Simple Draft Day Tips

It never fails. At every draft I attend, several of the owners show up with a stack of fantasy football magazines and a case of beer thinking they’ve done their preparations for the most important day on the fantasy football calendar. Then they proceed to draft a guy who’s out for the season with a knee injury. Nice work.

I’m not saying you need to study complex strategies like the Value Based Drafting system or strictly adhere to the Stud Running Back method of picking your team, but you have to at least have some kind of strategy and do some kind of prep work. Most of all, you need to pay attention to the news during the preseason in order to stay abreast of the latest on things like injuries and position battles. For those of you who want to take a minimalist approach to your draft prep, here are four easy tips that, when combined with a knowledge of the latest news from around the league, can lead to draft day success.

1. Have an up-to-date cheat sheet with your rankings and auction values if you use an auction to select players. Then track the players as they are selected so you know who has been taken and who is left. Doing so will enable you to always be prepared to pick without suffering the embarrassment of screaming out the name of a player who has already been selected.

2. Have a team-by-team tracker on which you list each player by team as they are picked. This will enable you to know what the needs are of the other teams in your league. Doing so allows you to make smarter selections. For instance, if you are up and still need a tight end, and all the teams that pick between your current selection and next selection already have a tight end, you can wait until your next turn to grab one. Use the current pick to fill a need or add depth at another position instead.

3. Have a schedule handy that includes the bye weeks for each team. It’s just plain dumb to draft three running backs who have the same bye week. Furthermore, having the bye week schedule handy will enable you to maximize the selection of your bye week replacement quarterback. If you draft Peyton Manning, you are probably planning to start him each and every week he doesn’t have a bye. Knowing which week he has off as well as the quarterbacks still available with the softest matchups in his bye week is a must.

4. In many instances you are going to need to insure your stud running back by also taking his backup later in the draft. If you take Adrian Peterson, for example, you have to take Chester Taylor later on in case AD goes on IR. This is known as “handcuffing” players and it is absolutely vital.