biased way. Along with this, pay attention to other GM's in your league and their favorite teams. This will give you an idea as to who they will be taking and "over paying" for while you can sit back and form the strongest fantasy team possible. Remember that the final score of weekly games don't matter to you; simply the final fantasy score each week. Heed this advice: leave your emotions at home.
3) Keep past drafts
Advice: Fantasy owners form a special bond with their players year in and year out. This is mainly true of "sleepers" who perform well or higher ranked players that finish near the top at year's end. Owners may be cheering for the Eagles all year, but if Eli Manning helped them win the Fantasy Football trophy, he surely will be at the top of that owner's list next season (maybe even higher than McNabb). The reason for this is that they focus on Manning each and every week, they are checking his injury status, finding out the teams he is playing, watching him throw 4 TD's to help his team win by 3 points and there is an emotional attachment that cannot be broken in the 6 months of off-season. Keep yourself open to new players every year and use this information against your opponents.
4) Know your league rules: Who scores you the most points
Advice: Pay attention to the way your league's scoring system is setup. If you are given 4pt per TD pass and -1 per INT a player like Michael Vick will be higher ranked (due to his rushing TD's worth 6pts each) than a pure passing QB. Vick, though, would be ranked a little lower if both passing and rushing TD's are all worth 6 points. Also make a note if your league requires a TE or not, if not, there is very little reason (outside of a few key players) to draft a TE at all.
5) Kickers and Defense: Get the top or wait
Advice: To win a fantasy league, you need quality players at key positions. Those positions mainly include QB and RB, with a few exceptions at WR. As mentioned above, with the exception of a TE or two, there is not much difference in the 5th TE and 10th TE in the league as far as final points are concerned. There is even less difference between the 5th and 10th team Defense and maybe the least difference is between Kickers. Since the point totals by year's end are so close, Defenses, TE's and Kickers should only be drafted in the late/middle or last rounds. The few exceptions to this would be if you could get the top Defense or top TE in the early/middle rounds, they may be worth the selection, if you don't get one of them, wait until near the end.
6) Only backup key players
Advice: If your league lets you use the waiver wire to select free agents (especially if its free), there is no need to backup all of your players. Make sure you get quality backups for your QB, RB, and WR positions and rather than drafting backups for your Defense and Kicker, look for some sleepers with lots of upside to draft. As the bye week for your kicker comes around, just pick up the best kicker on the board and drop yours. If you want to pick your kicker or defense the week after their bye is over, odds are they will still be there. Exceptions to this rule is if you drafted the top Defense in a semi-early round; then you need a backup because you cannot afford to drop them.
7) Make sure you backup those who are injury prone
Advice: Look to draft quality backup players of those superstars who often get injured. If you are going to use an early draft pick to select a superstar, make sure you get his backup also. An example of a few years ago is taking S. Jackson when drafting M. Faulk or more recently, drafting L. Johnson to back up P. Holmes. You can usually wait until the later rounds to backup such players, but it is a worthy investment when you select such injury prone stars on your team. Also, pay attention to those other teams are selecting. Even if you didn't draft Holmes in 2005, L. Johnson is a quality selection. Not only did he end up playing over half the season (and did very well), but he could have also been used as trade bait with the team who did select Holmes.
8) Pick up players and trade
Advice: The ending of the draft simply signifies the beginning of the season. As soon as the draft is over, you should be looking at everyone's roster. Find out where teams are strong and where they are weak. Start formulating trade ideas with these teams to take from where they may be deep and offer something to help their weaker areas. Make the trades realistic but still in your favor. Think of a salesman, while he may not mind selling you something at a fair price, his first offer is always higher; same goes with trade offers. Also keep active on the waiver wire. As a player gets injured, look to take his backup. As a 3rd WR starts to perform better, pick him up and wait to see how things pan out. Stay active in your league. Get our free weekly fantasy football newsletter for in-season trade and player pickup advice.
9) Luck is a factor so get used to it
Advice: Don't get upset if things don't work out for you this season, there is always next year. You only have so much control over fantasy football. You need to put yourself in the best position to win, making the best decisions and starting the best lineup, after that you lose control. If the coach benches a player or if your top draft selection gets injured the first week of the season, always remember that there is nothing you could have done to prevent such situations. If you keep putting yourself in the best possible situation with the best possible team, you will find yourself on top of your league more years than not.
10) Practice makes perfect
Advice: The only way to learn how to be an expert is by playing. Join a league today (at least one) and start learning from the mistakes you may make along the way. Keep reading about fantasy football, learning from others mistakes and adapting the advice you get from other experts to your league. A wonderful way to practice is using fantasy football mock drafts. They cannot help you though the regular season, but they will help you learn where players are taken year to year and some pages may even offer an expert analysis of your draft so you can have it reviewed by someone else. The expert analysis (if offered) will help you learn where your mistakes are being made and how to improve for when the draft really matters.
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