Hello, #4EYEDFans!
For some people their fantasy football draft is one of the most stressful times of the year. The comment that “It’s not how you start, its how you finish”, is not only an overused cliché, it is flat out wrong when particularly when it comes to fantasy football. There are many a fantasy football player who has suffered humiliating penalties for coming in at the bottom of their leagues, simply because they were not able set the early tone with a team that was poorly constructed and just plain bad. I don’t know about the rest of you but if I had an idea that my punishment for losing in my fantasy football league meant that I had to get some humiliating tattoo, I would have been a lot more focused on my fantasy football draft.
While most punishments are not that severe, it is a good idea to have a good plan going into your fantasy football draft, and with that being said here is a list of mistakes you should look to avoid as you head into your fantasy football draft.
1. Printing Out Stats from The Previous Year the Night Before
This is generally not a formula for success. Look, we all have had moments when we might be a little lax in gathering material for our drafts and let’s face it, a trained monkey is smart enough to know who the top four running backs in the draft are this year. But if you want to wait until the last moment to print your stats and do your research then I will be glad to take your money or whatever you put up to enter the league and beat the hell out of you when our matchup comes up during the season.
2. Panicking
Previously I had talked about personality traits that you see at many a draft party, and one of them is the Panicker. You don’t want to be that person, you want to have plans A, B and C all lined up when the inevitable happens and you get beaten out for the pick that you wanted. You can do all the mock drafts you want and you can devise the perfect strategy for the perfect team, but there will always be someone that goes off script and you being the master preplanner that you are will be ready for anything that gets thrown your way. So, stay calm, stay relaxed and for the love of all that is fantasy football, don’t think that just because one idiot took a kicker in the 6th round, that means the run on kickers are going to start and you have to join the run. All that does is cause you to miss out on some truly helpful players at skill positions that are still available.
3. Overvalue Really Good Preseason Numbers
The top four running backs in the 2018 preseason rushed for a total of 907 yards. Now, how about we play a quick game of “how did they do in the regular season”. What would be your guess as to the combined yards rushing of Chris Warren (not the one you think), Ryan Nall, John Kelly and Mike Boone in the 2018 regular season be? If you pulled the number 121 out, not only would you be right, but you would also need to get out of the house a little bit and enjoy the world. The point here is that while you might see potential in that guy on your favorite team that has a bomb preseason after coming from nowhere, know that a person like Victor Cruz is rare and the exception. You have to be very weary of overvaluing the preseason. There are any hundreds of reasons why a player’s good preseason does not translate over to the regular season. Injury, better stars ahead of that player and of course filling up the practice squad are all reasons why your preseason stud turns into your regular season “Who??”. So be very careful about getting memorized by a guy’s great preseason because there is a good possibility, that guy was only out there to make sure that the star player does not get hurt.
4. Overdrafting at One Position at the Expense of Others
Hey I get that you think that you have the most awesome running back core in the history of Fantasy Football, the fact that you took running backs with your first four picks is great! However, you do realize that there are a few other positions on the football field? That the flaw in your brilliant strategy is that upon further analysis your roster shows me that you have mediocre, at best wide receivers, a quarterback who throws interceptions at a Nathan Peterman level of efficiency (you may actually have Peterman) and a tight end who may or may not retire before the end of training camp. So before you go into your draft thinking that this strategy will make you the envy of your league and that if all else fails you have these really awesome trade chips to tout in case your plan goes awry, it probably is best that you think about spreading the wealth a little more evenly. Going running back in the first two rounds is fine, but make sure that you are well positioned to go to another position in the third round, just so you are covered. Look at how the draft is falling and make good decisions based on how other people are picking as well.
5. Trust what you are hearing from REAL experts
I know that it is very easy to think that you are the fantasy guru, because you have won your fantasy league two of the last three years, I get it that you were some brilliant spotter of waiver wire talent that turns into a stud. But just because you were able to pick up James Connor last year because you KNEW that Le’Veon Bell was never going to re-sign with Pittsburgh, does not make you a genius reading the minds of these players. That goes for player contract status, depth chart evaluations, potential injuries and any number of factors that could affect the value of a player going into the season. The media, including TV, radio and internet is filled with people who might have better insight into the inner workings of all the teams and they might know better than you. While I would say that not every so-called expert is a viable source of information, it is wise to seek out the help of experts in order to make smart draft day decision.
6. Those who don’t understand history are doomed…
It does take a lot of skill to recognize when a player who might otherwise be an afterthought on most draft boards will have a breakout season. Those people who were able to spot the talents of Phillip Lindsay an undrafted rookie out of Colorado were paid off handsomely by a Pro-Bowl rookie season in 2018. Alternatively, you may have also been seduced last year by his teammate, QB Case Keenum, who was coming off the season of his life in Minnesota. Those two guys on the same team is an instructive lesson on the perils of over and under hyping players and how it can potentially destroy your fantasy team before the first game is even played. The Phillip Lindsay’s of the world are an extremely rare breed; there were 254 guys picked in the 2019 NFL Draft, the odds that all these team executives missed out on the next Pro Bowl running back or wide receiver are extremely low so try not to overvalue your ability to spot these guys and pick from what you know.
On the other side, recognize when career years occur and that history shows that a mediocre history usually predicts a mediocre future. Yes, someone like Case Keenum had an awesome season in 2017 with the Vikings, but by ignoring the five previous seasons of average to below average play, only spells doom for your fantasy football team if you put too much value in that one great year.
7. Recognize the Slide
Sports can be a heartless profession, you are on top of the world one minute and you are not able to find a job the next, and all of this seems to happen before you hit the age of 35. Unfortunately, it is a reality that these guys live with and it is also a reality for people in the front office of teams, and it should be a reality of your draft strategy. We all fondly remember the days when a guy was the best in the game and no one could touch him, but football is a hard sport, the body wears down and your skill level diminishes. Your draft strategy has to recognize that just because a guy averaged 1,500 yards or caught 12 touchdowns a season, that ended two years ago, and a combination of age, injury and time will not bring back those glory years, so draft accordingly and as the title to this section says, recognize the inevitable slide in production.
These are just some of the mistakes that people make when the head into their Fantasy Football drafts. While even the best of the best will make these and other mistakes, like everything else in life it is always good to recognize the dangers before they occur, to adequately plan both the expected, as well as the unexpected should they arise. If you are able to do that with some proficiency, I guarantee, you will have a fun and successful fantasy draft.