The past 32 days I've offered a cursory breakdown of fantasy-relevant players on all 32 teams: snapshots of potential bargains and busts, important depth chart battles, etc. All of the analysis that went into these summaries formed the basis of the first draft of my annual Top 300 Preseason Rankings (sign up here: www.fantasyfootballforwinners.com). Most of those rankings will remain pretty static until most players report to training camp in a few days.
Then we'll start seeing anywhere from 10 to 30+ shifts per week -- not based on a reporter writing that "So-and-so was really hustling in practice today." That's worthless for our purposes. We want tangible evidence that a player's actual value has shifted since yesterday -- like a rookie QB who's third on the depth chart suddenly earning first-team snaps, or an RB sitting after fumbling twice on successive plays, or a chronically injured WR missing practice due to a pulled hamstring. None of these tell us what *will* happen. But they cannot be ignored.
With training camp not yet in full swing, I'll spend the next week delving into fantasy draft strategy. Today we'll focus on general draft prep. Tomorrow, the boom-bust nature of RBs. Then scheduling implications, followed by draft flow. Finally I'll do my annual detailed rundown of a recent draft. At that point, the final players (except for holdouts) will have just reported to camp, and we can begin the next phase of the preseason: making sense of each day's notable fantasy news.
The FF4W team and I field hundreds and hundreds of draft questions each summer. Sometimes the answer is another question: "What are your league rules?"
Whether you're in a new league or a long-time league, whether this is your first year doing fantasy or you've been doing it since the '80s or even earlier, and even if you're the commissioner who sets everything up, we never out-grow the need to read and understand our league rules. Some basic things I investigate before starting draft prep:
(1) Is trading allowed, and if so, when's the deadline? As long-time FF4W readers know, when I'm in a trading league, I'm communicating with every fantasy manager regularly. I want to be top-of-mind if they decide to bail on a high-value underperformer, or if they're desperate for a positional upgrade.
(2) How many starters are we allowed a each position? If you're in a QB-2RB-2WR-TE-Flex-K-DST league (fairly typical), that requires a lot different thinking than a 2-QB league, or even a no-flex league (such as QB-2RB-3WR-TE-K-DST).
(3) How many bench spots are there? For a couple years I was in a league with only two. That was deliberately insane, and I soon left that league. But even a four- or five-bench roster has far different implications than a seven- or eight-bench roster. In the former, bye weeks and injuries can force us to make very tough decisions, such as dropping an underperforming WR3 or an elite RB handcuff. The bigger the bench, the more important the draft is, because we have more flexibility to retain the guys we want.
(4) Is there an IR spot? If yes, then it's imperative to draft a high-upside injured player at or near their current value. For example, D'Onta Foreman might start the season on the PUP list (missing the first six weeks). Yet he could realistically yield RB3+ production by midseason. If he ends up on PUP by the time you draft, grab him, stash him on IR, and then round out your roster after the draft. You now have one more player than most/all of your opponents, meaning you have more chances to strike gold.
(5) How are waivers structured? Some systems include daily blind auctions, and when each day's waivers are completed, most players become available for simple free-agent pickups. For example, if those pickups begin at 8:00am daily, I better understand the importance of being at my computer or on my phone starting at 7:55am to prepare for a quick-and-easy post-waiver selection of a targeted free agent.
(6) Which teams have the easiest and toughest schedules, including in the fantasy playoffs? While circumstances change throughout a season (for example, in shallow leagues my Week 14 roster often looks very different than my drafted roster), it's important to recognize the bumps and dips and player values based on future matchups. If in Week 16 RB-A faces Washington at home while RB-B travels to Jacksonville, this must be factored into our draft-day decision making, even if only slightly.
(7) How have this season's scoring rules change, if at all? If there are changes, I reassess last year's positional representation and point gaps based on the new scoring rules. For example, last year Scott Fish (the commissioner of his eponymous league) awarded one point per rushing/receiving first down, with an extra 1.5-point bonus for TEs. This year he's lowered the first-down bonus to 0.5 points (with an extra 0.5-point TE bonus) and added a 0.5-point bonus for receptions (while giving TEs another 0.5-point bonus on top of that).
The impact? QB value takes a small hit, at the expense of high-volume RB pass-catchers and most WRs and TEs. And yet, 20 QBs were taken in the first five rounds of this year's draft -- the same number as last year. I don't think some of my opponents recognized how these new scoring rules would increase 100+ RB/WR/TE players' fantasy output by 10% or more while simultaneously cutting the production of mobile QBs.
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There's plenty more to examine, of course. But this is a good starting point, (almost) guaranteed to make you better prepared than most/all of your opponents on draft day.
Then we'll start seeing anywhere from 10 to 30+ shifts per week -- not based on a reporter writing that "So-and-so was really hustling in practice today." That's worthless for our purposes. We want tangible evidence that a player's actual value has shifted since yesterday -- like a rookie QB who's third on the depth chart suddenly earning first-team snaps, or an RB sitting after fumbling twice on successive plays, or a chronically injured WR missing practice due to a pulled hamstring. None of these tell us what *will* happen. But they cannot be ignored.
With training camp not yet in full swing, I'll spend the next week delving into fantasy draft strategy. Today we'll focus on general draft prep. Tomorrow, the boom-bust nature of RBs. Then scheduling implications, followed by draft flow. Finally I'll do my annual detailed rundown of a recent draft. At that point, the final players (except for holdouts) will have just reported to camp, and we can begin the next phase of the preseason: making sense of each day's notable fantasy news.
The FF4W team and I field hundreds and hundreds of draft questions each summer. Sometimes the answer is another question: "What are your league rules?"
Whether you're in a new league or a long-time league, whether this is your first year doing fantasy or you've been doing it since the '80s or even earlier, and even if you're the commissioner who sets everything up, we never out-grow the need to read and understand our league rules. Some basic things I investigate before starting draft prep:
(1) Is trading allowed, and if so, when's the deadline? As long-time FF4W readers know, when I'm in a trading league, I'm communicating with every fantasy manager regularly. I want to be top-of-mind if they decide to bail on a high-value underperformer, or if they're desperate for a positional upgrade.
(2) How many starters are we allowed a each position? If you're in a QB-2RB-2WR-TE-Flex-K-DST league (fairly typical), that requires a lot different thinking than a 2-QB league, or even a no-flex league (such as QB-2RB-3WR-TE-K-DST).
(3) How many bench spots are there? For a couple years I was in a league with only two. That was deliberately insane, and I soon left that league. But even a four- or five-bench roster has far different implications than a seven- or eight-bench roster. In the former, bye weeks and injuries can force us to make very tough decisions, such as dropping an underperforming WR3 or an elite RB handcuff. The bigger the bench, the more important the draft is, because we have more flexibility to retain the guys we want.
(4) Is there an IR spot? If yes, then it's imperative to draft a high-upside injured player at or near their current value. For example, D'Onta Foreman might start the season on the PUP list (missing the first six weeks). Yet he could realistically yield RB3+ production by midseason. If he ends up on PUP by the time you draft, grab him, stash him on IR, and then round out your roster after the draft. You now have one more player than most/all of your opponents, meaning you have more chances to strike gold.
(5) How are waivers structured? Some systems include daily blind auctions, and when each day's waivers are completed, most players become available for simple free-agent pickups. For example, if those pickups begin at 8:00am daily, I better understand the importance of being at my computer or on my phone starting at 7:55am to prepare for a quick-and-easy post-waiver selection of a targeted free agent.
(6) Which teams have the easiest and toughest schedules, including in the fantasy playoffs? While circumstances change throughout a season (for example, in shallow leagues my Week 14 roster often looks very different than my drafted roster), it's important to recognize the bumps and dips and player values based on future matchups. If in Week 16 RB-A faces Washington at home while RB-B travels to Jacksonville, this must be factored into our draft-day decision making, even if only slightly.
(7) How have this season's scoring rules change, if at all? If there are changes, I reassess last year's positional representation and point gaps based on the new scoring rules. For example, last year Scott Fish (the commissioner of his eponymous league) awarded one point per rushing/receiving first down, with an extra 1.5-point bonus for TEs. This year he's lowered the first-down bonus to 0.5 points (with an extra 0.5-point TE bonus) and added a 0.5-point bonus for receptions (while giving TEs another 0.5-point bonus on top of that).
The impact? QB value takes a small hit, at the expense of high-volume RB pass-catchers and most WRs and TEs. And yet, 20 QBs were taken in the first five rounds of this year's draft -- the same number as last year. I don't think some of my opponents recognized how these new scoring rules would increase 100+ RB/WR/TE players' fantasy output by 10% or more while simultaneously cutting the production of mobile QBs.
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There's plenty more to examine, of course. But this is a good starting point, (almost) guaranteed to make you better prepared than most/all of your opponents on draft day.