Fantasy Football 2017: Advice and tips for Draft Day

Plenty of fantasy football owners are preparing for their drafts. What are some things owners should and shouldn’t do on draft day?

Every fantasy football owner at one point or another visualizes winning their league at the end of the season. Shortly after the final game is played, she/he douses themselves with champagne, collects the money, picks up the trophy and sends out some very detailed and offensive messages to each and every member in the league.

It’s spectacular.

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But before that day can happen, a lot of steps need to executed first. Assuming an owner has done their proper research, the first step is killing it in the draft. So how can an owner do that? Here are some tips and advice for owners as they prepare for their big day.

Bring Two Different Rankings to your Draft

Any intelligent fantasy football owner brings a ranking list of the best fantasy football players going into 2017. It helps give the owner an idea about where certain players should be drafted. Well instead of bringing one list of rankings to the draft, bring two different rankings.

Every fantasy football analyst will tell you she or he gets plenty of suggestions wrong. That includes their draft day rankings. That’s why you shouldn’t take any one analyst’s advice as gospel. Instead, bring two ranking sheets of your two favorite analyst on draft day. As the draft goes on, you can cross out the names of the players drafted on both sheets. When your pick is up, you can look at each analysts’ rankings, see their top three-to-five best available suggested players and make a decision about your next pick.

Seeing two different but well-researched rankings will force you to give more thought about your pick and be more deliberate about your selection.

Don’t Do Anything Crazy in Round 1

Your first selection in fantasy drafts should be a player who is nothing but safe and solid. He should have both a high ceiling and a high floor. Do not reach for a player who should be there with your second or possibly third pick. As the rounds go on, then you can start taking chances on players who you’re high on or players who maybe have character and/or injury concerns.

Slow Down on the Cocktails

This piece of advice goes out to all the fantasy football owners who are 21-years old or older because as we all know, anyone younger can’t and won’t be drinking during their fantasy draft. I know it’s weird I have to say that but believe it not, I hear on occasion some people break that law. Crazy, right?

Be Ready to Adapt on the Fly

There are plenty of fantasy football draft day strategies out there. However, sometimes the draft doesn’t go the way you expect. In fact, more often than the draft doesn’t happen the way you thought it would. If your goal is to snag a running back in the first two rounds and then load up on wide receivers, I’m okay with that. Yet, what if two or three other owners have the same idea and running backs are flying off the board and some top-tier wide receivers are dropping past their expected average draft position (ADP)?

Are you going to stick to your original plan and draft a running back in the second round who should be going in the fourth round? No, you’re going to adapt and take what the draft gives you.

Don’t Be the Owner Who Drafts a Kicker and D/ST First

For whatever reason, some owners like to fill out their entire starting lineup before they start drafting players who will be on their bench for Week 1. Don’t be that owner. Having a deep and stable bench will be the reason some owners win when injuries occur, bye-weeks happen and horrible matchups arrive.

If you’re like me, you don’t draft a kicker and D/ST unless it’s one of my final three picks. If that’s too long for you to wait, I understand — but don’t you dare draft a kicker or D/ST at least until the double-digit rounds.

Don’t Be the Guy Who Drafts a Player for a Cheap Giggle

You’re not clever, cute, original or funny. Yes, I’m talking to you. The person who goes, “With my final pick I’ll take Tim Tebow.”

Tim Tebow? He’s not even in the NFL anymore. He’s playing baseball in the Mets organization. So I don’t understand. Why would you draft him? Wait….

HAHAHA! OMG I GET IT! You’re soooo funny! Where did you come up with that joke? Like seriously, I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before. EVER!

Don’t. Just, don’t.

Do What You Think is Right

This final tip is kind of counterintuitive to my other tips but it still needs to be said.

This is your team. You are the owner. So do whatever you think is right and what you believe will help give you the best chance of winning your league. If 99 percent of the “experts” tell you to draft Player X instead of Player Y, but your gut tells you Player Y is the way to go, then draft him.

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If your pick is up in the seventh-round and a player you’re really high on has an ADP in the 10th-round, but you don’t want to take a chance of not owning him, then draft him. Trust me, you’ll have a lot easier time living with the decisions you believed in instead of the decisions you made but weren’t confident in. This is your team so own it!

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