Niners Nation Fantasy Football Update and Drafting For Your Own League

So I read everything I can draft related beforehand because I don’t want to be “that guy”.

Then I usually go with a strategy. What position am I going to draft: WRs, RBs, a QB?
It’s usually dependent upon what position I think is deepest and I’ll try and figure out how deep into the draft I can go at each position and still players that I want on my team.

 Also, some positions historically generate more of the undrafted “break-out” stars than others. For instance, you are much more likely to see decent FA WR than RB (in my experience). Obviously this should move RB a little higher up as a draft priority.

There’s a lot more of little stuff like that which goes into my draft planning. Still, Fantasy Football is far more luck based than the other major fantasy sports (imho) so there’s an argument for just picking who you like…..

I seem to hold my own in NFL leagues despite my lack of knowledge. I’m sure it helps that I am an elite fantasy owner in a couple other sports.

In any league I’m in I look at the top 5 scorers in each position and rank them. I then research those players to see if they’re on new teams, or to see what changes have been made to their existing teams. I also do a list of 5-10 sleepers (I think Ted Ginn will be a sleeper this year).

I also play the waiver wire heavily and pick up people based on matchups each week.

Yards per carry and catches are good stats to look at. Sometimes a monsterous amount of carries can skew someone’s season long total (see Forte, Matt from 2008 vs. 2009). I dunno, I don’t prepare too much, but I pay attention to football quite closely, so I usually know who’s good, who’s not, and who’s retired. I’ll recheck the injury report before the draft. I don’t usually have to do too much research before the draft.

I’m usually the guy, though, that makes half a billion moves in the season. I will add and drop with impunity, and it usually works out. Although I got caught giving up on Sidney Rice too early last season. Ah well.

Count me in!

updating news and events for each player. Most of your points will come from your top running backs, who are the workhorses. There are some QB’s that put up points also, but mostly you put the top guys on your team and try to get lucky with the rest. Try to figure out what rookies are going to play and who is injury prone. Personally I don’t put too much into it as I like to watch football without making it about the individual player.

It’s all about the WR
If you get two #1 WR who on decent teams your in good shape. I have overloaded on WR the past 2 years, got decent starting RB and don’t even bother drafting a QB, I always put a WR in my flex spot and man it kills people. Two-time defending champion =]

This post didn’t seem to garner a lot of interest for some reason.

If you need another person to run a team I’d be more than happy to. I’ve been wanting to try out CBS for awhile.

1) i realize that a lot of people rely on proprietary rankings/projections from sites/publications that can be filed under “fantasy football punditry.” while i don’t rely on them for obvious they’re-not-nostradamus reasons, i understand that people who don’t have the time or inclination to be stat geeks in preparation for their drafts. therefore, what i would suggest is this site, which ranks the historical accuracy of these pundits with respect to their rankings/projections for each position (overall site rankings cross-posted in the fifth down blog here). tease: CBS Sportsline was the most accurate in 2009.

2) It might come as a surprise to people, but i don’t rely nearly as heavily on stats as i used to. i got bogged down in the statistical side of things a few years back, and realized the time spent on it just wasn’t worth the return on investment. so, what i do now is that through some very crude analysis, I’ve identified certain player characteristics that predict whether or not he is going to remain in or leap into the elite @ each position (6 QBs, 12 RBs, 12 WRs, 6 TEs). i separate out those guys as must-haves, and then make sure i get at least 6 of them in my first 7 picks. incidentally, it’s a lot easier to ID probable elite QBs and WRs than it is RBs, so i’m much less of a stockpile-RBs guy than i was 10 years ago.

3) as i’ve repeatedly posted on NN, ignore strength of schedule going into the season. it has absolutely no relationship whatsoever with the actual strength of schedule a player/team ends up facing.

4) david/james, put me in the hat for the NN league. i’d be glad to team up with someone. first choice for partner = drummer. 2nd choice = geomak. maybe we can have 1 NN super-team consisting of the front page writers? i’m sure we could update the readership weekly on our latest loss, and allow the person/team who beat us to write up the post detailing our demise, in whatever smack-talking way they deem necessary.

i think i got it down in the last thread, but just wanted to be sure.

my draft strategy is simple,
create spreadsheets,
divide and alter for dynasty leagues,
see trends and consistency
draft 49ers.