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Many of you who play fantasy football may have had your draft already or be drafting this weekend, BUT there are still plenty of leagues that will draft in the coming week.
The World Championship of Fantasy Football (WCOFF) and Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC) are two big national high stakes contests who will be drafting next weekend and of course there are many online leagues drafting next week.
So as I ready my personal cheatsheets to head for Las Vegas to compete in WCOFF, I thought I would share some draft reminders as well as my observations from drafts held this week.
1) KNOW YOUR LEAGUE RULES
Yes I know you have read this several times before, but be honest….are YOU 100% sure you know all the scoring and lineup rules for each league? Do you adjust your cheatsheets for each one or just use the same one and think you will remember small differences at the table?
2) THROW THAT ADP OUT THE WINDOW
When people sit down to their money league drafts in September, many of the things they tried in early drafts or mock draft disappear. People love to speculate they will start the draft going WR/WR, but when the $$ is on the line they draft a running back.
3) DO NOT BE TIED TO SPECIFIC PLAYERS OR POSITIONS
If you work on a specific draft plan and get it stuck in your head, you may well miss a player you did not expect to fall and draft the player you “thought” you were going to get. Only an early pick in the first round is X or Y. Take the best player available and you will have a better team.
Okay on to specific player/draft trends:
1) Beware of meteoric “super sleepers” climbing the draft boards. This year’s obsession is Kareem Huggins, RB, Tampa Bay. Sure he has value as the backup for Carnell (Cadillac) Williams, but people are so anxious to say they drafted him before that they are leaving more valuable players on the draft boards. I had him targeted for a late round spec pick on Tuesday and someone drafted him in the 11th round! There were good starters still there then (if you played last year you may remember James Davis of Cleveland as a pre-season darling)
2) Speaking of which, Cleveland’s rookie running back Montario Hardesty is OUT for the year, don’t waste a pick in redraft leagues. Jerome Harrison gets a bump up despite the pre season fumbles and Davis and Peyton Hillis are the ones to watch who might get more playing time (still beware of too many players on bad teams).
3) The Twisted Fate of college teammates who were former first round NFL draft picks:
Stock Down – Matt Leinart, cut by the Arizona Cardinals on Saturday. IF Leinart catches on with another team it will be as a backup (or project) and he has no fantasy relevance this year.
Stock Up – Mike Williams, also from USC who was a first round pick of the Detroit Lions years ago and ate and lazed his way out of the league has re-dedicated himself, dropping 45 pounds and catching everything in sight with the Seahawks (and thus his college coach Pete Carroll) and is now a starter at WR with the Seahawks cutting T.J. Houshmandzadeh. Expect Mike X. Williams (or Big Mike Williams) to creep up draft boards this week (still not as valuable as the Tampa Bay Mike Williams who is now up to round eight)
4) Waiting on drafting your quarterback(s) has long been one of my credos and I practice what I preach, often waiting until after the break at WCOFF drafts before drafting my first quarterback. Unfortunately there are lots of newer players who are making a big mistake in drafting their second (even third) quarterbacks so early in the draft that when some of us who waited while we stocked our rosters with extra RB/WR are looking to draft our starting QB we are getting snaked on some with teams taking their second – this happened to me this week in the 9th round!
5) Roster spots are VALUABLE – like real estate. You want to draft RB/WR with upside who might play their way into your lineup, so you don’t need a second kicker; on short rosters you probably can’t afford to use a DSTBC and should just draft one defense. In twelve team leagues like WCOFF if I had a STUD quarterback with a later bye week I wouldn’t waste one of those precious roster spots on a backup you are not going to play until week 8 or 9 or 10. Think about it – if you draft Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees, when are YOU going to play your second quarterback? Correct Week 10, so don’t waste that spot at the draft for a bye week fill-in.
Good Luck – and remember, draft well but HAVE FUN. |
