2015 Fantasy Football: Draft Dos and Don’ts (Part 1)

It’s never too early to talk 2015 fantasy football, in fact now is a great time to start talking about it. Why, you ask? Because 90 percent of your league mates aren’t talking about it. Advantage — you.

Football is a unique beast when it comes to fantasy. Rarely in other sports do you have the “came out of nowhere” player that can win your league. When is the last time you said, “Man, I’m glad I got the Milwaukee Bucks’ third-string point guard off the waiver wire. He helped me win a championship.”. I guarantee those words have never been uttered in fantasy basketball, but how many of you won your football championship because you added C.J. Anderson mid-season last year?

Fantasy football is more about finding that diamond in the rough — that rare player that somehow gets overlooked, and then when given the opportunity, explodes. Winning a fantasy football championship isn’t won on draft day, but if not done right, it can be lost.

I myself have won multiple fantasy championships through careful pre-draft research, even when research was harder to come by than it is today. Over the years, of I’ve created an unofficial list of Dos and Don’ts, and now that I’m in a position to share that unofficial list, I’m going to make it official.

This is Part 1 in a series of three. You can find Part 2 here.

The Official 2015 Fantasy Football Draft Dos and Don’ts

Do: Know your league’s scoring system 

This is the most basic rule there is — and the most important. Everything I write after this will mean nothing if you don’t do this. Is your league a PPR league? Do you get four points for a passing touchdown, or six? Are bonus points awarded for milestones, i.e. 100 yards rushing? Did your commissioner change anything from the previous year, no matter how small that change may be?

If you can’t answer these type of questions regarding your scoring system, then give me your email and I’ll send you an invite to my league. I would love to take your money.

Don’t: Draft a kicker or defense before the last two rounds

This is a two-part rule, and we’ll start with defense.

The No. 1 drafted defense last year, according to ADP (average draft position), was the Seattle Seahawks. You want to guess where they ranked to finish the season? Eighth? Tenth? How about 23rd! The Seahawks ADP was 85th. To put that in perspective, you want to know who you could have had at 85? Kelvin Benjamin. Heck, Mark Ingram went 95th.

Let’s flip it around. The top three defenses to finish the year didn’t even register on my ADP chart because they weren’t even drafted! The Eagles were No. 1, followed by the Packers and Bills, respectively. So please, don’t draft a defense before the last two rounds.

Now we’ll get to the kicker position. The difference between the No. 1 kicker and the No. 10 kicker last year was 27 points. Extrapolate that over a 16 game fantasy season and you have gained yourself 1.5 extra points per game by drafting Stephen Gostkowski with the 101st overall pick. So you passed on Philip Rivers or Mike Evans for 1.5 points per game. Congratulations.

Some of these Dos and Don’ts have exceptions to the rule. This one does not. Never draft a kicker or defense before the last two rounds. As a matter of fact, if your draft is before the start of preseason, don’t even draft a kicker or defense at all. Grab two potential breakout players, hold on to them through the preseason, and see if they pan out. You can always drop two guys to pick up your defense and kicker before the season starts.

If somehow all your “sleepers” become preseason MVPs, you can always package two of them for a stud player from an overhyped owner, leaving yourself with an open spot to add your kicker or defense and wind up with a stud in return. I mean, how many preseason MVPs really pan out in the regular season anyway? Which brings me to my next rule…

Don’t: Get caught up in preseason hype

It happens every year, be it a rookie or an unknown veteran, but there is always at least one or two guys that will have a phenomenal preseason and get hyped as “the next big thing”. Don’t fall for it. There are those few that can carry that success into the regular season, so I’m not saying to completely ignore them, just temper your excitement. I would limit myself to one, maybe two preseason hype, came-out-of-nowhere, next-big-thing type players.

Just to make my point a little stronger, here are a few of last year’s preseason hype machines: Montee Ball, Cordarrelle Patterson, Justin Hunter, Bishop Sankey, and Bernard Pierce. Those five were worth a late round shot, but a few of those guys went in the first five rounds, with Ball going in the first!

Do: Wait on a QB 

This rule has a few exceptions, namely Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck, Drew Brees, and maybe Peyton Manning. But if take those four quarterbacks out of the equation, and the difference between the No. 5 quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, and the No. 17 quarterback, Kirk Cousins, is two points per game. Two points!

Do that same comparison with running backs. Take the top four away and start with Arian Foster, the No. 5 running back from last year. Do you want to guess how far down you have to go before you have a difference of more than two points per game? How about No. 8!  That’s right, only three spots down, compared to 12 spots down for the quarterback position. You have go to No. 12 before you get to a wide receiver with a greater difference.

What does this mean exactly? It means you can wait on a quarterback and still get one that will be just as good as the one going in the mid-rounds. Use those mid-round picks for your wide receivers and running backs.

Don’t: Draft more then one quarterback, tight end, kicker, or defense

There are obvious exceptions to this rule, but only two that immediately come to mind: 1) your league has an OP slot in which you can start two quarterbacks, or, 2) you’re drafting an injury prone starter. I’m not going to spend a lot of time explaining why you shouldn’t draft two kickers or defenses, just take my word and don’t do it. There will be plenty of bye week fill-ins for the one game you’ll need them, and kickers aren’t exactly injury risks. I will, however, explain the other two.

We’ll start with tight end because it’s easier. The tight end position is very top heavy. As far as “studs” go, you might have four or five tight ends that could carry that title in a given year. In 2014, there were only five tight ends that averaged over eight points per game — five! You have to go all the way to No. 32 to find a running back scoring under eight points per game, and even farther to find a wide receiver.

Most leagues have at least two running back slots and two or three wide receiver slots, so that’s potentially five bye weeks you’re going to have to cover during the season. By drafting two tight ends, you’re giving up a wide receiver or running back that can cover all those bye weeks — and be productive as well, scoring more than eight points per game. Instead you’ll have an extra tight end that will cover one bye week and won’t score much more than tight ends on the waiver wire. Unless you’re drafting Jimmy Graham and Rob Gronkowski, and your league format allows you to start both, please don’t draft two tight ends.

Now let’s tackle the quarterback (pun intended). Not having a backup quarterback gets a lot of people nervous — I used to be one of those people — until one year when I lost both my quarterbacks. You may think this unfortunate incident would be the reason for drafting two quarterbacks, but hear me out.

I lost my second quarterback just past the mid-way point of the fantasy season, so about Week 9. That meant four weeks of regular season games and potentially three weeks of playoffs. For the next seven weeks — and yes I made it to the championship game — I was streaming quarterbacks. Each week, I would look at matchups, find a quarterback on the waiver wire I felt would have a decent game, and plug him into my lineup. Surprisingly, week in and week out I found one (in some cases more than one) that ended up being a viable starter. I’m not advocating that streaming quarterbacks is a good idea, but what it made me realize is that every week there is at least one viable QB on the waiver wire.

Applying this realization to drafting quarterbacks, I came to the conclusion that owning a backup quarterback to fill in for one bye week, and keeping him on my roster to do nothing for the other 15 games, was a complete waste of a roster spot. I could just pick up a quarterback off waivers for that one week, and save that roster spot for another wide receiver or running back that is way more valuable covering bye weeks.

What about in the event of an injury, you ask? Trade. Every year, one or two owners in your league get lucky and fall into owning two starting-caliber quarterbacks. Obviously those guys will not have read this article. What do you think said owner will want in return for his starting-caliber backup quarterback? I can assure you he doesn’t want nor need your backup quarterback — he’ll want one of those wide receivers or running backs that can get him nine or more points filling in for his starters.

The only time I will advocate having a second quarterback would be if there is a starting-caliber quarterback sitting on the waiver wire a week or so before your trade deadline. If that happens, then I would recommend adding him to your roster, but by no means does that mean you should draft a second quarterback. There is too much value to be had in those late rounds that a second quarterback just isn’t worth it.

That wraps up Part 1 of “The Official 2015 Fantasy Football Draft Dos and Don’ts”. I will be putting out Part 2 on Friday, May 22nd, so please be sure to check back. Also, be sure to come check me out at GoingFor2.com for even more fantasy insight and analysis, including Daily Fantasy.

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