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| Adrian Peterson should run away with the number 1 overall pick in every league |
For most of you, draft day is in about 6 weeks or so, but the exact date does not matter because it is never too early to start preparing. Last year, I studied numbers and stats like a mathematician, read articles and magazines like a librarian, and did more mock drafts than Michael Jackson had plastic surgeries. And guess what I was doing at the end of the season? Celebrating a championship.
There is no one way to win your league or one strategy to go by on draft day. It is all about adjusting, round to round. If you are targeting, say, CJ Spiller with the 7th pick, and he goes 5th, you have to be able to stay calm and weigh your other options. The same goes with in season moves (pick-ups, trades) from week to week. Last season I used a late first round pick on Matthew Stafford (smart, right?). I soon shipped him off and boarded the “Luck” train, which I then got off in a trade along with Marshawn Lynch for Drew Brees and Shonn Greene. Could I have won with either Stafford or Luck and Lynch instead of Brees and Greene? Possibly, but last year I felt like I had a better chance with a top tier quarterback. That is why I drafted Stafford in the first round, because I thought he was moving into the top tier of QBs. This proves that you have to adjust year to year as well. Last season, Aaron Rodgers went 1st overall, followed by three more QBs in the first round because we thought there was not much depth. Turns out there was and that’s why running backs look to be the golden snitch of this year’s draft.
Last year we saw the emergence of Russell Wilson, Robert Griffin III, Andrew Luck, and Colin Kaepernick. We do not have a question mark over Peyton Manning’s head, Matt Ryan finally broke out as a fantasy stud, and we still have Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Cam Newton who we know will produce, so in a 10-team league, I would not advise against being the last to take your starting QB.
Before I go on and tell you how you should draft to have the best chance in becoming a champion, let me say this, if it does not work out for you, it is not my fault. You still need to pick the players you like, and they have to perform. I can tell you who I like and who I don’t, as well as tell you how to draft your roster, but in the end it is all up to you. I am just the angel on your shoulder giving you good advice, but maybe to some of you I am the devil on your other shoulder giving you bad advice. Either way, I won’t stop giving advice, so here we go (yes, a dog did just bring me a beer).
As I have mentioned just a bit ago, running backs are gold in this year’s draft, and you have to get one early. That is worth repeating in caps, YOU NEED TO GET A RUNNING BACK EARLY. And not even just early, but often because there are not many top tier backs this year. I counted up and I am drafting two backs out of a pool of only 15. So that means in the first two rounds, your best strategy would be to go running back and then running back again. If you don’t, then you may as well stock up on receivers and later on draft some young backs (Eddie Lacy, Le’Veon Bell, Lamar Miller, etc) who have a chance at breaking out. We have seen the depth at quarterback and there is even more depth at wide receiver with the way teams throw the ball nowadays. I will be releasing my official rankings on Monday, and maybe then you will see exactly what I mean about depth.
There are other strategies that have worked for people in the past but they are all hit or miss. One is drafting the best quarterback early, which last year we saw as not actually the best option. The thought process behind drafting one of the best quarterbacks is that they score the most fantasy points, but at the same time, you have to sacrifice a top end running back for a top end quarterback. I am not willing to go through that risk early in my draft because I would be very satisfied with Matt Ryan on my roster as a 5th or 6th round pick, and having Trent Richardson and Steven Jackson as my two backs, instead of Aaron Rodgers, Darren McFadden, and Reggie Bush.
Another strategy is going with wide receivers early on, which also can work, but again its about timing and picking the guys that are going to perform. Wide receivers are probably the most reliable position because not many of them get hurt, and in any given game a 2nd or 3rd string WR can pop up on the scoreboard for six points. You don’t see many 2nd or 3rd string running backs scoring touchdowns because the starter takes the majority of the snaps. There are often three WR on the field at once, so by taking Calvin Johnson, Roddy White, and Randall Cobb while fighting it out with David Wilson as your number one RB, you are setting yourself up for some nice points at WR and taking a big risk at RB. That is okay, but the safest and most efficient strategy to draft is to pick from the shallow pool of RBs so you don’t end up drowning in it.
Any strategy is alright and can work, but let’s look at if you take two RBs with your first two picks. We’ll say we have Doug Martin and Stevan Ridley. In any week, these two backs should average about 22 fantasy points combined. It is much easier, like I said, to see a receiver like Cecil Shorts have a double digit fantasy game than someone like Monte Ball. So then you go on to take Vincent Jackson and Jordy Nelson as your two WRs who just like running backs should average you about 22 points combined. Grab Darren Sproles in the fifth as a flex who I would expect 8 points out of, and Matt Ryan in the sixth who should average you about 17. A tight end should lock up 8 points a week, your defense and kicker around the same. If you were doing the math (correctly), you would add up your starting roster to get you 93 fantasy points. I looked back at my match ups in my league last season and 93 points would have won me ten regular season games, which easily gets me into the playoffs.
For me, the whole key is balance. Say it with me, balance. You don’t want one position too weak or one position too strong. I think if you have a balanced roster, you can never go wrong because here is the thing, guys are going to have bad weeks. It’s as simple as that, but then there are also going to be guys who have really good weeks. You just need to have a little luck on your side when one position has a below average week, hopefully another position makes up those points by having an above average week. If your team is balanced then your worry about having one position being too weak, every week, is minimized. And that is really what fantasy is all about, minimizing risk and maximizing reward, along with some luck, skill, research, etc. But you have to be able to figure out on draft day who is going to give you the most reward while keeping the risk small.
It is basically all a big puzzle. I am not a fan of puzzles, but filling up a fantasy football roster is one of my favorite things to do. In a standard league you have 16 slots on your roster including bench players, or 16 pieces to your puzzle. Usually, the best way to do a puzzle is to find all the pieces that have a straight edge on them because you know that they are the border of your puzzle. Those pieces are your running backs, the ones you try to find first, and the foundation of your roster that is going to keep your whole team balanced. From the border of your puzzle, you want to work your way towards the middle until you are finally complete and it looks just like the front of the box. This is where you pick up your wide outs, quarterback, tight end, defense, kicker, and bench players in any order as long as it is a value pick. A “value” pick is something like taking Jimmy Graham in the fifth when he probably should have been gone in the third. And the front of the box is your preparation. You need to do everything you can to prepare for your draft, and have a vision of what your team is going to look like when you are finished drafting.
Now, sometimes you can’t make two pieces of your puzzle fit, but that is alright because eventually it all comes together. Maybe you can’t find a piece that matches up with another piece, but it doesn’t matter because you can move on to a few different pieces and make them fit. If during your draft you are targeting someone special and he gets taken by the team right in front of you, do NOT panic. It is okay because all you have to do is put that piece down and move on to a different one. And guess what, the puzzle always gets complete in the end, just like your team will be when your 16 rounds of ups and downs, happiness and sadness, laughing and crying, tranquility and aggression, is over.
The last thing I want to talk about are late round “fliers.” This term, “flier” is used to describe a player who you draft in the later rounds and has a lot potential to be a fantasy sleeper, but they can also not work out at all, and you end up having to drop them in week 3. Taking these “fliers” can be a great strategy in the closing rounds. It might just be a pet peeve of mine, but I want to warn you by telling you not to take too many. Don’t start at round 11 and take five fliers in a row until round 16 where you take your kicker. Side note: Take your kicker in the last round of your draft. Period. Back to fliers, taking one or two of them when they are available and you feel confident in them is okay. But don’t use the following statement as an excuse to take Mr. Irrelevant of the 2013 NFL Draft: “Because he is a flier, I think he’s going to break out.” No. The moral of this paragraph is to be prepared in the late rounds just as much, if not more than the early rounds, because these are the players that you are going to need when injuries happen, during bye weeks, or when the guy you picked in the 15th round is Randall Cobb and has an unexpected unbelievable year.
To review the main points that you need to live by for the upcoming days until draft day and on draft day itself are the following: 1. Be prepared for your draft. 2. Running backs early and often. 3. Quarterback and wide receiver is deep. 4. Don’t take too many fliers, make sure you are prepared for the late rounds. 5. Kicker in the last round no matter what.
I hope you gained a lot of knowledge from reading this and now it is time to get to work. Get going on doing mock drafts just to feel out when players are going and to figure out what kind of strategy you want to use when it comes time for the real thing. As I said before, I will be posting my official rankings on Monday, so stop back in and check those out. I would love for any of you to leave a comment about different strategies to use, which one is your favorite, or which one has worked for you in the past. As always you can email me or tweet at me with any kind of questions and I will get back to you with my answer.
Have fun when preparing for your draft, that is what it’s all about. And of course, good luck!
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