In addition to my normal real life leagues with long term owners I like to play in 2 or 3 public leagues using Fanball public leagues. One of the reasons is that this way I have another 2 or 3 smaller scale leagues that I can play in and get some extra fulfillment for my Fantasy Football needs!

But the other valuable reason that I like doing this is that I have found that doing some public league drafts like this prior to my more important (and higher stakes) league drafts allows me to get a feel for how players are being valued and who may be available at certain positions and certain rounds. This kind of research can help you avoid draft errors since you will have a couple of previous drafts under your belt to analyze.

The reason I like Fanball for this is that you have to pay a small fee to play ($10 smallest entry, but there are also prizes for winners). Any other site with an entry fee would work as well. The reason I like not using free public leagues for this is that I have found that free public leagues tend to often times attract some players who will abandon their teams mid season or draft their teams on auto draft which doesn’t help you for analysis. If you have any skin in the game, then you would want to at least try to show up and draft a decent team even if there wasn’t strong regular season management.

One additional note. I have mentioned in a previous post that I am not a big fan of Fanball’s Commissioner league management tool. We just haven’t had a great experience with it in our leagues. However, I haven’t noticed those same problems in their public “Draft N Play” leagues.

Getting a couple of drafts under your belt through public leagues requiring an entry fee are good training methods to get a feel for player value and position prior to drafting in your more serious or competitive leagues. And they also represent another league to play in and possibly claim an additional championship in.

What do you think? Does anyone have another pre-draft prep suggestion?

Most standard fantasy football draft advice starts out by focusing on taking top quality RB’s as the core of your team. This is the strategy adhered to and promoted by The Legend as well.

In recent years, as the phenomena of “RB by committee” has become more popular with real life NFL teams some other draft strategies have started to become more popular. One of these is to go “WR-WR” with your first two picks instead of the standard “RB-RB” that I subscribe to. This new draft strategy is usually referred to as “Doing the opposite.”

If you follow this strategy, it is very likely you will end up with two star WR’s on your team. Having both Andre Johnson and Larry Fitzgerald on your team is entirely possible. Sounds great right? It does until you realize how weak that your RB position will be and that this meat and potatoes key skill position will be filled with guys who split carries (get 10-12 touches per game) or get some goal line looks if the team gets in a short yardage situation.

This will devolve into a nightmare each week as you will have to draft at least 4 or 5 mid tier RB’s and try to guess each week who may get the most carries that week. The loss of top RB scoring and depth will not be able to be offset by the fact of having two top WR’s. I have never seen a team who tried this finish in the league championship or win the Fantasy Superbowl. It can get you to the playoffs with a competitive team, but it won’t carry you to the top.

I have tried testing this strategy myself in mock drafts several times and was always horrified with what my team looked like when it was over.

As a full real life experiment I am considering using one of my entries in a public league this season with the goal of  “doing the opposite” for real myself and trying it out over a full live season to see if I could overcome the starting handicap by proper team management. I am still undecided at this time on trying this experiment. Let me know what you think about that in the comments.

As always, your specific league scoring system would have to be taken into account for something unique to change the advice. However, unless your league has a scoring system that is unusually heavily weighted to WR’s then using the do the opposite “WR-WR” strategy is not a good idea for draft success to build a championship caliber team.

Please let us know in the comments about any good or bad experiences that you have had or seen with using the WR-WR” strategy.

“That first round pick was the hottest thing ever in college. He ran/passed/caught for more yards than anybody. He can’t miss in the NFL and I am going to snap him up ASAP.”

Please don’t be the owner who says the above as part of your draft strategy. While the occasional rookie RB or WR who has had a great training camp and plays for at least a decent team can be worth a pick at some point, do not reach for them too early. The transition from college to NFL is a massive one. This is especially true for QB’s. If you draft a rookie QB expecting him to be your fantasy starter, then you will lose a lot of games.

Another mistake that is always surprising to me how many owners will draft a player who has just received a serious injury in training camp or the preseason. Part of proper draft strategy is doing at least some research on players. Most team pages and the NFL website maintain a listing of injured players. Be the owner who gets to say “you drafted who? You do know he tore his ACL last week right?” instead of the one being asked that question.

And a final piece of advice to round out our rookie  mistakes series of posts:

Pay attention to the training camp and preseason battles for starting roles on teams where the starters aren’t well defined.  Most often seen with RB’s and also with QB’s the starter may turn out to be different than the conventional wisdom. Often this decision can go well into the preseason, but paying close attention can help you avoid drafting the guy who just got demoted or allow you to steal a new starter that the rest of the league missed the news on.

If there are any other rookie mistakes that you have made or seen others make that I may have missed, please add them in the comments.

When building your team in the draft and moving to select a 2nd or 3rd (or 4th) skill position player something to watch out for is the bye week of the players involved.  While having two RB’s with the same bye week isn’t necessarily a season-ending prospect, making sure that it is recognized and compensated for later in the draft is key.  The problem with ignoring bye weeks is twofold.  First, as mentioned, you could have two key starters with the same bye week that seriously hinders the ability to compete that week of the season.  This is not reason in itself not to draft a player, but must be recognized. Second, when talking about a position such as TE where you may only carry [...]

Having a top skill player from your favorite team can exponentially enhance the pleasure of participating in fantasy football. A Titans fan with Chris Johnson or a Colts fan with Peyton Manning will have double the opportunity to enjoy their Sunday football experience.
But it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Going for a double down by having both Carson Palmer and Chad Ochocinco if you are a Bengals fan could make sense, but be very cautious. In this scenario, you at least have chosen two starters on a good team capable of putting up points. What you don’t do is stock up on an entire team and have the starting QB, RB, the 2nd WR, and kicker from your favorite team. [...]

It’s draft day and the excitement is high. Maybe you have opened your cold drink of choice and are anticipating your first pick. You have sketched out a few players to target based on your first few picks, and all is good in the world.
Don’t destroy your draft and commit this rookie mistake that will ruin what could have been a great start to your fantasy season. What mistake? Some owners draft to fill out their entire “starting roster” first before moving to backups and position depth at the high value skill positions.
For example, this owner would not take three running backs in a row in a league that starts only two running backs. Someone who makes this mistake will draft two RB’s, a QB, [...]

This post can be considered a prequel to the upcoming rookie mistakes series of posts, but I wanted to address kickers in their own post. So, what are the draft secrets for kickers in Fantasy Football? …
Take one with your last pick. Repeat. Tale one with your last pick. That sums up 95% of this successful draft strategy. Don’t take a kicker early. If for some reason such as transaction fees or pickup cutoffs it makes sense to hold two kickers in your league, then draft them with your last two picks.
Use the rounds when your opposing owners are trying to stock up on last year’s high scoring kickers to grab some sleepers, promising rookies, or midlevel skill positions for bye week or injury coverage.
Predicting [...]

It seems like most people have some idea of what it means to play Fantasy Football, but it is a question asked frequently enough to cover it with a general high level answer. When NFL season rolls around and I start to discuss Fantasy issues, multiple people get interested, and answering that starting question is something that often leads them to join or create a league once they get what it’s all about.  So, here is the basic answer for beginners.
Fantasy football is a game based on the real life performances of individual NFL players.  NFL team loyalty has little to do with building a successful Fantasy team even thought it can be even more exciting when your favorite team’s top player is also building [...]

The Legend. Quite the name to live up to. I use it as my handle here because of using the name in a passing conversation regarding my league dominance one year and it stuck with me. What could lead one to use such a title?
After playing Fantasy Football for the past 9 years, I will let my record speak for itself. In that time playing primarily in two main high competition leagues (I am the Commissioner in one) with serious owners, and in recent years, a few other public leagues, The Legend’s lifetime stats are as follows:
63%  Regular Season winning percentage and a 65% Playoff winning percentage.  Fantasy Super Bowl appearances in 7 title games with 4 Fantasy Bowl championships. Also in the trophy case [...]