When I started playing fantasy football years ago, I didn’t know anything. I didn’t have the luxury of searching Google.com or EzineArticles.com for articles on how to get good at it because no one was playing it yet. To this day, it’s hard to find legitimate material that can seriously improve your results, and there are literally millions of people who enjoy this fun game. For someone who has never drafted, this article will help you sound like an expert. For someone who has selected a hundred teams, I’m still going to try to teach you something. Whether you’re new to fantasy football or a 10-season veteran, the fantasy football draft preparation method I use will help! I’m going to cover the routine I use to prepare for each season that has helped me get tons of top 3 finishes and many season wins. Here is what I think is the best way to prepare for your fantasy football draft in 2013:
Prepare your cheat sheet! – If you are going to draft your fantasy football team, you should have your cheat sheet ready. This is going to be a sheet of paper, or maybe 5 sheets of paper, with each player, who is available to be recruited, ranked in their particular position. If you are searching the internet for a set of classifications, find at least 2 unrelated sources to use. No one really has the best set of rankings, so having several will help you get an idea of where the players are. I like to find 3 sets of rankings and develop my own list of rankings, but this is not necessary to build a great team.
Beware of injuries and free agents! – This could be included in your cheat sheets, you could review and highlight players who, at the time of your draft, are injured or not yet signed in the NFL. I like to make a list of currently injured and unsigned players, and then tweak the list up to draft time. If any of my default picks (more on this in a bit) are on the unsigned/injured list, I absolutely won’t take that player. For the best results, try to update your list of injuries and free agency up to the time of the draft. If you’re serious enough, you’ll even be checking player statuses among your teams!
Know your league setup! – This is a simple idea that hurts a lot of people on draft day. Determine what your league setup is so you can draft accordingly. Make sure you know if you are writing for points per receipt (PPR), how many players for each position and how many teams are in your league. It’s also good to know up front if there will be point bonuses, like an extra 5 points for wide receivers who manage to get 100 yards in a game. Knowing these kinds of things can help set you apart when it comes to preparing for the 2013 draft.
mock drafts – Mock drafts are the best way to prepare for fantasy football in 2013, and probably every other year, as long as there are programmers to provide us with the draft programs. I suggest you do a minimum of 2 mock drafts, from start to finish, for each type of league you will join. I know it sounds confusing, but I’ll elaborate. Let’s say you intend to join a point per receipt (PPR) fantasy league hosting 12 teams. For that league, you must participate in at least 2 mock drafts before the draft. This will help you understand where particular players are recruited. Doing multiple drafts will show you multiple results to compare. Now if you also intend to join a standard 10 team scoring league, you should also do 2 mock drafts with that default system. What does it matter if there are 12 teams, 8 teams, or 14 teams in a mock draft? The number of teams in each league should determine your strategy to choose from. If you only have to wait 7 picks to pick a running back (RB), you can probably wait. However, if you have 28 picks to make (snake style) and need a RB, you should pick one now, as a good RB might be gone by the time it’s your turn.
Investigate, investigate, investigate! – “But you already told me about cheat sheets, mock drafts and knowing the settings, isn’t that enough?” investigation?” That lazy, easy answer is yes. Those things alone can set you apart. Websites like Yahoo.com, NFL.com, CBS.com, and ESPN.com have great free research tools that I guarantee to help you not only have a great preparation, outstanding draft, but also get extravagant fantasy points every season. These free tools help you do things like analyze mock drafts. Yes, websites save everything you do in these drafts and organize the results for us, FREE! The analysis tool shows you what position the players are averaging. For example, last year, Yahoo.com’s analytics tool showed us that Ray Rice was being picked 1.1 overall (first round, first pick) on average by everyone in the world. Very good, huh?
Pick your picks before you can pick them!– When preparing for your fantasy football draft in 2013, have a general idea of who you are drafting before you start drafting, I can’t stress this enough. Check your must-haves against your unsigned/injury list, and once you’ve done that, analyze yourself a bit. Hear what people are saying in your leagues. It’s a good guess that Vikings fans will pick Adrian Peterson first overall (not saying I wouldn’t), and if you don’t pick No. 1 overall, you might be able to rule Peterson out. Another tactic I like to try sometimes is to talk about players I don’t want to make them seem more desirable to other fantasy league owners. “Man, did you see how many TDs Jamaal Charles had last year?”
With these 6 steps to prepare for your 2013 fantasy football draft, remember that the harder you work to be great, the better your chances of success. Using the research, analysis and trending tools throughout the season will help you stay on top of your game.. And as I always say, these steps were put in place to help you get better at preparing for your fantasy football draft, that doesn’t mean the same concepts can’t be applied to other fantasy games.
