Hunt and Gather Info
You cannot reasonably expect to win at any game without practice. Since you can’t have practice fantasy football games, you must absorb football information almost like you had square pants. Get at least two to three fantasy football publications (which usually hit the newsstands during mid-summer, and you’ll see about 20 different kinds in any grocery store) and read through them. In my opinion there are three things that make a fantasy magazine worthwhile, position rankings, auction values, and mock drafts. Fanball used to put out three fantastic magazines each summer, but there have been some massive changes within that company and we don’t know what the quality will be like this season.
If you cannot find what you are looking for within the magazines, some websites have great fantasy football insight and draft prep kits. In order to get really good, clear content with the rankings and mocks that you will need, you will probably have to pay at least an arm, a leg, or anywhere from 30 to 50 bucks. There are literally hundreds of websites to choose from, such as rotowire.com and fantasyfootballchamps.com (which I highly recommend), but I would steer clear of sports news sites such as espn.com or foxsports.com, due to their focus on news rather than fantasy items. Quite often sports news and fantasy news are intertwined, but unless you can break down what an injury or suspension to Randy Moss does to Wes Welker and Tom Brady’s fantasy value, you might dwell on the wrong things.
Once you have found your favorite trusted sources, devour what is spewed from these wizards of the fantasy world. As mentioned before, pay attention to three key items, position rankings, auction values, and mock drafts. From there you will make your own draft day cheat sheet, which is invaluable during a fast-paced draft or auction. As an early-nineties R&B group said, “This is how we do it.”
How to Make Your Own Bomb-Diggity Cheat Sheet
The most important part of any cheat sheet is to give yourself quick information that is vital to the draft. We would certainly start with rankings by position, but taking it one step further, rank each player by group. For instance, if in your mind there are only three blockbuster, head-and-shoulders, dandruff free, super stud running backs, (i.e. L.T., Adrian Peterson, and Steven Jackson) you would rank them as the “five-star” running backs. Then you would group the next crop of “four-star” backs, like Larry Johnson, Joseph Addai, Marion Barber, and Brian Westbrook. You keep grouping them into backs that you think would be interchangeable in your lineup, and by doing that you can look and see not to reach for a three-star running back when there are still five-star receivers on the board.
In order to come to those rankings though, you must take a look at your favorite magazines/web sites and look deep into your heart to figure out the value of a player. Even if your league runs a draft, there is no better judge of fantasy value than published auction values. By looking at how much someone would pay for a player in an auction, you can more accurately place each player in the tier that he belongs. For instance, if Tom Brady is worth $35 in an auction, and Adrian Peterson is worth $37, you could probably consider them both five-star players. Just as if Anquan Boldin and Willie Parker are both valued at $22, you could put them in the same category.
Take your auction values, your position rankings and your own personal feeling on how you think that player will do, try to set aside the deep hatred of Fred Taylor, Warrick Dunn, and any member of the Green Bay Packers, and set up your cheat sheet. There are many other important pieces of information to include on your sheet such as, bye week, if they have an easy or difficult starting or finishing schedule, and what kind of climate they play in. Make sure you realize that all of these stats are less meaningful than the strength of the player, and should really only be used as a tiebreaker.
So, now you’ve got your fancy-pants cheat sheet ready to go! But, don’t wait until draft day to use it, mock it out!
