Fantasy Football Draft Strategy

First off, let me explain that this will not be an article focused on things like Value Based Drafting, the 2 Stud RB Theory or any of the other systems that people try to implement on draft day. This will focus more on strategies that you can apply regardless of the system you are using.

While this sounds absurdly obvious, it is something this is very common to overlook. People will do up one cheat sheet and use it for every draft they're in regardless of scoring.

While most of the top players in Fantasy Football will remain the top players regardless of your leagues scoring structure, past the Top 10 or studs at each position the rest of the draft can have dramatic changes depending on your rules.

While one cheat sheet can generally serve its purpose if the leagues you play in all have similar and basic scoring. There are some scoring twists that you'll want to look over very carefully before deciding on your final cheat sheet.

That list contains some of the more common scoring features you should watch out for before entering a draft. Leagues that reward points for receptions are an especially huge factor in rankings. Any league that gives out points for receptions takes away some of the value from WR's who are yardage machines like a Torry Holt while at the same time adding greater value to guys like Keyshawn Johnson who pick up close to 100 receptions a year with a very low TD and yards per catch ratio.

Use FFToolbox's custom cheat sheets as a guide, but MAKE YOUR OWN CHEAT SHEET. This is half the fun in drafting and testing your wares against other FF players.

Anyone who goes into a draft with a set strategy on which rounds they'll draft which positions is really limiting themselves. Drafts never go perfectly as planned and the more prepared you are to deviate from your plan to take advantage of other drafter's mistakes the better off you'll be. So in your plan, perhaps you were targeting a WR in the 4th round but for some reason Domanick Davis is still on the board. In spite of having 2 good RB's already drafted you'd be crazy to stick with your plan and leave that player there for someone else. It's good to have a plan going into a draft but you must be prepared to make that change on the fly to capitalize on players who fall too far. When players fall farther than they should, it's usually because the league gets caught up in a run on a different position in the draft. By breaking that run to grab that player who fell under the radar you can do yourself more good than you can by simply being a lemming and mindlessly following the run. This rule especially applies for rounds 3 thru 8 in most drafts.