How To Manage Your Team (and Win The League)

 So, you followed all of our draft strategy tips, used our rankings, and drafted a solid team. Now what? Your job is not done. Good drafts don't win leagues; good management does. Thus, we thought it would be helpful to outline the 3 areas in which you can manage your team: 1) Benching and starting, 2) Free Agent adds, and 3) Trades.

1) BENCHING AND STARTING
This is the bare minimum that you can do. In general, and certainly in the beginning of the season, most of these decisions are easy. You only have 1 K, 1 Def, probably 1 TE, and maybe even 1 QB. Those are all obvious starts then. And you'll start all the WRs and RBs you drafted in the first 4 rounds. Beyond that, things may get murky. Do you start Barber, Jacobs, or Nicks in your flex spot? You'll want to look at their recent performances and look at their matchups.

We'll help you analyze the matchups with our Mean Green Projections Machine, coming next week. And we'll help you with these tough choices in our Hot Or Not column [coming tomorrow!].


2) FREE AGENT WAIVER WIRE ADDS
The right free agent adds can definitely win your league (Miles Austin in '09, Steve Slaton in '08). Always monitor the available players in your league and ask yourself, "If I were re-drafting today, would I take this guy on my roster, or this free agent?" When you drafted, Kenny Britt was 5 rounds higher than Jacoby Jones or Mike Williams (TB). But if you re-drafted today, I recommend Williams or Jones over Britt, so make the move. And after the first 2 or 3 weeks, re-evaluate your Kicker and Defense situation. If there's a free agent that's significantly outperforming your Kicker or Defense, make the move. (I'm sure you can do it for $1 in one of those Free Agent Acquisition Budget Leagues. If it costs more, don't bother.)

We will provide a unique service to help. During every NFL game, have our "Live Pickup Adviser" page open. We won't clutter the page with news of awesome performances by obvious starters. We will only write when there's breaking news that could mean you should make a free agent pickup ASAP. That might mean a young receiver is having his break-out game, or a workhorse RB gets injured, opening the door for his back-up. You can sit back, relax, and enjoy your favorite home team's game, but keep our "Live Pickup Adviser" open in the background. Furthermore, Mondays will begin with a more detailed analysis of free agent adds for those of you who don't use instant adds, but rather waivers or a budget.


3) TRADES
This is my favorite part about fantasy football. And there's nothing wrong with preseason trades. So if you can get away with trading any of the Giants or Cowboys RBs for Jerome Harrison, or better yet, Arian Foster, go for it. There will be a lot more analysis of trading next week including buying-low and selling-high, how to exploit other team's weaknesses, and tandem deals. Check our "Trade Targets" page on Wednesday for great candidates to try to acquire, and guys to try to unload for the right price.

Can't wait for tomorrow!