2020 Fantasy Draft Tips!
Welcome fantasy nerds! If you're reading this piece then it’s probably because you love playing fantasy football as much as I do. And what better time than draft season, in which we are currently in its peak. Thousands of fantasy drafts are being completed each day as the start of the 2020 NFL season is rapidly approaching. Studs, duds, sleepers, steals are all part of the excitement of draft season. There is also a level of stress and certainty, however, that comes along with the draft day grind. Luckily for you all, I am here to help guide you along in the process and help your fantasy draft go as smoothly as possible. Here are five tips to help get rid of those draft day jitters and walk out of your draft feeling confident!
1)Know Your League
This might seem obvious but I can’t tell you how often I see players who don’t. Before you get started on any type of prep for your draft, make sure you know your league inside and out. Especially if like me, you are in multiple leagues. Are you playing in a 10, 12, 14 team league? Is it a redraft, keeper or auction league? How are the rosters constructed? Do you start one QB or two? Two WRs or three? Does your league have a superflex? What’s the scoring system? PPR or standard? Does your league give 6 pts for passing TDs instead of 4? Does your league give bonus pts for “big plays”? Is your league having a live in person draft or will it be held online? If it is online, how much time do you have to pick? All of these things will and should play a big factor in your draft preparation and should be the first thing on your to do list.
2)Prepare
No I’m not talking about the guy who shows up to the draft with two fantasy football magazines, a notebook, his laptop, sticky notes, pie charts etc. (Seriously don’t be that guy) Preparation is very important, however, and the more you do, the more comfortable you will be, come draft time. Being as prepared as possible will also prevent you from being caught off guard or not knowing what to do at a specific spot in your draft. Trust me you don’t want to be the guy “panic picking” every round because the player you wanted was picked right before you. The ultimate goal of your prep is to give yourself as much flexibility as possible during the draft by having a plan in place no matter how your draft unfolds. How do we accomplish this you ask?
The first component in preparing for your draft is something you're most likely already doing. Consume content, specifically fantasy football content. I don’t think players realize how much this will help you during your draft. Watch fantasy football shows on ESPN, read articles, listen to podcasts. (I heard Technically Sports was a good listen) Literally consume as much of it as you can. The more information you have on a player the better. Here’s a rule of thumb to follow. If you don’t have an opinion on every fantasy relevant player headed into your draft, then you haven’t consumed enough content. That should be your goal. At any given point in the draft, when deciding between players you should know exactly how you feel about every player in question. Whether you generally like or dislike a player and where you value a player in the draft are things you should know about every player headed into your draft.
Mocks, mocks and more mocks!!!!!! I can’t stress enough how important doing mock drafts are. Use them to try out different draft strategies. How does my roster look if I go three straight RBs? What if I take an elite TE in round 2? What if I go with the 0 RB strategy? (which I highly advise against) Figure out what you like and don’t like and use that to make a game plan going into your draft. If you're lucky enough to know your draft slot beforehand, even better. But keep doing them until you feel you are prepared for whatever the draft can potentially throw at you. Again the goal is to remain flexible and to be able to adapt to the flow of your draft.
3)Don’t Fall Victim to Recency Bias
This is a mistake I see time and time again. Too many make their opinion of a player solely based on the last thing they saw. In this case, the previous seasons performance. Now i’m not saying that past performance isn’t important but that it should be taken with a grain of salt, both good and bad. The success of any given player boils down to two things, talent and opportunity. You should use previous performance to give yourself a baseline of where you think a player falls on the talent spectrum. But opportunity is something that changes on a yearly basis. This is where consuming lots of content will help you determine the players with the most and best opportunities. Let’s look at some examples.
First let’s look at RB Christian McCaffrey. He is obviously one of the best RBs in football. He also is the focal point of the offense, both on the ground and in the passing game. Elite talent combined with elite opportunities makes him the consensus top pick in fantasy drafts this year. Ideally your first four or five picks should all fall into this category. A very talented player who will receive plenty of opportunities to score points for you this season. Once you get to the mid to late rounds of your draft and you're filling out your roster, the talent level of the players will get less and less. Which means you will be putting a bigger focus on finding players with good opportunities. Examining each players’ situation will help you do that.
How about examining another player, Aaron Rodgers. Most sites have Rodgers ranked in the QB 12-15 range going into this season. While Rodgers’ play has seen a dip from his elite seasons, he is most definitely not the 12th-15th best QB in football. Over the past decade Rodgers has consistently been one of the first few QBs taken off the board, so what’s changed? Simply put, his opportunity! New head coach Matt LeFleur brought a completely different philosophy to the offense when he took over, putting a huge emphasis on the run game. While Rodgers is still an extremely talented player, his opportunities in this new offense have simply been significantly cut, as he isn’t slinging the ball all over the field anymore.
Knowing how a players’ situation has changed from the previous year will help you determine where you value a player in the draft. Make sure you are aware of all of these changes so you avoid misjudging a players’ worth.
4)Draft “Your Guys”
“Look good, feel good. Feel good, play good.” We’ve all heard that expression before right? Well I think that applies to your fantasy draft as well. Find guys that you really like going into the season and target those players in your draft. You wanna leave your draft feeling good about your team. It will give you a swagger every week when you are choosing your lineups and make that process a lot easier when you don’t have to choose between two guys you hate. And don’t get caught up in getting “value” with every pick, betting your guy will fall to you in the next round. All that will happen is you won’t end up with any of the guys you wanted and you will hate your team. You think RB Cam Akers is gonna go off and be a top 10 back this season? Don’t get cute and try to steal him in the 7th round.
Think of it this way, the first five rounds of your draft are gonna be the foundation of your team. These are the guys that you must feel comfortable starting week in and week out. In a 12 team league you should, in theory, come away with five of the top 60 players. Once you get into the mid to late portion of your draft, basically all of your picks are going to carry some level of risk. So take the guys YOU feel confident in and don’t worry about “reaching” for a player. Don’t be a slave to the rankings. A lot of people misunderstand what these rankings are and how to use them in their draft. Season long rankings are exactly that, a prediction of where a player will finish at years end. Fantasy football is a weekly game however. The goal is to put together a lineup that will score the most points possible for that week and that week only. I personally use my rankings to provide myself with a general range of where players will be drafted and to help put them in tiers. For example, if my draft happens to be extremely RB heavy I don’t want to draft a tier 3 RB over a tier 1 WR just to fill a hole on my roster. Again once you get to the later portions of your draft you should be looking for guys who have the potential to put up good numbers on any given week, considering your really only gonna be using them for bye weeks or plus matchups anyways.
5)Relax, It’s A Long Season
So you didn’t follow steps 1-4. You didn’t bother to look at your league rules and didn’t take a QB until round 16 only to find out you have to start two of them. You didn’t bother to do any prep and drafted two players who opted out due to Covid-19. You didn’t do any mock drafts and panicked on most of your picks and you absolutely hate your team. While your draft is very important and sets the foundation for your season. It is only a part of what makes up a fantasy league winner. How many times have you looked at another teams’ draft and thought “man this guy really blew it”. Only for that team to beat you twice, make the playoffs or even win your league! It happens all the time. Maybe that team starts off horrible, only to get first dibs on the waiver wire darlings and catch fire to end the season. Maybe all of those backups he drafted become starters because of injury and their team is suddenly loaded. It’s a long season, and things can change very quickly. So if you do completely bomb your draft don’t fret. Just make sure you follow my weekly Papis Pickups segment that will be featured here on the site and our social media accounts. Tech Sports will be with you all year long to help you capture fantasy glory!