Fantasy Football

Well, as of this weekend, I’ve officially been eliminated from winning in the fantasy football league I’m in for the 2007 season. I’m fairly satisfied though as I did make the playoffs (barely - by 2 points) and will be in the toilet bowl this weekend. While fantasy football is still fresh in my mind, I would like to make some notes about this season that I can hopefully use to draft and play better for the 2008 fantasy football season. So… here goes in no particular order.

#1 - Definitely do a lot of mock drafts. The online mock draft sites I used in 2007 helped a lot. Although some where buggy, they still made my real draft go a lot smoother. Hopefully some of the bugs will be eliminated and/or improvements will be made for 2008.

#2 - Consider drinking coffee during the draft. Sure, it’s fun to get drunk during the draft, but this will probably hurt your draft results. Drink coffee and celebrate AFTER the draft.

#3 - Buy a draft kit. The one I got off Yahoo was pretty helpful. I’m sure there are other ones out there, but that one seemed to be good enough.

#4 - Try to guess how other team members will draft and plan accordingly.

#5 - Consider a shocking strategy such as drafting the two top WR WR’s. This could start a run on WR’s and leave plenty of RB’s for you to draft next.

#6 - If Tom Brady is available and it is your turn, get him.

#7 - Get RB’s on teams that are weak on passing offense

#8 - Get WR’s that are on a team with a studly quarterback such as Tom Brady or Tony Romo…and perhaps get one on the same team for the double point effect.

#9 - Get up to date on who’s injured… and who’s not

#10 - Follow football stuff during the off season

#11 - Don’t worry too much about kickers

#12 - Consider getting a good defense early… but if you miss out, don’t sweat it too much

#13 - Don’t trade early in the season

#14 - Initiate trades with newbies in the league early… try to scam em’

#15 - So far in 2007, the top point producers were all quarterbacks and not running backs

#16 - Some studly RB’s might not pay off until late in the season

#17 - RB’s get injured a lot… draft RB’s that are next in line to start

#18 - Another strategy to consider would be WR RB. then again, you might wanna do WR, RB. Or… how about QB WR.

#19 - Make defensive moves. If someone gets Tom Brady before you, try to get Randy Moss next!

#20 - If a player did well in one year, it doesn’t mean they will the following year. And vice versa

#21 - Get highlighters to mark who has been taken, who hasn’t, etc.

#22 - Make a plan for who you think you will draft. I think this is called target drafting.

That’s about all for now. Here are some of the hot players of 2007…let’s do the top 10 starting with best first.
Quarterbacks:

Tom Brady, Tony Romo, Peyton Manning, Derek Anderson, Brett Farve, Ben Roethlisberger, Drew Brees, Matt Hasslebeck, Carson Palmer and Jon Kitna

Running Backs:

LaDainian Tomlinson, Brian Westbrook, Adrian Peterson (slightly banged up), Joseph Addai, Willis McGahee, Jamal Lewis, Maurice Jones-Drew, Marion Barber, Clinton Portis, Earnest Graham.

Wide Receivers:

Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, Braylon Edwards, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Wes Welker, Reggie Wayne, Nate Burleson, Larry Fitzgerald, Chad Johnson, Marques Colston

Tight Ends:

Antonio Gates, Jason Witten, Tony Gonzalez, Kellen Winslow, Chris Cooley, Dallas Clark, Heath Miller, Donald Lee, Jeremy Shockey, Owen Daniels

Kickers:

Mason Crosby, Nick Folk, Kris Brown, Rob Bironas, Stephen Gostkowski, Jason Hanson, Josh Brown, Robbie Gould, Shayne Graham, Phil Dawson

Defense:

Minnesota, Seattle, San Diego, New England, Green Bay, Chicago, New York, Dallas, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh

Well, that’s about all of the “advice” I can offer myself or anyone else who may read this. Hopefully next year I can read this and maybe it will help me do a better draft. Either that or I can just use a dart board…

I’m going to post this on Fantasy Football Cafe - hopefully others can add some tips so we can all read and learn from them next year.

Tonight the New Orleans Saints takes on the Tennessee Titans and Reggie Bush must make around 31 points for me to win this weeks matchup!  The odds of that happening are extremely remote, so it looks like I’m going to lose yet again!  I honestly thought I had a fairly good draft this year, but I’m starting to think the outlook is not so good.  So, I want to make a note of what it is like at this point in the year to help me out next year so I’ll have a better chance of winning.

First thing I notice is both this year and last year we have at least two teams that have made virtually zero moves so far and are dominating the league.  Obviously they lucked out and drafted well.  It appears the team to beat this year is has a lot of players that I don’t think I would have drafted right away.  He has Tony Romo… no, I wouldn’t have drafted him too soon.  He does have Steve Smith and I actually thought about drafting back to back WR’s which I still think might not be a bad strategy as it seems very likely you can pick up some good RB’s in the first 3 weeks or so if you watch for injuries, etc.  But, it is risky.

Interesting thing to note is our leader was the 6th position in our draft.  Maybe this is the optimal draft slot?

I wish I would have followed my gut feeling as I thought it would be a very good strategy to draft Tom Brady and Randy Moss as I had a feeling they were going to be a “dynamic duo”.  Mental note - perhaps it is good to have a stud WR matched up with a stud QB?  The top team drafted a top RB, then went for a top WR.  Another strategy I thought about which is probably a lot less risky then doing WR WR.  So he drafted RB WR RB RB QB…

Defense is crucial.  Every year people are wising up to picking up defense early.  But, there’s always a suprise defense that shows up on the wire, so maybe it is a good idea not to panic.  Research is very important.  Also do plenty of mock drafts.  Check for injuries before draft night!  Definitely try to get a stud QB and a WR matchup.  Make sure if you get a stud defense that your other studs don’t suck away points from them.  Make backup’s of Yahoo stats (print them out) and print out the draft results from the previous year.

Make $10 side bets to compensate for your draft fee!  Don’t drink on draft night.  Make sure you know exactly who has been drafted during each round on draft night.  Buy a draft kit!  Yahoo’s worked pretty good, but maybe there are better ones.

Don’t trade early… if you’re going to make a trade, try to take advantage of a new player by initiating it.  Don’t panic as injuries can totally change the league.  The top team now could go down the drain with just one major injury.  Also not a bad idea to pick up a good kicker early.  Overall, I think how you do your draft can give you a huge advantage over other teams… so don’t skimp on this issue!

Sign up on a good fantasy football site.  I signed up with Grogan Sports, but personally am not that impressed.  There are a few bugs and it really isn’t that helpful.  Hopefully by next year there will be a better one out there….or maybe there already is a better one.  To be continued…

Well, it’s about that time of year again…time for fantasy football madness!  The draft in the league I’m in is this Thursday and a good way I’ve found to prepare is to use some of the various fantasy football mock draft sites that are out there.  Here are some that I have tried…

ESPN Fantasy Football Mock Drafts - This is probably the most professional looking mock draft site.  It requires a simple free registration and there are tons of people drafting.  The only down side is that you can’t pick your draft order - it randomly selects a slot for you.  If you could pick a slot that matched your real draft, it would be a winner.  I’m surprised ESPN doesn’t fix this.  With the deep pockets they have, why would they skimp out on this feature?  The only other gripe is people tend to leave the mock drafts at least 50% of the time…which will screw up the draft.  Overall ESPN’s fantasy football mock draft site is good for quickie draft practice, but that’s about it.

Fantasy Football Calculator - This mock draft site is promising, but since the site doesn’t require user registration, it has been plagued with losers that come in at 2 a.m. and screw up the draft.  Why?  Nobody knows… the only motivation I can see is that a competing mock draft site is trying to undermine them.  Or, they are just losers.  Otherwise, this site is nearly perfect.  I emailed them and suggested that they charge a small fee to help get rid of the losers.  The good news is you can pick your draft slot that matches your real draft so you can have a realistic idea of how it might go.  Keep drafting and every now and then you will have a good, realistic draft.

Mock Draft Central - This seems to be the most realistic mock draft site, but I will admit I have only tried the free version which only lets you do one draft per day.  You have to pay to become a premium member (currently only $3.99/month) which gives you unlimited drafts.  The site has what is called Coach Karma to help keep idiots out of the drafts.  You can also pick your draft slot.  The interface is a bit clunky - it’s hard to figure out who has drafted who, and what your resulting team looks like.  They need to clean it up a bit and make it look more like ESPN’s.

Overall, considering it is the year 2007 and technology is everywhere you look, the fantasy football mock draft sites need more work.  All that is needed is for ESPN to add the capability to let you pick your slot and use a karma system like Mock Draft Central uses….then you would have a near perfect service.

Do you know of a good fantasy football mock draft site?  Please post a comment and let me know.