MY FANTASY DRAFT SECRET: #3

Khaled Zaher - NextPlay Sports

PREPARATION IS KEY
Preparation is the key to be successful in everything you do. Fantasy Football Drafting is no different. Today I am going to give you two ways to prepare for your fantasy draft that will help you succeed in it and start you off to have a successful beginning of the fantasy football season. Two things you can do to help you prepare for a draft are to...

...do mock drafts and to set up tiers of players before entering your draft.

• Do Mock Drafts
  • Practice makes perfect and mock drafts are practice for your draft. Mocks can help you prepare for your draft in multiple ways.
    1. It allows you to try and see different strategies
    2. It allows you to draft in different draft positions
    3. Gives you an idea which round players are going in drafts
    4. Find out which draft positions players are going in drafts
    5. Find values in players you wouldn’t necessary like
    6. See players that might be overvalued 

• These are some but not all of the benefits of doing mocks. You can build your basic draft philosophy pretty fast by just doing them and by doing multiple mock drafts you also see what other fantasy players are thinking which will help improve your fantasy preparation for your leagues. Pay attention to whichever website you plan to do your league through because their conscious rankings can play a major role in your fantasy draft. Mock drafts will have the rankings and will update when injuries or players begin to get over or under hyped in the fantasy community. Doing mocks help you see these trends before heading into your draft. Many people draft using those ranks and they are different on every website, so having an understanding of where players are ranked will help you have an general idea of area where these players are going to be available in your drafts. Don’t do the same strategy every mock you do and try to do different strategies by picking different players and positions to help you decide which team building strategy you prefer. By doing mock drafts you are benefited in all the ways I have gone over but most importantly there is less of a chance for you to panic or make a mistake while you are on the clock in your real fantasy football draft. 

• Draft in Tiers
  • Drafting in tiers is an easy way of grouping players you feel have a drop off in potential outcomes or safety of the player. You should map out each position before you enter a draft by either writing it down or having a general idea in your head when a player or group of players drop off in the player pool at certain positions. In our QB, RB and WR depth charts you can see the tiers of players are marked and labeled on those tiers. Not every player is in our tiers but you can get a general idea that the players in their assigned tiers are organized by a specific label of the group such as the round you should take them or expectations of potential outcomes. This will help you not focus solely on one specific player but focus on traits of a group of players. By creating tiers it helps you be more organized before entering your fantasy draft by separating the positions you are able to see when a group of players drop off to form a general draft strategy. 

• Once you have created the tiers of players the objective in your draft is to select according to your tier and not to focus specifically on one player. I recommend drafting bottom of tiers because it will result in much better depth on your roster. An example of using this tier drafting strategy successfully would be say you think there is a drop off at WR once you get to the 16th WR on the board but feel pretty comfortable with the 11th-22nd tier of RBs. You are on the clock, 15 WRs have been taken but only 13 RBs have been drafted so far. You should draft the 16th WR because you believe there is a drop off in talent, success rate or situation between the 16th and 17th WRs but believe the difference between the 13th  and 22nd RB are similar and could probably get one of the players in that tier in the following round. This strategy benefits greatly in the mid and late rounds of your draft. The creating of tiers and using them during your draft can help you be less stressed going into and during your draft and have a feeling of a more successful fantasy draft afterwards.