Top Ten Last Minute Draft Tips

Many Fantasy Footballers believe the ideal draft is the day before kickoff, such that all managers have as much information as possible. Thus, a huge number of drafts will occur tonight and tomorrow. If for some strange reason, you haven’t been reading all of our articles and listening to all of our podcasts, you should know that we’ve put in substantial research and analysis into our recommendations, but for the sake of time, let’s get pithy. In the spirit of David Letterman, here are our Top Ten tips for your draft:

10. Don’t draft your kicker until the last two rounds. The deviation between them is just too small, and you cannot accurately project who will be good anyway.

9. Don’t draft your Defense until the last two rounds. There are only three or four Defenses that I feel comfortable projecting as every-week starters, but they’re off the board way too early. Plus, this is the easiest position to plug and play each week. Just grab whoever is facing the Niners, Redskins, or Bengals each week throughout the season.

8. Know your league scoring and format. Don’t use the same Top 200 cheatsheet for every draft. If QBs get 6 points per passing TD instead of the standard 4 points, bump up all QBs just a tad. If you start 3 or 4 WRs, increase the value of all WRs. And if you’re in a deeper league (i.e. 16 teams), those RBs will become very scarce very quickly, so in the case of near even value (Knowshon Moreno or Brandon Marshall), definitely go with the RB (Moreno).

7. Know your leaguemates. If they’re more casual or novice players, you can bet that players will go near their ADPs, and you can wait on the sleepers and steal them later. If you’re playing with people who consume fantasy content all day, you cannot get away with waiting on Beanie Wells, Tim Hightower, Danny Amendola, or Jacoby Ford – they’ll be gone far before you had them circled on the ADP list. Moreover, know if your leagumates are susceptible to going on runs on positions, and don’t fall for it.

6. Don’t feel required to handcuff. For the risk-averse among us, I have no issue with breaking a tie in the 13th players by looking to who would handcuff your stud – i.e. go with Montario Hardesty over Ricky Williams if you’re a Hillis-owner. But don’t lose value by reaching for someone just because you want to handcuff all your starting RBs. There are better ways to swing for the fences, and besides, we often do not know who the handcuff will be. I’m not wasting a pick on someone who might be valuable if he can beat out someone else if the starter gets injured. Do you draft Kendall Hunter and Anthony Dixon? Ben Tate and Derrick Ward? All four New England RBs?? I’d rather grab a clear-cut backup like Isaac Redman in the end, even if I don’t own Mendenhall. 

5. Don’t stress about bye weeks. There’s no perfect draft, so if you’re playing this game right, you’ll be making plenty of midseason moves: pickups, trades, and promotions from the bench to the starting lineup. Thus, there’s no way to forecast a bye week problem in Week 9 when you may be fielding an entirely different line-up by then. Only look at bye weeks if you’re drafting a backup QB or TE to ensure that they don’t share a bye.

4. Be comfortable waiting on QBs and TEs. Those elite 7 QBs and elite 5 TEs are likely worth the high price you have to pay to get them. But after that, the next guys off the board (Matt Ryan, Matt Schaub, Marcedes Lewis, Kellen Winslow) are going too early just because there’s a run on the position at that point. So if you can’t get an elite guy at a fair price, just wait until the end, and see who falls to you – Olsen, Cook, or Hernandez in the TE spot, and Stafford, Bradford, Freeman, or Flacco in the QB spot.

3. When in doubt, target these guys: Michael Vick, Matt Stafford, Sam Bradford, Tony Romo, Felix Jones, Mike Tolbert, Pierre Thomas, Beanie Wells, Tim Hightower, Delone Carter, Ray Rice, Kenny Britt, Percy Harvin, Jacoby Ford, Denarius Moore, Danny Amendola, Robert Meachem, Jared Cook, and Greg Olsen.

2. When in doubt, avoid these guys: Matt Schaub, Josh Freeman, Matt Cassel, DeAngelo Williams, Jonathan Stewart, Ryan Mathews, Chad Ochocinco, Plaxico Burress, Hines Ward, Tony Gonzalez.

1. Be flexible and take value where it falls to you. We’ve said this 100 times already, but don’t adhere to a rigid plan like getting an RB then a QB in the first 2 rounds, or getting Dallas Clark at any cost. Just be patient and let the steals come to you. For example, on my 8 teams so far, my TEs range from Finley and Gates, down to Owen Daniels, and even lower at Olsen and Cook. Just take what the draft gives you, and you may be strong at QB and weak at WR or vice-versa, but ultimately, you’ll kick some ass.

Best of luck to all you late drafters!