Fantasy Football: 10 League-Winning Strategies for 2016 Draft Day

Let the Draft Come to You

Fantasy drafts are like life. They have a rhythm, a natural order, an ebb and an associated flow. Listen to the draft board. What is it telling you? Are players falling to you for inexplicable reasons? Catch them.

Of course, there are exceptions. For example, at the corners of a snake draft, i.e. positions one and 10, it often makes sense for a player to “push the draft.”

Let’s say you are drafting 10th, and you really like TE Coby Fleener this year (and so do I, by the way. Brees, Payton, Fleener. Yahtzee!). According to ESPN’s 2016 Top 300 rankings, Fleener is the sixth best tight end this year with an ADP of No. 92.

Entering the seventh/eighth corner (pick Nos. 70 and 71), you are upbeat about your draft picks so far and want to keep the good times rolling by scooping up Fleener.

To do so, you’re going to have to reach. Your next picks are Nos. 90 and 91. If you wait, there’s a good chance Fleener will be gone. So you pounce.

Not a bad move. Sometimes you have to whip the snake by the tail. However, owners who want a team that truly delivers all season long must let the draft come to them.

By that, I mean pay attention to what positions others are filling and do the opposite. Case in point, remember last year’s pre-draft position rankings? Who do you think is at the top of this year’s list? That’s right. All of last year’s top scorers, with a few dashes of hope (think RB Ezekiel Elliot) sprinkled in.

Couple the fact that most people will buy on yesterday’s news with this year’s prevailing “wisdom” of taking top-tier receivers early (see Berry’s Draft Day Manifesto), and quality players at other positions — especially running backs and quarterbacks — should cascade to you in the early rounds.

Adrian Petersen is a stud. A consistent top performer. Over the past five seasons, barring 2014’s season-long suspension, he was a top-10 running back, with his lowest position rank over that period being eighth. In many mocks, Petersen is falling to the back-end of the first round because everyone is receiver happy.

That’s marvelous news! Let others scramble. Stay calm and take the proven names who roll down the draft board straight into your lap.

And guess what? The added bonus is that this strategy will continue to pay dividends throughout the draft. In the mid-to-late rounds, owners who pressed early to get gaudy WR names will be sorting through the dregs at other positions, especially running back.

WRs Jordan Matthews, Marvin Jones, Larry Fitzgerald and yes, Torrey Smith (see my article on Smith as a fantasy sleeper) could easily end up being this year’s Brandon Marshall. Pick one. Heck, pick a couple.

By letting the draft come to you, the bonus is that you can take calculated flyers on proven players in the middle-to-late rounds.

Next: Invest in Teams that Invest in the Trenches