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It’s Sunday afternoon, and you’re sitting at home lounged by the computer waiting for your turn to snake around in the 4th round of your fantasy football draft as you struggle to decide between solidifying your bench with another solid if unspectacular veteran RB, picking up your first WR, or reaching for that relatively unknown yet talented rookie RB.

Personally, I would venture to declare that 90% of the fun of joining a football fantasy league is the draft itself. Sure winners and losers are separated by astute waiver-wire stalking to unearth that initially-forgotten but now hot FA player that has stepped into the fantasy limelight, be it through a sudden rise due to a timely yet not so timely injury to the guy ahead of him on the depth charts, or the sudden influx of playing time due to the mediocrity of the guy in front of him on the depth charts. Nevertheless, unless you consider the karma-killing season ending injury, most of the blue chip players you take on draft day will stay with you through the end of the season.

That along with my previously overstated mantra (in the previous article) to “own your team,” make up the foundation I duly believe for fantasy football success: Own your team (personally invest yourself into your imaginary roster), and proper drafting acumen (Do it right the first time! You do not want to rely on random free agent pickups to guide you to the promised land of fantasy football glory). It’s almost akin to the proper way to build an NFL team, or any sports franchise in general: you want to grow talent, not buy talent. In the fantasy world, that more or less means any success garnered will more than likely be the team you drafted than the one that you “bought” off the waiver wire. It makes sense. You can only find so many coals in the rough to polish into diamond fantasy studs. You are more likely to propel into the playoffs with sharp drafting by taking the Peyton Mannings, LaDanian Tomlinsons and the like, rather than solely relying on the leak-stops of the free agent pool like the Justin Fargas’ or the Dominic Rhodes’. Any grizzled fantasy football veteran can tell you the woes of fantasy waiver-wire whores like Arnaz Battle, who’s been passed around your respective fantasy league more than Elisha Cuthbert has been passed around the NHL
(zing!).

So in truth, what drafting strategy should one use? In my unqualified opinion the set rules with my own elaboration are as follows:

- Draft players you like, forget about players you don’t like:

It’s simple, as a hardcore football fan, and an even more intense fantasy football participant, you already know what players naturally rub you the wrong way. If you don’t like him, why would you want him to play for you? The beauty of fantasy football different from the real world is that you as the owner are never forced into playing someone you do not simply acquiesce with professionally (see Bill Parcells and Terrell Owens). I know the folly of this strategy entails that passing up on a stud like say Adrian Peterson because you hate OU and taking Steven Jackson instead because you’re a Beavers alum would indeed be stupid. However consider that if you look at this year’s draft board rankings, Peterson only ranks slightly higher (about 20 points) than 2nd ranked Michael Turner in terms of last year’s total fantasy points scored. Yet he seems to hold the distinctive unanimous crown of the undisputed number one overall pick. So say you can’t stand the sight of “All-Day” on your team, why not just draft Turner? Of course it comes down to the numbers and football IQ. Both Turner and Peterson hail from run-heavy teams with solid defenses and QBs who will not be mistaken for future Hall of Famers any time soon (although Matt Ryan is a better pure passer than Tavaris Jackson or Sage Rosenfels), but both RBs will rack up the yardage and carries. So in spite of fair insults from your league, if you simply hate Peterson, turning him down for Turner would not be the worse thing in the world.

Then again, this is just an example and if you are faced with a significant dropoff in talent from the guy you know is good but are not personally affable with to the guy who you wouldn’t mind on your team but know that he is not worth the high pick… then address another position like QB or WR. After all, you are going to have to live with these players for the better part of fall and winter spanning 4 months, why should you settle for someone you have no personal stake in? This of course falls back into the creed that you should invest yourself personally into your team if you hope for some sort of success. A personally uninteresting team breeds disinterested owners who do not strive to make that subtle free agent move, the extra add/drop, the blockbuster trade or something as basic as setting the lineup on a given week to win his head-to-head matchup. That in turn results in more L’s than W’s and before you know it your team is in the cellar and that 25 dollar entrance fee has gone to inexplicable waste.

- It’s OK to draft your favorite players from your favorite team, but leave those beer googles at the door:

So it’s the 2nd round, and your favorite player from your favorite team, Sebastian Janikowski of the Oakland Raiders, is still (not so shockingly) available. This does NOT mean that you should take him in the 2nd, or 2nd-10th round for that matter just because you love him and wanted to make sure you get him before some other “Sea-Bass” groupie gets his mitts on him. Even if you are a huge fan of Dumb and Dumber, and would love nothing more than “Kick his ass Sea-Bass!!” be your war cry, you should not succumb to temptation so carelessly. Other than common sense, you should already have done some sort of homework and know the value of the players you target. It’s truly the best of both worlds to be able to draft your favorite franchise player and get to root for him and your home team at the same time during the season. However reaching for said player is a tactical error if you know he could be had later on.

- Know the snake, and know it well:

If your league employs the basic snaking movement in terms of draft positions (1st overall pick has to wait for draft to “snake” back around before his 2nd pick which would be the 24th overall), then one should use prudence in knowing when/where their targeted player could go. For example, if you have a man-crush on Tom Brady (who doesn’t?), then if you are picking 2nd overall, you should very well already know that Mr. Giselle will not be available once pick number 25 snakes back around to you. In this case, you should bite the bullet and take Brady with that pick and not worry about your QBs for the time being and concentrate on RBs and WRs.

- The golden rule of drafting RBs early and often is nothing but an antiquated guideline:

In respect to basic TD-heavy fantasy football leagues that most public leagues follow, it’s considered almost a sin to not draft 2 RBs in the first 2 rounds. For the life of me I still do not understand this rigid regimen of drafting tailbacks exclusively in the early rounds. Especially when QBs consistently score the most points (last year QBs Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and Jay Cutler comprised 4 out of 5 of the top players who scored the most fantasy points when DeAngelo Williams was the only RB out of the top 5 players to hold that distinction) in the long list of eligible pros to be had. I do understand that in TD-heavy leagues, the RB position takes up 2 slots as opposed to only 1 slot for QBs. Not to mention that RBs and WRs in general acquire more points per yards (10) than do their signal-caller counterparts (25 passing yards per 1 point). However with the state of the league (the real one) progressing from a one man running back show to a 2-man even 3 deep running-back-by-committee approach, it’d be almost purely more profitable to take a pivot instead in the early rounds. Of course taking top WRs (who command a whopping 3 starting slots on your roster in basic TD leagues) would also make more sense from a points standpoint if top-heavy RBs like Peterson, Turner, Matt Forte, and Tomlinson (whom make up a rare breed of RBs that take at least 75% of the team’s carries) are already off the board. Mathematically 3 good receivers are worth more than 1 super stud RB and 1 other RB who is mediocre at best.

- All things in moderation:

The age-old Greek proverb isn’t just the motto that I personally live my life by, but one that translates to my fantasy football M.O. The better teams be it in real life or digitally on the internet are usually the ones that are most balanced. Depth and talent at all positions create wins on their own. You do not want to be caught with strong RB corps only to be left wanting on the QB and WR front.

- The bye week is meaningless:

Most “pundits” would argue that you should mind your bye weeks, and to make sure you don’t have your starting QB, two of your starting RBs, and most of your WRs in a bye week all at the same time. Obviously you would be at a huge disadvantage and your loss is all but assured for that particular week. In general, this holds true in that every win is important and could mean the difference between a 2nd seed or a 4th seed in the playoffs. However in my opinion, you should draft talent foremost and worry about the bye week later. Plug holes if you can and hope for the best that given week, because in the end it’s really about the playoffs. If you field a talented team, and you check your team regularly, you should make the playoffs regardless of one loss due to half your starting lineup being at sabbatical. Ultimately, you do not want to have a weaker team in the playoffs with a slightly better record because you paid attention to bye weeks, as opposed to a stronger group of players with a slightly blemished record.

- Practice makes perfect obsessive compulsive qualities:

Depending on your level of insanity, and fierce sense of competitiveness, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to sign up for a random public league draft BEFORE your private league draft with your buddies. In this way, you get a good sense of this year’s draft, who will generally go what round, what players are being drafted too high or too low, the trends so to speak. You can also practice your draft board and properly employ your strategy on to where/when you can expect your preferred player to drop. It’s also a good way to discover who the sleepers are, and what other valuable players you may have missed on your board. Think of it as your own mock draft before the real mock draft for your mock team full of mock players… if that makes sense.

- Know the league settings:

Whether you are a part of a TD league, or a TD combo league (one that counts passes thrown, receptions and carries), you should know which one you’re in and draft accordingly. As such, a player like Brandon Jacobs who is a TD machine would be worth more in a TD league than a combo league that values carries/receptions where Chris Johnson (ranked only 1 spot below Jacobs) would attract more demand. Preparation is the name of the game, and whatever homework you put in beforehand surely results in success afterwards. Walking into a draft and taking Matt Schaub in the 4th round not knowing he is out for the season with a hangnail while the other 11 owners in your league already knew that, wouldn’t be the best winning formula. That being said you should also plan on drafting who you want and keeping him for the duration of the season and not rely too much on trades.

- Trades are hard to come by:

I say this because in 9+ years of playing this game, I have seen that trades are often difficult to procure. The combo of fear of giving up too much, and triggerless owners contribute to this standstill. Not to mention if your league operates on a vote system, most of the trades that are accepted are usually shot down. It’s completely understandable as truly fair trades are far and few in between, and even then most owners do not see eye-to-eye and fear that one team is receiving more talent than the other, and thus veto the trade. As such this reemphasizes my point that the draft is really the most important and only way to ensure success as trades are hard to complete and free agent pick-ups should be relied on only to fill holes due to injury or mediocrity, not fill whole rosters.

- Injuries are part of the game, and unfortunately part of fantasy football:

In the end, it really doesn’t matter how good an imaginary team you field, you like every Cowboy, Packer, Raider, or Titan know that ultimately the game yields to the laws of luck. Injuries are team crushers and season-enders. The true talent lies in whether or not that team is deep enough and determined enough to overcome such obstacles. In fantasy football that only means did you have the foresight to draft the backups in the later rounds, or do you have a deep enough roster to fill the gaping holes. Far be it that I spout out more meaningless, empty platitudes but I can’t help but say that anything can, and could happen. It’s really about luck as any weathered, beaten but experienced fantasy owner can tell you.

Remember, this isn’t just a hobby or a well-laid form of escapism from life, work, nagging wives, or your responsibilities. This is a glorified pissing contest with ultimate bragging rights, and maybe a couple hundred bucks or a few thousand G’s on the line, depending on your league ante. Obviously if you didn’t care, you wouldn’t have joined. How much you care is a matter of opinion from caring just enough to borderline obsessive compulsion. You could win over the respect of your fantasy peers by being the first to develop your own stat tracker/performance predictor like my friend Andy intuitively created before Yahoo! offered said service for about 9 bucks a season, or you could effectively turn away every girl at a bar like I do by introducing yourself as the owner of “Crabs” (they don’t know I meant Michael Crabtree). Heck its almost tradition nowadays for me to call my buddy Sean on Sunday nights for head-to-head real-time updates via his time-tested Microsoft Excel spreadsheet template. Are we dorks, or just visionaries? Yeah… we’re dorks, but there are worse vices in life, and duller ones at that if you ask me.

As I mentioned before, I understand the “risk” of revealing my “secrets” to fantasy football “success” by posting it on the internet for all to see (especially my bitter but beloved opponents), but after reading over my own article twice or thrice over, even I’ve realized that my “advice/tips” are nothing more than broad overexposed cliches that even a monkey on schlitz could very well find success by simply following common sense (disclaimer: I do not condone monkeys and drinking. You should always play with monkeys responsibly). However, when in doubt, you should always always (especially if you’re playing in my league) believe every misinformation purposely laid out like land mines for unsuspecting opponents to feast on (wink wink).

- But really, just have fun with it, talk as much smack as the social realm allows without getting too overly racial or homophobic about it:

Although the latter would be preferable, a good smack talk almost always pushes that envelope without crossing the line. P.C. is for ?^$&!@#’s, so get your friends riled up and remember its all in good fun. It’s just a fantasy after all, not the No Fun League like you see in real life and on beautifully, crisp HDTV.