Fantasy-Football-First

Well it’s that time of year when all the fantasy football websites roll out their “Do’s and Don’ts” columns for draft strategy.  You know the ones where they tell you to not  draft a kicker before the last round, bring a cheat sheet, and don’t draft two quarterbacks with the same bye week.

Gee, thanks.

Here at Fantasy-Football-First, we put the “ First”  in our name because that’s where we want you to finish this year.  No excuses.  This is going to be your year if you stick with us.  No one goes undefeated in fantasy football so we know there will be ups and downs.  We know there will be that one week we will lose on a meaningless touchdown at the end of the Monday night game.  We know there will be that one week we start someone in the 4pm game who doesn’t play.  We know we will go up against a team that starts their 4th string wide receiver who goes for 3 td’s.  Those are all heartbreaks that we will have to deal with.  On the other hand, we know we are going to win our league and that’s more than going to make up for all those bumps in the road.

We do this for fun and the fun starts on Draft Day.

I love live drafts.  Sometimes I do participate in an online draft but there’s always something missing.  It’s kind of like poker.  Yes, you can be good at online poker but you never know how good you really are until you play face to face.  The following is a list of Do’s and Don’ts for live drafts based on my 15 years of experience. 

DO – know your league rules.

Sounds simple but you need to know what your league rules are especially regarding roster size, waiver wire pickups and injured players.  You would be surprised how many people I see asking these questions after the draft.

DO- try to get your league to do the draft order a day or two before the draft.

If you have a top 3 pick or a bottom 3 pick or one in the middle is something that would be nice to know before the draft.  Pulling out numbers 5 minutes before the draft does nobody any favors.

DO – get there early.

I’m not exactly sure why getting there early is important.  All I know is the drafts I got there late or was rushing ended up going badly. 

DON’T – Drink.

I know.  It’s a party.  Everyone is going to be drinking.  Every draft I consumed beers at I ended up with Benjamin Watson as my tight end.  Every year I didn’t, it was Antonio Gates or Tony Gonzalez.  You get the point.

DO – encourage others to drink responsibly.

DO – encourage your league to increase the roster limits.

Some leagues draft 12 players, some 14, some even 20.  Lobby for more players.  Since I know I am going to be more prepared than the other owners, I want to be able to draft more players at the end of the draft when you can still find good players.  The less players on the rosters, the more in the waiver wire pool where they will end up on the worse teams first.

DON’T – tank the first week to get the best waiver claims.

I actually know someone who does this every year.  Makes no sense. Play to win.

DO – find out who your owners root for and praise that teams players you don’t want.

If you know you have a bunch of Redskin fans in your league, talk up how good you think Larry Johnson will be this year and watch him fly off the board in the 2nd  round. 

DO – find out who you can email trade offers to  at work.

Nothing worse than making trade offers to the guy who never checks his email.

DON’T - draft with your heart.

If you are a Dallas fan and your team has Tony Romo, Miles Austin and Felix Jones then you didn’t do your homework.

DO – make sure your running back cheat sheet goes 50 deep.

You don’t want to be that guy flipping through the magazine with a few rounds to go. 

And finally, don’t forget to bring a cheat sheet, draft your kicker in the last round and don’t take two quarterbacks with the same bye week.