1. Fantasy Football Draft Strategy Guide for 2011
Fantasy football is an awesome gaming
activity, to say the least, as it allows
people who are looking for huge
participation and interact with one
another to have a good time. Do you want
to play a little game with your friends?
Go for it. Do you want to engage in a
highly competitive campaign against self-
proclaimed fantasy football gods from all over the globe? Bring it. However, before you
jump the gun and start getting involved in a fantasy football draft, here are three
essential tips you need to keep in mind to have a successful draft this year.
1. Mock Drafting Is a Necessity
Going through a fantasy football draft and ending up with an awesome looking team
is all about preparation. Unfortunately, no, picking up the fist football magazine you
come across with before draft day doesn’t count. The only way to get a feel of the trends
of this year’s drafts is to join mock drafts, join another, and then mock draft some more.
After reading this piece, go look for quality mock draft sites and do a mock. After a few
days, do another. Keep on doing this every few days and observe the developing trends.
Doing multiple mock drafts allows you to play around and adjust your strategies from
the start of your draft until the end. You may find yourself preferring to draft a
quarterback in the seventh or eighth round, or you may make the right decision to grab
a tight end in the third or fourth round. You will never know until you give it a shot,
making your draft without mocking takes away the opportunity to iron out potential
draft mistakes.
2. 2. Safe Early, Upside Late
Many fantasy football players have become reliant on stat projections to measure
fantasy values. While these projections have their place and can be nice discussion
material, they shouldn’t be the holy grail of your preparation. A single stat line is never
going to capture a player’s full fantasy value.
Now when I say “safe early,” this means drafting the players with the highest floors,
meaning they have the lowest chance to be early-round busts. You may not agree with
rankings based on upside, but I advise you to manage your risks wisely at the beginning
of your draft.
Conversely, all you want at the end of fantasy drafts are players with sky-high upsides.
Don’t waste your time getting Lee Evans, Mark Sanchez or Reggie Bush. They may
perform at their draft level, but there’s not much opportunity to profit from these picks.
Alternatively, you would want to have a quarterback like Tim Tebow, who could be a
fantasy football monster if gets to start for the Broncos. If you see any room for a late-
round guy to wind up with significant playing time, pounce.
3.Avoid Kickers and Team Defenses
You may have already bitten into the kicker concept and probably have jumped on the
concept of devaluing team defenses, but this is not saying you have to leave them out for
the end of your draft. This means you should not draft a kicker of defense AT ALL. It
may be counterintuitive, but there is good reason for this strategy. As we have
mentioned, you want to find some risky picks that have the chance for big payoffs at the
end of the draft. You already take away two chances of finding that golden egg by
picking a kicker and a defense. Instead, focus on getting more running backs than you
3. could possibly need. Pre-season injuries do happen, and fantasy contributors do
sometimes come from the ranks of pre-season warriors.
