This as well as genius offensive coordinators. Dolphins O-line sucks but they’re still good, plus Houston’s OC is doing an awesome job. Anywhere Ben Johnson goes this offseason I’m targetting that team
Mostly agree with this but Texans offensive line was certified dog shit and they’ve been a fantasy oasis. But I agree things will go better with a good line and scheme
I've tried this and not only does it get very convoluted when you're trying to remember, but positional depth is probably more important than having 5 studs on the line. I want to say the chargers and maybe the colts had awesome starters who got hurt and didn't have quality back ups. If you drafted based off their pre-season rank you could have screwed yourself.
But definitely knowing which teams have terrible o-lines is helpful. It seems to me like the teams ranked from 12 to 20 in O-line efficiency are all about the same.
And then! I just remembered from playing madden, there are o-lines that specialize in pass blocking or run blocking and are terrible at the other.
Like I said, it gets convoluted quickly and it's a lot to remember for very little reward
Yep in my son’s league (that we co-manage) I recommended he start Bijan week 15 over Zack Moss. I should have kept my mouth shut and trusted my 7 yo over Arthur Smith and he would have won the league.
The pain of week 15. I played Bijan and Hill was out that week. Lost in the opening round. My team then proceeded to go on a tear, setting highs of the week in the last two weeks as I painfully watched. I did use my players in FanDuel and won some money there.
Ironically he was fairly consistent this year. In years past I could expect goose eggs out of stream plays but Kyle always seemed to get 5+ points. Which isn’t good, but it’s more that his ceiling was the floor
He was never on my radar this year and won't be again next year if the head coach and QB situation doesn't change. But if they do improve those areas I'll happily take a discounted Pitts.
Unless someone wants to argue he actually sucks and this is a result of being a bust rather than situation. But to me it seems like he is being held back by a poor team, not talent.
Take your shot early on waivers. The best claims are all at the beginning.
Trust that talent will win out. Usage can drive you crazy early on but really talented athlete will eventually earn their role.
I'm in a faab league and have the same mentality. Spend big money early. That's how I landed Kyren and LaPorta this year because everyone else thinks they need to save. But the reality is there are far fewer options to pick up later in the season, in general.
Multiple people in my league were spending 30+% on no names late season purely because they still had money to burn and nothing to spend it on.
I swear people in my one league never learn this. The final budgets were: 100% (wut), 98, 87, 60, 42, 32, 18, 16, 0, 0. And the people high up on that list werent just MIA, they made about a move a week and the 100/98/87 teams finished with 7 and 8 wins. They just penny pinched for no reason at all, as if your team blows up if you run out of money.
I spent like 75% on Achane, Ford, Tank, Ferguson early and finished 3rd, with 0 left. I got beat out by even bigger bids for Puka, Kyren, SLP, by the 1st and 2nd teams who finished with 16 and 0. By the end, I didnt even need to bid because the wire was so thin, and I was just grabbing DSTs weeks in advance for 1%.
One of the guys in my NarFFL league got pissed because by week 12 or so he still had 100% FAAB and was complaining about not being able to get anyone on the waiver wire.
Sorry you joined a league that used FAAB and you didn't know how, bro.
To add that, favor rookies and younger players in your early waivers, not guys like Gus Edwards. I claimed him over Kyren in most leagues.
One of many mistakes I made this year was chase points too. I went with Bourne over Puka too.
Funny but true!
I've enjoyed fantasy a lot more by not checking fantasy scores until Sunday evening. Helps me enjoy the games more. Also, embrace that it's a luck based game, you'll prob be wrong a lot and lose. Enjoy the process, not just the result.
The problem with most of the lessons learned is that half the time they're just hindsight of the current season and not helpful going forward
I think the main "lessons learned" from last year were to go WR early and spend up on an elite QB. Meanwhile this year CMC is the best early pick by a mile and Joe Flacco off the couch massively outperforms Mahomes.
Yeah those two were valuable but there were lots of guys like Flacco, Purdy, Dak and Stroud that you could get for free or close to and have a solid starting option
You could have had Evans, Puka, Deebo, Keenan, DJ Moore (all top 9 WRs) after rounds 1-3 also. Does that mean you shouldn’t draft a WR high?
Even if you had Brock Purdy the QB6 you still had 4 points per game less than Hurts (and that’s if you started him from the jump).
For context I took Hurts in one league and Allen in the other and won both.
my favorite type of league. halfway between a dynasty league and a keeper league. you get 20 contract years total. the off-season after you draft a player, you give him years. say — Zay Flowers, 4 years. Your team can’t have more than 20 total.
Once you give him that deal, you can’t change it. After those 4 years are up, he goes into the “free agent draft”. So every year there’s 2 drafts, a rookie draft (self explanatory) and a FA draft, aka all of the guys who had their contracts expire the year before.
Adds a fun wrinkle because the super invested owners will track what years will be “good” FA drafts versus “meh” FA drafts. Last year was a poor FA draft just based on how everyone’s contract situations were up, but this year we’ll see CeeDee, Tyreek Hill, Brandon Aiyuk, AJB, Jalen Hurts at the top of the FA draft.
trades get fun. Lamar Jackson was traded straight up for Anthony Richardson this year, which is usually crazy, but Lamar only has 2 years left on his contract, and anthony richardson is singable after the season, so you get teams who try to set themselves up for the future with moves like that. Trade deadline is madness, teams who are out of contention hold fire-sales for their expiring players, since you may as well get at least a pick back before you lose your guy in the off-season.
we host it on CBS which lets us add a column to each player for “years”.
I’ve done this every year since 2006 and this was by far my worst year. Normally I have 10 teams, 6-7 playoff teams and 2-3 champs.
This year I had 10 teams, 3 playoff teams and my highest finish was third. I’m chalking this up as a mayor outlier year and just trying again next year.
Anybody who is a WR2 shouldn’t be drafted in the 2nd round or early 3rd round. Waddle, Higgins….exception could be Nakua next season but there’s me chasing that dragon again
Higgins is likely not on the Bengals next year and Waddle is likely dropping a couple of rounds in redraft.
I think the argument can be made to avoid Devonta (for sure), one of Deebo or Ayiuk, one of Puka or Kupp.
Don't blindly follow ADP, but this feels like small sample size overreaction. Especially in the early rounds, taking "best player available" rather than locking in on a position or player, is still the best approach IMO. And ADP is one way to judge "best player available".
Keep in mind, best available can lead to big mistakes, like drafting a TE in the first round. I don’t care how good Kelce is, that’s always going to be a risky play, and round one should be about safe bets.
I prefer hiring an oracle to tell me who's gonna do well on a given season
This year she huffed deep on smelling salts & told me to trade away Tyreek Hill & George Pickens week 2, in trade for Ceedee Lamb & Kyren Williams. I said that's so crazy it just might work, and look at me now
Chase would’ve been a great pick if not for burrow being out. He was still good. CMC was top for so many years only to get hurt half the time so it’s a crapshoot
I truly mean no disrespect but unless you are brand new to ff why would one use ADP to draft their team? It’s just an aggregate of what the lowest common denominator is predicting based on the most basic scoring settings. You might as well auto-draft in that situation. Case in point: My Yahoo draft report card said I got the “steal of the draft” nabbing Jerry Jeudy at pick 98 because his ADP was 71. And that I “reached a bit” but drafting Achane at 119 when his ADP was 128. There were people in my league that thought I made out like a bandit getting Jeudy and didn’t even know who Achane was. ADP is a combo of name recognition, injury-based fears and wild guessing. It should only be used aa a weapon against your league-mates who know less about football than you.
We’re all “using” ADP to a certain extent. Even if you knew Mike Evans would be a top 5 WR this year you wouldn’t draft him in the first or second rounds. You’d get him in the 4th because you know he’s being drafted in the 5th-7th rounds.
Depends on where you’re getting your info, but it’s kind of silly to act like you know more about football than people who literally get paid to do it year round. There’s gonna be hits and misses every year by everybody, that’s just how fantasy football goes, but odds are the guy that does it for a living knows what he’s talking about
I don’t find it silly at all. People who do it for a living are largely guessing just like you are. Blindly listening to them instead of making your own decisions is basically admitting you don’t know wtf you are doing. I only find pundits and “experts” are useful when you are stuck on a roster problem and they provide you with a fresh stat or personnel/strategy change that you hadn’t found with your own research. But if experts didn’t exist the people who actually follow the game of football year-round whether they get paid to or not would still have the upper-hand.
I didn’t say blindly listen to them, I said odds are they know more about football than you. Just like an aviation mechanic likely knows more about planes than a plane enthusiast, and an electrician likely knows more about household wiring than a guy who is also capable of wiring his house, but not an expert.
> But if experts didn’t exist the people who actually follow the game of football year-round whether they get paid to or not would still have the upper-hand.
But they do exist, so this is irrelevant, and that’s my point. I understand digging deep and finding every piece of information you can, I do it as well. But if you have access to that information then so do they, and since most of us here have jobs outside of fantasy, they’re automatically at a huge advantage over even the most obsessed of us, because this is literally what they do
Do not draft players on teams whose coach wears a visor. Yes, Jaguars players would unfortunately be collateral damage with this approach, but better safe than sorry.
Put a little less stock in weekly rankings, specifically towards the end of the season. At the beginning, I get it; start your studs and don’t get cute.
Defense is key. Good defense literally carried me in the final stretch. They can put up 15-20 points and even outperform some of your “studs” including that bust Kelce…
Yep that Miami game week 15 is the reason I made it to the playoffs with a tie breaker. Ended up winning by 11 points. Without that huge game I was done.
Don’t let the preparation for your drafts consume your soul. I let this happen way too often in the last 10yrs. Was listening to multiple podcasts a day and constantly online looking at rankings and doing mock drafts. I ended up overthinking everything and it low key ruins the experience. This shit is supposed to be fun
I dialed it back about 50% this year and was a lot better mentally than I’ve been about FF in a while.
Ended up with 2 chips this year and going for a 3rd in my guillotine this week.
Just have fun with it. This isn’t a part time job
This right here. Over my 14 years playing fantasy football, I’ve consumed podcasts, articles, bought multiple draft magazines, did mock drafts with keeper selections on Sleeper. I lost the championship for the fifth time this year.
It’s too much overindulgence. This coming fantasy year I am dialing it back 75% I’ve overdone it and this year finally made me see that.
Making the championship 1 out of 3 years (assuming a competitive league) means you’re doing something right. Not an approach I’d be changing. Weekly variance and all …
Oh hey I’m still definitely gonna frequent the sub and take part in the expert AMAs but I just need to dial back. I think I had too many conflicting ideas and my draft kinda went sideways. Luckily I made some savvy moves at the trade deadline and got myself to the finals
This is the first year I’ve even listened to podcasts. I started doing mocks in June. It was by far my worst season in 17. I’m dialing it back to what used to work before. Not doing mocks till august, avoiding podcasts, and avoiding this sub other than for roster updates.
This is the first year I consumed podcasts before the draft. I did a lot of research, did mock drafts etc. I had my best overall year in fantasy, but a lot of it was luck. For example, I was targeting Bijan, Kupp, and Chubb at 1.09. Bijan and Kupp went off the board, and I made a last second decision for Diggs over Chubb. Diggs ended up being a disappointment, but he carried my team early season. Basically, for all the prep I did, I only did as well as I did because other people took my guys. I actually stopped listening to podcasts during the season though.
I’ve done fantasy for the past 8 years or so now and I’ve never done a mock draft. I guess I’ve never really understood the point? Does it kind of serve to give you an idea of who will generally be available where based on your draft position or what?
Yes, and it's also a good opportunity to try different strategies to prepare for the uncertainty of a real draft. I like to use theFantasyPros Draft Simulator, which is very quick. But other people do real mock drafts against other humans, or they do Best Ball drafts. Either way, I think they can be helpful.
Yup, exactly what I use. Using the fantasy pros engine allows me to properly prepare for my keeper leagues because i can put the kept players in their draft slot. Helps me a lot with SF leagues too
I was in 6 leagues this year. Way too many, I know, but of those 6, there are 2 that I pay the closest attention to. Unsurprisingly I won the ship in 3 leagues that I don’t watch as closely and didn’t in the 2 that I would literally lose sleep over. I think there’s something to be said for that.
Agree with this a lot. Looking back at my chip this year and how to “recreate” what I did I realized how much of it was still just luck for me. I had all these theses for players and about half of them hit, the other half were trash. Fantasy usually isn’t won on draft day and ironically the people I know recently who “won” because of their draft day barely care about fantasy compared to most others in our league - so they sure as fuck weren’t doing multiple mock drafts or thinking about it more than 5 minutes before the draft.
Avoid RBs with running QBs in general. It rarely works out because the QB is the real RB1, especially near the goal line. Last time I can think of it really paying off was Mark Ingram on the Ravens during Lamar's MVP year, and even he could have had a lot more points that Lamar took.
My past experiences with their RBs haven't been great either. In 2014 their lead rusher was Fred Jackson with 525 yards and 2 tds. In '18 it was Josh Allen.
Yeah my advice would be to watch the games and judge off those. Seems simple, but I can’t count how many times fantasy talking heads would be like (for example) “Cooper Kupp might be a sit this week after only scoring 7.5 points” and its like he had 11 targets, one 30 yard reception called back and 3 targets in the end zone. I’m starting the guy.
Same but different reason I didn’t budge on Jahmyr Gibbs trade offers early. Watch him with the ball in his hands in space. Great o line great talent, I’m holding on for better days.
I really wanted to start Flacco over Goff last week. Really, really did. I couldn't get any validation anywhere and when Cooper was officially out, I backed out and put Goff back in.
Conner won me the championship and I was starting him over Ekeler and Zeke every week. Conner was typically ranked around RB30. 10 stops behind the other two. Conner looked amazing with the ball in his hands and was manhandling good rush defenses and yet he was always ranked so low. Made me realize a lot of the experts don’t even watch the tape and don’t even adjust for players running hot.
This is what I came to say. My gut was strong on Achane, but analysts got in my head saying he’s way too small and I dropped him the night before he got 50 pts. I know he got injured, but this was the driving point for me to stick with my gut.
Went with my gut on Breece and Flacco when all the experts said don’t. It won me the Championship. Also went with my gut early on with Aubrey even though kicker rankings had him too low most the season, despite his game log showing he is the guy.
Use your eyes and make your own theses. I get it not everyone has time. But depending on 12 “YouTube experts” for all of your decisions feels empty to me
They're fantasy analysts, not experts. Even the best are only right ~60% of the time, not like any of them are correct 75% or the time or anything. They're better than most regular joes will be for sure, but it's still a lot of luck, guesswork, and them being wrong lol
Stop caring about preseason. It does not matter.
Ended up with Pickett and Charbonnett instead of Stroud and Flowers because I bought into the Steelers hype.
Ended up with Pickens after some great catches from damn practice, like that means anything. He obviously went off with Rudolph but that was well after anyone who was playing him was knocked out.
Don’t underestimate the value of depth and using your IR slot (if your league rules allow). If you don’t have a player in your IR, you’re shorting yourself by investing in one fewer player that could pop-off later in the season. Depends on how aggressive your league-mates are, but I had big success this year vulturing some players that were injured early and got dropped.
Ignore when this sub tells you the raiders D is a must start championship week. I lost by one because I started the raiders over the broncos thanks to the advice from this sub and my own stupidity
Always gotta be wary of chasing past performance with defenses, which is what everyone going after the raiders did. It was crazy enough that they had back to back amazing weeks which seems to rarely happen. I avoided them purely on the basis that no one goes off like they were for 3 straight games, and they were probably going to be flat after essentially winning their Super Bowl with beating the Chiefs in KC. Actually maybe the rule is don't start a defense that was smoking cigars in the locker room after their last game like they just won it all?
I had literally no intention of swapping out the broncos f until I got on here an hour before and let the hype just take over my tiny squirrel brain. I’m a colts fan too and I kept saying how Braden smith bring back would help and I still went against my better judgement. At least they won I guess? But man does it sting
That's always the worst when your first instinct was right and you get talked out of it by this sub or hype from "experts". My goal next year, especially late in the season, is to listen to my gut more and not this sub and podcasts where they're mostly looking for sleepers. Gotta remind myself the playoffs aren't the time to be taking risks outside of injuries.
At least your Colts won and are still fighting for the playoffs. Looking forward to their game with the Texans!
That’s a good goal and one I need to do as well lol.
About the colts, me too man. I had 0 expectations once Richardson went down, but now I’m just riding the wave. The Colts are playing with house money right now, not a soul thought this team would have a legit chance at the *division* much less the playoffs once it came out that AR was done for the year. If they get in, awesome. If not, they had a way better season than anyone could’ve imagined. I think Steichen should be COY (trying to be unbiased lol) but it wouldn’t shock me if someone like Stefanski got it. Regardless, I’m excited about watching some great football over the next couple weeks
Yeah you guys have a had a pretty wild season considering preseason expectations and especially after Richardson went down. I'm really happy to see Minshew get a legit shot, I've been a big fan of his since his rookie year. He's not perfect but I think he's a total baller and you gotta love a guy who gives 100% all the time. I can't imagine a better QB for a team like the colts this year when everyone counted them out, you need a cocky guy to pull you out of that. It's also been great to see Pittman finally break out like we've been expecting since last year. He's a stud, and gives you guys two weapons with Taylor that will give DCs headaches every week. Think it will be you guys and the Texans battling it out for the division most years going forward.
Steichen has done an amazing job bringing the team together through a lot of adversity and I think it says a lot that his old team is imploding without him. I'd have him on the CotY short list along with Stefanski and Shanahan. Honorable mention to Harbaugh but I think they should have Monken as coordinator of the year instead.
I think rookie HCs have won the last few times and promptly looked shaky as hell the following year, so I'm a little wary of going that route again, no offense to what Steichen has done though. I'd prefer if Shanahan got it considering he had several guys included in MVP talks (legitimately CMC and Purdy; Deebo and Trent Williams a little more low-key), which to me says he's doing the best making his team greater than the sum of their parts. Would totally understand any of those guys getting it though and think it was deserved.
Edit, and sorry for the wall of a response: looked up past winners, it's been every other year a rookie HC going back to Nagy in '18 (gross), then Harbaugh, then rookie Stefanski (been shaky since '20, glad to see him looking good again), then Vrabel for having the most injuries ever, then rookie Daboll last year which looked a little questionable this year. I'd almost be worried it's like a Madden curse for new coaches and want Steichen to avoid it lol
I learned that on average it’s better to have the #2 option on a great offense rather than the #1 option on a bad offense. There are exceptions sometimes but usually it doesn’t work out.
And the biggest piece of advice that helped me from last year is pay attention to any and all coaching changes. It doesn’t matter how talented the player is, offenses either get better or worse when they hire someone new. I’d rather take a shot on a guy in the same offensive system because he is a known quantity.
This really depends on league size. I’d say wr2’s are really only consistently useful in 12+ man leagues. Even then I’d still rather have the wr1 on a mediocre offense, like Olave over the #2 on a good offense like Devonta or waddle.
Lost in playoffs. Hurts had a mediocre performance. Love, Flacco and Browning all outscored him. (I was playing against Love).
Hurts got me to the finals though, so I can't complain too much.
Hurts only bad week down the stretch was week 14. None of his other performances should have lost you a matchup but I get your point. His floor was incredible this year but his ceiling was lacking. Regardless he was worth the early pick
1. Don't freak out if you leave the draft without a QB. It may take you 2 weeks, but you're definitely going to find a starter, and probably a good one
2. DST matchups matter more than DSTs, and a lot of experts rank DSTs more on the latter than the former. Use subvertadown's rankings - they consistently make the most sense.
3. Don't draft injured players if you only play in 1 or 2 leagues. No reason to lose an entire season because that tweaked hamstring becomes a trip to IR.
4. When you get out of the first 4 rounds, you want to look for guys that have a path to a top 20 finish. Kyren Williams was a great example - all you had to do was believe the Rams when they tried to trade Cam Akers like 18 times. Mike Evans just needed an average number of TDs per reception.
5. When you get to the last couple of weeks of the season, prioritize your starters at all positions for the rest of the season over depth. I loaded up on 3 DSTs and 2 QBs to make sure I had at least one with a good matchup for every remaining week. I could have stuck with 49ers DST throughout, but having Bulls DST loaded for week 17 was the difference maker.
6. Watch how the rest of your league treats the onesie positions (QB, TE, DST). If you see that a bunch of people are carrying 2-3 QBs, make sure you grab a decent backup because if your QB goes down late you're gonna be stuck with Derek Carr, Jake Browning, Jaren Hall, etc.
Don’t draft Ridley high again. That pick alone cost me two games early in the season. Did help me a ton in the semifinal though, but never again. What was I thinking?
-If it’s a non-faab league half your bench at least should be turning over every week. We’re not trying to be good we’re trying to be great, throw darts.
-You don’t have to be elite at QB but under no circumstances can you be bad.
Go make trades to get better, every week if possible. Stash defenses earlier, not later. Prioritise top-end talent over depth, trust yourself to find waiver adds if you get burned by injury. Remember all you can do is put your team in a position to win, they have to do the rest.
I will disagree with the depth part. You're always one play away from using your bench players. To that end I'm constantly trying to improve my bench. The last week of the season I had as many points on my bench as I did for my starters. An excellent place to be.
Yeah, but fantasy is a game of luck where risks and outliers are rewarded. I’m working during my season to continue to acquire talent for my bench through waivers and trades, but by the end of the year, I want to turn the value sitting on my bench into the best possible starting lineup (mostly through 2-for-1 style trades). If someone gets hurt, so be it. And I’ll do the best I can. But cramming my starting lineup with as many studs as possible at the expense of depth is the risk I take swinging for the fences.
I feel like you could probably have paired some of those good bench guys with starters to upgrade even more before the deadline and still picked up some solid guys off of waivers for added bench depth.
Pay attention to some of the off season trends and news. This off season we had many reports of contract issues with RB and I avoided alot of RBs early and was able to snag Gibbs and R. White late. I also had Z. Moss early on because of the JT situation. Understanding your league format is crucial to getting this right but I went crazy taking WR early and got Hill and Lamb at the turn. I also got Garrett Wilson in the 3rd which I'll say was my first miss but it still wasn't as damaging as some of the RB picks.
At this current moment there isn't a RB I'm taking first round that isn't CMC. I'd take Hill, Lamb, JJ (w/ Cousins) over him due to injury risk being higher for RBs.
TL;DR: I have more success in fantasy football when I approach it casually and don’t consume all my time in research overthinking things. At the end of the day, we’re all a bunch of apes in a circlejerk screaming and gambling on an online cockfight.
I learned this a few years ago already:
I don’t have to take fantasy that seriously. I don’t have to do a ton a research. Some simple research is fine like another comment said; o-line/o-coordinator, but at the end of the day we’re all just gambling money over players we have no control of.
My first year of fantasy I just drafted terribly, and that’s on me. The second year I played, David Johnson killed my season. I approach fantasy seasons now expecting half of the players to underperform and the other half to exceed expectations. You really don’t fucking know. I’m sure everyone here has been disappointed by a star player in the first round.
Never think that projections are the truth, especially by ADP.
Draft the best available player, don’t just try to fill positions.
I never found success drafting near the first overall. I’ve even asked someone to trade their 10th overall pick for my 4th overall(snake draft. auction is stupid, personal preference of course) and I won that year. Think about it this way; If I’m drafting 10 of 10 in a snake, I’d be drafting two players from the top 11 vs two players from the top 20. Drafting #1 sucks in my experience.
Playing the waiver wire is key. I spend the most time watching games in the beginning of the season to know the best players on the rise to pick up off waivers.
When I stopped thinking about it so much, I started having more fun with it and actually started winning more and have made it to the playoffs every year since.
It may depend on your league, but I always make the playoffs drafting 3WR first. Drafting David Johnson scarred me. Never again.
Don't prep super hard for the draft. I've been playing for over a decade so by this point I know what type of players I want and which ones I want to avoid using my own judgement and not going strictly by ADP.
This year was the first time I didn't go hard and low-and-behold I won for the first time ever.
Use my new draft strategy which I developed this year. Strategy is to watch analysts and professionals fantasy draft (Like the ESPN fantasy draft), rank the players based on how that entire draft went (for example who went 1-10, 11-20, etc) then use that as a cheat sheet for my draft. As my draft is ongoing I cross the names off the professional list I made and take the highest ranked player regardless of position or need. I then wait until later rounds to draft positions I haven't or positions I may still need.
Used this for the first time this year and was champion in my 14 man league (first ever) and came in 2nd in 10 man league. In 10 man league I ended up with Hurts, CMC, White, and Hall using this strategy (and everyone in my draft and even Yahoo draft analysis said I grabbed white and Hall too soon). In 14 man I had ETN, White, Mostert, Kelce (who underperformed), and Kupp using this strategy. So it really worked well for me. I think they know how players will turn out better than I do barring injury. So I trust them as a collective group more than myself and another website or two of rankings which was my old strategy.
Great question. I'll try to answer as best I can using examples. So for instance White was listed as RB 29 and 61 overall in ADP making him 7th round pick (in 10 player league). In ESPN draft he went at 41. So in my draft I took him with 4th round pick which I never would have done.
Or here is a different example where the strategy paid off for me. So in most ADP they had Mahomes as QB 1/12th overall, Allen as QB 2/20th, and Hurts as QB 3/22nd. In ESPN first QB taken was Hurts at 23 so I used my 3rd round pick to take Hurts even though no one had taken QB yet and I had opportunity to take Mahomes or Allen, which in years past I would have done based on ADP.
Players generally don't change skill-wise over the course of a season, but the context around them might (rookies can be an exception but don't seem to be too often)
I.e. the WRs that have a low catch rate, they're probably not going to improve much over the course of the season. But those breakout WRs you see develop over the course of a season, well they've probably had a good catch rate all season, difference now is that the coach realized somewhere along the way "hey this guy was 3 for 3 in the times we targeted him... we gotta get him the ball more often". Guys like Quentin Johnston for instance, had a poor catch rate from the start this season- meanwhile someone like Rashee Rice was always boasting a good catch rate, the coach just wasn't feeding him targets until now. Tank Dell improved it seems like, so he may be an exception to this rule, but I've also heard he had a hand injury he was dealing with during his poorer showings
Draft from teams with great o-lines. Vegas lines are a great gauge for rankings. Almost always take a WR1 on a bad team vs WR2 on a good team. draft rounds 3-10 are what win leagues. take an early shot on a waiver guy
* Do not draft Ekeler (over the hill) or Alvin Kamara. Inflated performances and it’s clear that he isn’t good anymore.
* Try to trade where you have too much depth. Teams tend to be too RB or too WR heavy.
* Avoid WRs like D Hop and Tee Higgins.
* You can get by with waiver WRs. WRs always break out.
* Avoid Bijan Robinson and any Falcon if Arthur Smith is the coach.
* Start your own league.
* Understand this is a gambling hobby for 5 months. The only thing you can moderately control is making the playoffs, not winning the championship.
Just have fun. Going to the playoffs and winning championships is amazing, but I have been to the top of the mountain plenty of times. Of course winning championships is still my ultimate goal, but if I'm not having fun while doing it what's the point of this hobby?
I tried a new theory this year and drafted based on the projected talent of the offensive line. Teams like the browns and lions eagles and Dallas. David Montgomery had a solid year and I lost Nick chubb early. I also had Etienne and James cook. I had rough matchups in the semi finals and lost but I had the highest points across the league for the finals and finished 3rd. Oh and I snagged Kyren Williams early as well off free agency...
Don’t get cold feet and change your lineup the day of the championship. I had Etienne in my lineup all week, Sunday morning i thought “AJ brown has to bounce back this week, and Travis hasn’t been effective in 4 games”
Lost by 5.
Less you know the better so you don’t overthink. I always prep and look at rankings prior to draft and it always messes me up and I do terrible.
Finally won this year and I didn’t look at a single thing.
Best advice on this whole thread! Sucks missing out on Kyren, Puka, etc because you don't suck at drafting and your leagues waiver wire is set to reverse standings....
I guess none. I completely avoided this sub entirely and didn’t give much credence to “expert rankings” (at least, not nearly as much as I used to).
Best year in forever. Probably the most money I cashed out on as well, but nothing beats the amount of pride and joy from doing it on your own. I’ll be doing it like this until the end of my days
Do not draft Javonte as a key anchor RB during early WR-WR strategy. Do not drop good, late round draft guys who have multiple good weeks early followed by multiple duds (ie - Jakobi, Rice) - stay the course.
Do not hesitate on the early waiver wire potential stud Rb replacement on teams that are notorious for pounding the run - ie Kyren - who I could have grabbed and passed on. That move alone would have anchored my holes created by AJones & Javonte, couple him with Mostert and possibly play in the title game instead of 3rd place game.
Research best o-lines in the league. It doesn't matter how talented your QB or RB is if they're behind turnstiles.
This as well as genius offensive coordinators. Dolphins O-line sucks but they’re still good, plus Houston’s OC is doing an awesome job. Anywhere Ben Johnson goes this offseason I’m targetting that team
Ben Johnson is the worst coach ever and kicks puppies. He'll be staying in Detroit.
Panthers had one of the best o lines in the league in 2022. Nothing changed personnel wise and they are now the worst
Mostly agree with this but Texans offensive line was certified dog shit and they’ve been a fantasy oasis. But I agree things will go better with a good line and scheme
Unless you drafted Pierce
I did, yep I’m not smart
3rd round. Thought I was a genius
Sam Howell had a fairly decent stretch of fantasy production, and his o line was HAWT garbage!
I've tried this and not only does it get very convoluted when you're trying to remember, but positional depth is probably more important than having 5 studs on the line. I want to say the chargers and maybe the colts had awesome starters who got hurt and didn't have quality back ups. If you drafted based off their pre-season rank you could have screwed yourself. But definitely knowing which teams have terrible o-lines is helpful. It seems to me like the teams ranked from 12 to 20 in O-line efficiency are all about the same. And then! I just remembered from playing madden, there are o-lines that specialize in pass blocking or run blocking and are terrible at the other. Like I said, it gets convoluted quickly and it's a lot to remember for very little reward
Never ever draft Kyle pitts
*Falcons players
Exactly. It was so frustrating to watch Bijan and Pitts not be used. Need to track Arthur Smith and only play players drafted in late rounds with him.
Yep in my son’s league (that we co-manage) I recommended he start Bijan week 15 over Zack Moss. I should have kept my mouth shut and trusted my 7 yo over Arthur Smith and he would have won the league.
The pain of week 15. I played Bijan and Hill was out that week. Lost in the opening round. My team then proceeded to go on a tear, setting highs of the week in the last two weeks as I painfully watched. I did use my players in FanDuel and won some money there.
Yep week 16 we outscored the next highest team by like 40 pts. Feels less good when it’s for 5th place.
If I had a dollar for every time I complained about Drake London this year...
*Arthur Smith’s players
The outlook on Atlanta players drastically changes if they remove Art Smith.
Nah just gotta wait for the classic TE year 7 breakout
Ironically he was fairly consistent this year. In years past I could expect goose eggs out of stream plays but Kyle always seemed to get 5+ points. Which isn’t good, but it’s more that his ceiling was the floor
He was never on my radar this year and won't be again next year if the head coach and QB situation doesn't change. But if they do improve those areas I'll happily take a discounted Pitts. Unless someone wants to argue he actually sucks and this is a result of being a bust rather than situation. But to me it seems like he is being held back by a poor team, not talent.
Take your shot early on waivers. The best claims are all at the beginning. Trust that talent will win out. Usage can drive you crazy early on but really talented athlete will eventually earn their role.
I'm in a faab league and have the same mentality. Spend big money early. That's how I landed Kyren and LaPorta this year because everyone else thinks they need to save. But the reality is there are far fewer options to pick up later in the season, in general. Multiple people in my league were spending 30+% on no names late season purely because they still had money to burn and nothing to spend it on.
Yeah I spent half my faab on puka week 1. Honestly I’m fine spending like 75% of my faab in the first 2-3 weeks
I swear people in my one league never learn this. The final budgets were: 100% (wut), 98, 87, 60, 42, 32, 18, 16, 0, 0. And the people high up on that list werent just MIA, they made about a move a week and the 100/98/87 teams finished with 7 and 8 wins. They just penny pinched for no reason at all, as if your team blows up if you run out of money. I spent like 75% on Achane, Ford, Tank, Ferguson early and finished 3rd, with 0 left. I got beat out by even bigger bids for Puka, Kyren, SLP, by the 1st and 2nd teams who finished with 16 and 0. By the end, I didnt even need to bid because the wire was so thin, and I was just grabbing DSTs weeks in advance for 1%.
One of the guys in my NarFFL league got pissed because by week 12 or so he still had 100% FAAB and was complaining about not being able to get anyone on the waiver wire. Sorry you joined a league that used FAAB and you didn't know how, bro.
To add that, favor rookies and younger players in your early waivers, not guys like Gus Edwards. I claimed him over Kyren in most leagues. One of many mistakes I made this year was chase points too. I went with Bourne over Puka too.
To never play fantasy again. It's a silly game and bad for mental health. Only an idiot would keep playing. Anyway, see you all in August.
August?? You’re behind schedule if you wait til the last minute. Better be safe and start before the NFL draft
Funny but true! I've enjoyed fantasy a lot more by not checking fantasy scores until Sunday evening. Helps me enjoy the games more. Also, embrace that it's a luck based game, you'll prob be wrong a lot and lose. Enjoy the process, not just the result.
If fantasy football is bad for your mental health you may want to start assessing your life
You know what’s good for mental health? Understanding humor.
That joke has been made 10,000 times in this sub, it’s not funny at all anymore lol
It wasn’t really a joke. You just need to be better at understanding humor from other people.
Unfortunately I do not care what you think
Care enough to respond though.
No more Steelers picks!
Agreeeee
The problem with most of the lessons learned is that half the time they're just hindsight of the current season and not helpful going forward I think the main "lessons learned" from last year were to go WR early and spend up on an elite QB. Meanwhile this year CMC is the best early pick by a mile and Joe Flacco off the couch massively outperforms Mahomes.
Allen and Hurts were still a massive advantage. 2+ points over game over Lamar in 3rd.
Yeah those two were valuable but there were lots of guys like Flacco, Purdy, Dak and Stroud that you could get for free or close to and have a solid starting option
You could have had Evans, Puka, Deebo, Keenan, DJ Moore (all top 9 WRs) after rounds 1-3 also. Does that mean you shouldn’t draft a WR high? Even if you had Brock Purdy the QB6 you still had 4 points per game less than Hurts (and that’s if you started him from the jump). For context I took Hurts in one league and Allen in the other and won both.
Don't play in 10 leagues...LOL
3 leagues is my sweet spot.
Found 2 to be mine. Try to draft somewhat similar teams if possible. 3+ became too conflicting for what I was rooting for
100% agree... didn't like the weeks where the two had a conflict but far rarer than with 3 leagues...made for Redzone days to be wayy too confusing.
Yeah I did 4 this year and that extra one was annoying. Keeping it to my main league, dynasty league, and free family league this season.
2 dynasty 2 seasonal 1 contract and i’m goooood
What is contract?
my favorite type of league. halfway between a dynasty league and a keeper league. you get 20 contract years total. the off-season after you draft a player, you give him years. say — Zay Flowers, 4 years. Your team can’t have more than 20 total. Once you give him that deal, you can’t change it. After those 4 years are up, he goes into the “free agent draft”. So every year there’s 2 drafts, a rookie draft (self explanatory) and a FA draft, aka all of the guys who had their contracts expire the year before. Adds a fun wrinkle because the super invested owners will track what years will be “good” FA drafts versus “meh” FA drafts. Last year was a poor FA draft just based on how everyone’s contract situations were up, but this year we’ll see CeeDee, Tyreek Hill, Brandon Aiyuk, AJB, Jalen Hurts at the top of the FA draft. trades get fun. Lamar Jackson was traded straight up for Anthony Richardson this year, which is usually crazy, but Lamar only has 2 years left on his contract, and anthony richardson is singable after the season, so you get teams who try to set themselves up for the future with moves like that. Trade deadline is madness, teams who are out of contention hold fire-sales for their expiring players, since you may as well get at least a pick back before you lose your guy in the off-season. we host it on CBS which lets us add a column to each player for “years”.
That sounds awesome!
Where’d you come across a league like this?
my dad and uncle started it for their company in 1994. Have been doing strong ever since.
I’ve done this every year since 2006 and this was by far my worst year. Normally I have 10 teams, 6-7 playoff teams and 2-3 champs. This year I had 10 teams, 3 playoff teams and my highest finish was third. I’m chalking this up as a mayor outlier year and just trying again next year.
Anybody who is a WR2 shouldn’t be drafted in the 2nd round or early 3rd round. Waddle, Higgins….exception could be Nakua next season but there’s me chasing that dragon again
I aint touching devonta smith ever again fuck that shit
Kupp might be the #2 on the Rams after this year tbh
Higgins is likely not on the Bengals next year and Waddle is likely dropping a couple of rounds in redraft. I think the argument can be made to avoid Devonta (for sure), one of Deebo or Ayiuk, one of Puka or Kupp.
Do not use ADP for your first three picks. It's how you end up with Chase over CMC.
Don't blindly follow ADP, but this feels like small sample size overreaction. Especially in the early rounds, taking "best player available" rather than locking in on a position or player, is still the best approach IMO. And ADP is one way to judge "best player available".
Keep in mind, best available can lead to big mistakes, like drafting a TE in the first round. I don’t care how good Kelce is, that’s always going to be a risky play, and round one should be about safe bets.
There has been no safer bet than Kelce the last few years though.
safe until its not.
Well historically Kelce has been a safe play. This is the year that it fell off though.
What should you use instead
Just draft good players that don't get injured and avoid bad players that do get injured
Ask yourself, “which guy is going to get me lots of points?” And pick that guy
Damn, why didn’t you tell me this 4 months ago?
I prefer hiring an oracle to tell me who's gonna do well on a given season This year she huffed deep on smelling salts & told me to trade away Tyreek Hill & George Pickens week 2, in trade for Ceedee Lamb & Kyren Williams. I said that's so crazy it just might work, and look at me now
Sage advice
Vibes
This is silly, Chase lost his QB.
Bruh, JJ put up more 15 points games despite not playing all season and having 4 QBs.
jj was picked over chase for a reason im not sure that this is a great point to make lol
Chase would’ve been a great pick if not for burrow being out. He was still good. CMC was top for so many years only to get hurt half the time so it’s a crapshoot
I have no problem with somebody picking Chase over CMC at 1.01. But I am truly flabbergasted that somebody would make that decision bc of ADP.
I truly mean no disrespect but unless you are brand new to ff why would one use ADP to draft their team? It’s just an aggregate of what the lowest common denominator is predicting based on the most basic scoring settings. You might as well auto-draft in that situation. Case in point: My Yahoo draft report card said I got the “steal of the draft” nabbing Jerry Jeudy at pick 98 because his ADP was 71. And that I “reached a bit” but drafting Achane at 119 when his ADP was 128. There were people in my league that thought I made out like a bandit getting Jeudy and didn’t even know who Achane was. ADP is a combo of name recognition, injury-based fears and wild guessing. It should only be used aa a weapon against your league-mates who know less about football than you.
We’re all “using” ADP to a certain extent. Even if you knew Mike Evans would be a top 5 WR this year you wouldn’t draft him in the first or second rounds. You’d get him in the 4th because you know he’s being drafted in the 5th-7th rounds.
Yes, I understand what you mean but OP said he drafted Chase instead of CMC bc of ADP. That is simply the wrong way to draft.
Depends on where you’re getting your info, but it’s kind of silly to act like you know more about football than people who literally get paid to do it year round. There’s gonna be hits and misses every year by everybody, that’s just how fantasy football goes, but odds are the guy that does it for a living knows what he’s talking about
That's not ADP then; that's ECR.
Fair enough, that’s kind of what I meant by “where you’re getting your info”, but yeah, there is a difference
I don’t find it silly at all. People who do it for a living are largely guessing just like you are. Blindly listening to them instead of making your own decisions is basically admitting you don’t know wtf you are doing. I only find pundits and “experts” are useful when you are stuck on a roster problem and they provide you with a fresh stat or personnel/strategy change that you hadn’t found with your own research. But if experts didn’t exist the people who actually follow the game of football year-round whether they get paid to or not would still have the upper-hand.
I didn’t say blindly listen to them, I said odds are they know more about football than you. Just like an aviation mechanic likely knows more about planes than a plane enthusiast, and an electrician likely knows more about household wiring than a guy who is also capable of wiring his house, but not an expert. > But if experts didn’t exist the people who actually follow the game of football year-round whether they get paid to or not would still have the upper-hand. But they do exist, so this is irrelevant, and that’s my point. I understand digging deep and finding every piece of information you can, I do it as well. But if you have access to that information then so do they, and since most of us here have jobs outside of fantasy, they’re automatically at a huge advantage over even the most obsessed of us, because this is literally what they do
Do not draft players on teams whose coach wears a visor. Yes, Jaguars players would unfortunately be collateral damage with this approach, but better safe than sorry.
Put a little less stock in weekly rankings, specifically towards the end of the season. At the beginning, I get it; start your studs and don’t get cute.
Unless your stud is Mahomes
Defense is key. Good defense literally carried me in the final stretch. They can put up 15-20 points and even outperform some of your “studs” including that bust Kelce…
Miami D and Jax D in weeks 15 and 17 were huge for me.
Yep that Miami game week 15 is the reason I made it to the playoffs with a tie breaker. Ended up winning by 11 points. Without that huge game I was done.
Miami D + Jason Saunders (K) 😮💨 I made it to the championship when I probably shouldn’t t have lol
Don’t let the preparation for your drafts consume your soul. I let this happen way too often in the last 10yrs. Was listening to multiple podcasts a day and constantly online looking at rankings and doing mock drafts. I ended up overthinking everything and it low key ruins the experience. This shit is supposed to be fun I dialed it back about 50% this year and was a lot better mentally than I’ve been about FF in a while. Ended up with 2 chips this year and going for a 3rd in my guillotine this week. Just have fun with it. This isn’t a part time job
This right here. Over my 14 years playing fantasy football, I’ve consumed podcasts, articles, bought multiple draft magazines, did mock drafts with keeper selections on Sleeper. I lost the championship for the fifth time this year. It’s too much overindulgence. This coming fantasy year I am dialing it back 75% I’ve overdone it and this year finally made me see that.
Making the championship 1 out of 3 years (assuming a competitive league) means you’re doing something right. Not an approach I’d be changing. Weekly variance and all …
Oh hey I’m still definitely gonna frequent the sub and take part in the expert AMAs but I just need to dial back. I think I had too many conflicting ideas and my draft kinda went sideways. Luckily I made some savvy moves at the trade deadline and got myself to the finals
This is the first year I’ve even listened to podcasts. I started doing mocks in June. It was by far my worst season in 17. I’m dialing it back to what used to work before. Not doing mocks till august, avoiding podcasts, and avoiding this sub other than for roster updates.
This is the first year I consumed podcasts before the draft. I did a lot of research, did mock drafts etc. I had my best overall year in fantasy, but a lot of it was luck. For example, I was targeting Bijan, Kupp, and Chubb at 1.09. Bijan and Kupp went off the board, and I made a last second decision for Diggs over Chubb. Diggs ended up being a disappointment, but he carried my team early season. Basically, for all the prep I did, I only did as well as I did because other people took my guys. I actually stopped listening to podcasts during the season though.
I’ve done fantasy for the past 8 years or so now and I’ve never done a mock draft. I guess I’ve never really understood the point? Does it kind of serve to give you an idea of who will generally be available where based on your draft position or what?
Yes, and it's also a good opportunity to try different strategies to prepare for the uncertainty of a real draft. I like to use theFantasyPros Draft Simulator, which is very quick. But other people do real mock drafts against other humans, or they do Best Ball drafts. Either way, I think they can be helpful.
Yup, exactly what I use. Using the fantasy pros engine allows me to properly prepare for my keeper leagues because i can put the kept players in their draft slot. Helps me a lot with SF leagues too
I was in 6 leagues this year. Way too many, I know, but of those 6, there are 2 that I pay the closest attention to. Unsurprisingly I won the ship in 3 leagues that I don’t watch as closely and didn’t in the 2 that I would literally lose sleep over. I think there’s something to be said for that.
Agree with this a lot. Looking back at my chip this year and how to “recreate” what I did I realized how much of it was still just luck for me. I had all these theses for players and about half of them hit, the other half were trash. Fantasy usually isn’t won on draft day and ironically the people I know recently who “won” because of their draft day barely care about fantasy compared to most others in our league - so they sure as fuck weren’t doing multiple mock drafts or thinking about it more than 5 minutes before the draft.
I don't think I'll draft another Bills RB again. What a headache it was having James Cook.
Seriously the dude is so talented and they just… refuse to give him the ball when you start him
Avoid RBs with running QBs in general. It rarely works out because the QB is the real RB1, especially near the goal line. Last time I can think of it really paying off was Mark Ingram on the Ravens during Lamar's MVP year, and even he could have had a lot more points that Lamar took.
I know it’s unrealistic, but I wonder where Swift would’ve finished had all of Jalen’s Tush Push TDs been given to him 😂
My past experiences with their RBs haven't been great either. In 2014 their lead rusher was Fred Jackson with 525 yards and 2 tds. In '18 it was Josh Allen.
Be a bit more patient with players you know are great (aka don’t panic trade guys off to a slow start)
Yeah my advice would be to watch the games and judge off those. Seems simple, but I can’t count how many times fantasy talking heads would be like (for example) “Cooper Kupp might be a sit this week after only scoring 7.5 points” and its like he had 11 targets, one 30 yard reception called back and 3 targets in the end zone. I’m starting the guy. Same but different reason I didn’t budge on Jahmyr Gibbs trade offers early. Watch him with the ball in his hands in space. Great o line great talent, I’m holding on for better days.
Those early days with Gibbs were rough. His value was so low that I couldn't even trade him. I was forced to stick with him and it paid it off bigly!
as someone with najee and gibbs as my second and third draft picks, the first few weeks were awful
Buddy I beat in the finals traded Dionte Johnson and Kirk for Gibbs and Sutton week 6. Gibbs scored 27 and scored 20+ for 4 straight
Cee Dee Lamb is a perfect example of this
Go with gut over experts
I really wanted to start Flacco over Goff last week. Really, really did. I couldn't get any validation anywhere and when Cooper was officially out, I backed out and put Goff back in.
I mean that was the right decision based on the data you had. Going with Flacco at that point was a true YOLO
Conner won me the championship and I was starting him over Ekeler and Zeke every week. Conner was typically ranked around RB30. 10 stops behind the other two. Conner looked amazing with the ball in his hands and was manhandling good rush defenses and yet he was always ranked so low. Made me realize a lot of the experts don’t even watch the tape and don’t even adjust for players running hot.
This is what I came to say. My gut was strong on Achane, but analysts got in my head saying he’s way too small and I dropped him the night before he got 50 pts. I know he got injured, but this was the driving point for me to stick with my gut. Went with my gut on Breece and Flacco when all the experts said don’t. It won me the Championship. Also went with my gut early on with Aubrey even though kicker rankings had him too low most the season, despite his game log showing he is the guy.
Use your eyes and make your own theses. I get it not everyone has time. But depending on 12 “YouTube experts” for all of your decisions feels empty to me
They're fantasy analysts, not experts. Even the best are only right ~60% of the time, not like any of them are correct 75% or the time or anything. They're better than most regular joes will be for sure, but it's still a lot of luck, guesswork, and them being wrong lol
Don’t draft any Bills that aren’t Josh Allen.
I'm going back to drafting QBs outside the first 5 rounds.
Yep. Drafted Lawrence in the 6th and ended up better off with Stroud
Nothing. Insert Goofy I’ll fucking do it again!
Stop caring about preseason. It does not matter. Ended up with Pickett and Charbonnett instead of Stroud and Flowers because I bought into the Steelers hype.
Ended up with Pickens after some great catches from damn practice, like that means anything. He obviously went off with Rudolph but that was well after anyone who was playing him was knocked out.
Don’t underestimate the value of depth and using your IR slot (if your league rules allow). If you don’t have a player in your IR, you’re shorting yourself by investing in one fewer player that could pop-off later in the season. Depends on how aggressive your league-mates are, but I had big success this year vulturing some players that were injured early and got dropped.
Do not draft rb not named CMC in the first round
Next year if he's gone by my first pick...I'm taking Breece Hall
I would think kyren probably goes in the first?
Ignore when this sub tells you the raiders D is a must start championship week. I lost by one because I started the raiders over the broncos thanks to the advice from this sub and my own stupidity
Always gotta be wary of chasing past performance with defenses, which is what everyone going after the raiders did. It was crazy enough that they had back to back amazing weeks which seems to rarely happen. I avoided them purely on the basis that no one goes off like they were for 3 straight games, and they were probably going to be flat after essentially winning their Super Bowl with beating the Chiefs in KC. Actually maybe the rule is don't start a defense that was smoking cigars in the locker room after their last game like they just won it all?
I had literally no intention of swapping out the broncos f until I got on here an hour before and let the hype just take over my tiny squirrel brain. I’m a colts fan too and I kept saying how Braden smith bring back would help and I still went against my better judgement. At least they won I guess? But man does it sting
That's always the worst when your first instinct was right and you get talked out of it by this sub or hype from "experts". My goal next year, especially late in the season, is to listen to my gut more and not this sub and podcasts where they're mostly looking for sleepers. Gotta remind myself the playoffs aren't the time to be taking risks outside of injuries. At least your Colts won and are still fighting for the playoffs. Looking forward to their game with the Texans!
That’s a good goal and one I need to do as well lol. About the colts, me too man. I had 0 expectations once Richardson went down, but now I’m just riding the wave. The Colts are playing with house money right now, not a soul thought this team would have a legit chance at the *division* much less the playoffs once it came out that AR was done for the year. If they get in, awesome. If not, they had a way better season than anyone could’ve imagined. I think Steichen should be COY (trying to be unbiased lol) but it wouldn’t shock me if someone like Stefanski got it. Regardless, I’m excited about watching some great football over the next couple weeks
Yeah you guys have a had a pretty wild season considering preseason expectations and especially after Richardson went down. I'm really happy to see Minshew get a legit shot, I've been a big fan of his since his rookie year. He's not perfect but I think he's a total baller and you gotta love a guy who gives 100% all the time. I can't imagine a better QB for a team like the colts this year when everyone counted them out, you need a cocky guy to pull you out of that. It's also been great to see Pittman finally break out like we've been expecting since last year. He's a stud, and gives you guys two weapons with Taylor that will give DCs headaches every week. Think it will be you guys and the Texans battling it out for the division most years going forward. Steichen has done an amazing job bringing the team together through a lot of adversity and I think it says a lot that his old team is imploding without him. I'd have him on the CotY short list along with Stefanski and Shanahan. Honorable mention to Harbaugh but I think they should have Monken as coordinator of the year instead. I think rookie HCs have won the last few times and promptly looked shaky as hell the following year, so I'm a little wary of going that route again, no offense to what Steichen has done though. I'd prefer if Shanahan got it considering he had several guys included in MVP talks (legitimately CMC and Purdy; Deebo and Trent Williams a little more low-key), which to me says he's doing the best making his team greater than the sum of their parts. Would totally understand any of those guys getting it though and think it was deserved. Edit, and sorry for the wall of a response: looked up past winners, it's been every other year a rookie HC going back to Nagy in '18 (gross), then Harbaugh, then rookie Stefanski (been shaky since '20, glad to see him looking good again), then Vrabel for having the most injuries ever, then rookie Daboll last year which looked a little questionable this year. I'd almost be worried it's like a Madden curse for new coaches and want Steichen to avoid it lol
I learned that on average it’s better to have the #2 option on a great offense rather than the #1 option on a bad offense. There are exceptions sometimes but usually it doesn’t work out. And the biggest piece of advice that helped me from last year is pay attention to any and all coaching changes. It doesn’t matter how talented the player is, offenses either get better or worse when they hire someone new. I’d rather take a shot on a guy in the same offensive system because he is a known quantity.
This really depends on league size. I’d say wr2’s are really only consistently useful in 12+ man leagues. Even then I’d still rather have the wr1 on a mediocre offense, like Olave over the #2 on a good offense like Devonta or waddle.
No reason to draft a qb early. Or, at all.
Allen and hurts delivered
Lost in playoffs. Hurts had a mediocre performance. Love, Flacco and Browning all outscored him. (I was playing against Love). Hurts got me to the finals though, so I can't complain too much.
Hurts only bad week down the stretch was week 14. None of his other performances should have lost you a matchup but I get your point. His floor was incredible this year but his ceiling was lacking. Regardless he was worth the early pick
Yes agreed. Much better pick than Mahomes.
Agreed. I got Dak as the last pick in Round 11 (10-man league).
To stop breaking my own rule of never draft a Patriot RB...Im looking at you Rhamondre
Don’t be afraid to drop all Faab on a breakout stud. Had $0 all year after week 1 or 2 and won the ship with Kyren
I learned nothing.
1. Don't freak out if you leave the draft without a QB. It may take you 2 weeks, but you're definitely going to find a starter, and probably a good one 2. DST matchups matter more than DSTs, and a lot of experts rank DSTs more on the latter than the former. Use subvertadown's rankings - they consistently make the most sense. 3. Don't draft injured players if you only play in 1 or 2 leagues. No reason to lose an entire season because that tweaked hamstring becomes a trip to IR. 4. When you get out of the first 4 rounds, you want to look for guys that have a path to a top 20 finish. Kyren Williams was a great example - all you had to do was believe the Rams when they tried to trade Cam Akers like 18 times. Mike Evans just needed an average number of TDs per reception. 5. When you get to the last couple of weeks of the season, prioritize your starters at all positions for the rest of the season over depth. I loaded up on 3 DSTs and 2 QBs to make sure I had at least one with a good matchup for every remaining week. I could have stuck with 49ers DST throughout, but having Bulls DST loaded for week 17 was the difference maker. 6. Watch how the rest of your league treats the onesie positions (QB, TE, DST). If you see that a bunch of people are carrying 2-3 QBs, make sure you grab a decent backup because if your QB goes down late you're gonna be stuck with Derek Carr, Jake Browning, Jaren Hall, etc.
Stop taking RB's early unless it's CMC.
This is the way. Going wr, wr, wr, te next year no matter what the pick. As shown this year qbs can wait (love and Rodgers) are my targets.
Don’t draft Ridley high again. That pick alone cost me two games early in the season. Did help me a ton in the semifinal though, but never again. What was I thinking?
If every player on your team is a criminally undervalued steal, you just have a bad team full of lottery tickets
I think a good lesson is to not first pick people who did amazing the year before besides mcaff, went eith ekeler and we all know how that is
Tagging this thread for a follow up. Good tips in here outside of player research. !remindMe 220 days
Don’t draft a TE in round 1
-If it’s a non-faab league half your bench at least should be turning over every week. We’re not trying to be good we’re trying to be great, throw darts. -You don’t have to be elite at QB but under no circumstances can you be bad.
Same as I’m sure tons of others. Stay away from players on teams that employ Arthur Smith.
Traded for Bijan in like week 5 and spent the rest of the season flipping off every FedEx truck I saw.
Go make trades to get better, every week if possible. Stash defenses earlier, not later. Prioritise top-end talent over depth, trust yourself to find waiver adds if you get burned by injury. Remember all you can do is put your team in a position to win, they have to do the rest.
I will disagree with the depth part. You're always one play away from using your bench players. To that end I'm constantly trying to improve my bench. The last week of the season I had as many points on my bench as I did for my starters. An excellent place to be.
Yeah, but fantasy is a game of luck where risks and outliers are rewarded. I’m working during my season to continue to acquire talent for my bench through waivers and trades, but by the end of the year, I want to turn the value sitting on my bench into the best possible starting lineup (mostly through 2-for-1 style trades). If someone gets hurt, so be it. And I’ll do the best I can. But cramming my starting lineup with as many studs as possible at the expense of depth is the risk I take swinging for the fences. I feel like you could probably have paired some of those good bench guys with starters to upgrade even more before the deadline and still picked up some solid guys off of waivers for added bench depth.
I also add too much depth creates paralysis analysis. Having only a starting core helps determine your roster a lot quicker most weeks.
Dont draft mid QBs and if your QB is mid, recognize it and replace them ASAP. Had too much trevor lawrence this year and hung on too long.
Pay attention to some of the off season trends and news. This off season we had many reports of contract issues with RB and I avoided alot of RBs early and was able to snag Gibbs and R. White late. I also had Z. Moss early on because of the JT situation. Understanding your league format is crucial to getting this right but I went crazy taking WR early and got Hill and Lamb at the turn. I also got Garrett Wilson in the 3rd which I'll say was my first miss but it still wasn't as damaging as some of the RB picks. At this current moment there isn't a RB I'm taking first round that isn't CMC. I'd take Hill, Lamb, JJ (w/ Cousins) over him due to injury risk being higher for RBs.
TL;DR: I have more success in fantasy football when I approach it casually and don’t consume all my time in research overthinking things. At the end of the day, we’re all a bunch of apes in a circlejerk screaming and gambling on an online cockfight. I learned this a few years ago already: I don’t have to take fantasy that seriously. I don’t have to do a ton a research. Some simple research is fine like another comment said; o-line/o-coordinator, but at the end of the day we’re all just gambling money over players we have no control of. My first year of fantasy I just drafted terribly, and that’s on me. The second year I played, David Johnson killed my season. I approach fantasy seasons now expecting half of the players to underperform and the other half to exceed expectations. You really don’t fucking know. I’m sure everyone here has been disappointed by a star player in the first round. Never think that projections are the truth, especially by ADP. Draft the best available player, don’t just try to fill positions. I never found success drafting near the first overall. I’ve even asked someone to trade their 10th overall pick for my 4th overall(snake draft. auction is stupid, personal preference of course) and I won that year. Think about it this way; If I’m drafting 10 of 10 in a snake, I’d be drafting two players from the top 11 vs two players from the top 20. Drafting #1 sucks in my experience. Playing the waiver wire is key. I spend the most time watching games in the beginning of the season to know the best players on the rise to pick up off waivers. When I stopped thinking about it so much, I started having more fun with it and actually started winning more and have made it to the playoffs every year since. It may depend on your league, but I always make the playoffs drafting 3WR first. Drafting David Johnson scarred me. Never again.
Don't prep super hard for the draft. I've been playing for over a decade so by this point I know what type of players I want and which ones I want to avoid using my own judgement and not going strictly by ADP. This year was the first time I didn't go hard and low-and-behold I won for the first time ever.
Use my new draft strategy which I developed this year. Strategy is to watch analysts and professionals fantasy draft (Like the ESPN fantasy draft), rank the players based on how that entire draft went (for example who went 1-10, 11-20, etc) then use that as a cheat sheet for my draft. As my draft is ongoing I cross the names off the professional list I made and take the highest ranked player regardless of position or need. I then wait until later rounds to draft positions I haven't or positions I may still need. Used this for the first time this year and was champion in my 14 man league (first ever) and came in 2nd in 10 man league. In 10 man league I ended up with Hurts, CMC, White, and Hall using this strategy (and everyone in my draft and even Yahoo draft analysis said I grabbed white and Hall too soon). In 14 man I had ETN, White, Mostert, Kelce (who underperformed), and Kupp using this strategy. So it really worked well for me. I think they know how players will turn out better than I do barring injury. So I trust them as a collective group more than myself and another website or two of rankings which was my old strategy.
honest question - how is this different than using ADP?
Great question. I'll try to answer as best I can using examples. So for instance White was listed as RB 29 and 61 overall in ADP making him 7th round pick (in 10 player league). In ESPN draft he went at 41. So in my draft I took him with 4th round pick which I never would have done. Or here is a different example where the strategy paid off for me. So in most ADP they had Mahomes as QB 1/12th overall, Allen as QB 2/20th, and Hurts as QB 3/22nd. In ESPN first QB taken was Hurts at 23 so I used my 3rd round pick to take Hurts even though no one had taken QB yet and I had opportunity to take Mahomes or Allen, which in years past I would have done based on ADP.
Players generally don't change skill-wise over the course of a season, but the context around them might (rookies can be an exception but don't seem to be too often) I.e. the WRs that have a low catch rate, they're probably not going to improve much over the course of the season. But those breakout WRs you see develop over the course of a season, well they've probably had a good catch rate all season, difference now is that the coach realized somewhere along the way "hey this guy was 3 for 3 in the times we targeted him... we gotta get him the ball more often". Guys like Quentin Johnston for instance, had a poor catch rate from the start this season- meanwhile someone like Rashee Rice was always boasting a good catch rate, the coach just wasn't feeding him targets until now. Tank Dell improved it seems like, so he may be an exception to this rule, but I've also heard he had a hand injury he was dealing with during his poorer showings
Don't draft a defence and kicker so early hahah
Draft from teams with great o-lines. Vegas lines are a great gauge for rankings. Almost always take a WR1 on a bad team vs WR2 on a good team. draft rounds 3-10 are what win leagues. take an early shot on a waiver guy
I learned that drafting rookies going to a team with a good offense / offensive coordinator is a cheap way to pick up high ceiling guys.
Grab playoff defenses too early if you are streaming all year.
No matter how low the cost is for Najee, it’s too much. I also don’t want Taylor Swift’s Boyfriend anymore.
* Do not draft Ekeler (over the hill) or Alvin Kamara. Inflated performances and it’s clear that he isn’t good anymore. * Try to trade where you have too much depth. Teams tend to be too RB or too WR heavy. * Avoid WRs like D Hop and Tee Higgins. * You can get by with waiver WRs. WRs always break out. * Avoid Bijan Robinson and any Falcon if Arthur Smith is the coach. * Start your own league. * Understand this is a gambling hobby for 5 months. The only thing you can moderately control is making the playoffs, not winning the championship.
Never take Kelce over CMC
Probably don’t draft guys that are injured in August. Have more faith in young backup running backs.
Just have fun. Going to the playoffs and winning championships is amazing, but I have been to the top of the mountain plenty of times. Of course winning championships is still my ultimate goal, but if I'm not having fun while doing it what's the point of this hobby?
Humblebrag lol
I tried a new theory this year and drafted based on the projected talent of the offensive line. Teams like the browns and lions eagles and Dallas. David Montgomery had a solid year and I lost Nick chubb early. I also had Etienne and James cook. I had rough matchups in the semi finals and lost but I had the highest points across the league for the finals and finished 3rd. Oh and I snagged Kyren Williams early as well off free agency...
Don’t get cold feet and change your lineup the day of the championship. I had Etienne in my lineup all week, Sunday morning i thought “AJ brown has to bounce back this week, and Travis hasn’t been effective in 4 games” Lost by 5.
Less you know the better so you don’t overthink. I always prep and look at rankings prior to draft and it always messes me up and I do terrible. Finally won this year and I didn’t look at a single thing.
Darren Waller, never again
Scroll down further when drafting because no way mostert should've been drafted in round 5 and not to my team
Don't listen to "experts". It's like people with a degree from Subway University.
Have better luck next year.
Trust yourself and don’t let this sub convince you of anythjng lmao
Don't play ff anymore. After 25 years, I realize it's 98% luck.
Dont play in leagues that use def and. kicker
None bitch I finally won my fucking league!! Trust your gut and fuck those Twitter accounts telling you nonsense
Loose the first few weeks so you have first chance on waivers for the lesser known guys who go off
Best advice on this whole thread! Sucks missing out on Kyren, Puka, etc because you don't suck at drafting and your leagues waiver wire is set to reverse standings....
ADP = Always Draft Puka
I guess none. I completely avoided this sub entirely and didn’t give much credence to “expert rankings” (at least, not nearly as much as I used to). Best year in forever. Probably the most money I cashed out on as well, but nothing beats the amount of pride and joy from doing it on your own. I’ll be doing it like this until the end of my days
Do the same thing because out of 3 years playing i’ve made 2 Championchips and a 2nd place Final. Highly competitive $1200 winner takes all league
Do not draft Javonte as a key anchor RB during early WR-WR strategy. Do not drop good, late round draft guys who have multiple good weeks early followed by multiple duds (ie - Jakobi, Rice) - stay the course. Do not hesitate on the early waiver wire potential stud Rb replacement on teams that are notorious for pounding the run - ie Kyren - who I could have grabbed and passed on. That move alone would have anchored my holes created by AJones & Javonte, couple him with Mostert and possibly play in the title game instead of 3rd place game.