Fantasy Football Drafting Season

The first NFL Preseason game is less than a week away, finally. Fantasy Football is upon us once again, finally. PhantasySteez is about to get more interesting, finally. Sometime this month, PhantasySteez turns two years old. To be honest I have ambivalent feelings about this two year anniversary if that's what you want to call it. While I have enjoyed writing about fantasy sports, the "business side" of running a blog is bananas with all that SEO marketing terminology and ranking. Also, I noticed that my enthusiasm for writing about fantasy sports fades a little during basketball season and almost completely during baseball season. I wrote about how fantasy football is the most popular of the three major sports last year around this time, and that is probably the most vague yet accurately true post that applies to me personally. I have seen an increase of material on the other two fantasy sports, especially from a Daily Fantasy point of view. However, personally I enjoy writing about fantasy football more than fantasy baseball and basketball, even though I like to play all three fantasy games.

With that said, I have already drafted two teams for this fantasy football season. I started out with a mock draft but that was the first and last mock draft I've done this season. I wrote a post about why I prefer to just draft a real team over doing mock drafts (this was actually the first post on this blog). This hasn't changed my in my views and as my friend Victor realized yesterday, real drafts are way more fun than mock drafts. When you do mock drafts, you know it's not real and it's like you're just waiting for it to be over with. With real drafts, it's more serious and there's a little more competitive banter. You know you're going to be jarring with 9 other guys for the next four months, so there's a little more conversation, trash talking, and competitive spirit in real drafts. It's even better in person, but we'll get to that later after I have my draft for Roughing the Picker.

Later on this week, I'm going to get into player rankings and all that other good stuff (we usually don't do that at PhantasySteez, but change is good). But before I get into all that does anyone even pay attention to preseason rankings? Of course they do, but how does preseason rankings dictate the way you're going to draft? Depending on what type of player you are, you're living by preseason rankings, you're drafting your favorite players, or you're going against the grain of what all these expert are saying and just drafting the players you want. After completing two drafts, and trust me I know that's not a lot, I would say all three of these drafting traits play a big role in the outcome of your draft. I'm sure it's this is not the case for everyone, but for a majority of people I'm sure an average draft strategy sounds something like this:

You spend a reasonable amount of time reading magazines and looking at websites where there are player rankings. The rankings from these various sources may slightly differ, but for the most part these lists are damn near identical. As you study these rankings you're looking to see where your favorite players or players who did well last season are ranked. Afterwards depending on what you see, you're like "these guys don't know what they're talking about," and you decide you're going to do the exact opposite of whatever those guys are suggesting. At the end of the day you pretty much have a mental picture of what you want your team to look like.

After you've daydreamed your ideal squad, the next thing you're usually worried about is the draft order. Most people, including myself, have nightmares about what position they will have in the draft. Naturally, you want to have the number one pick, but nine times out of ten you won't get that pick. It is widely believed that you want the first or last position because you with the first pick you can get the best player available and with both first and tenth picks you will have two consecutive picks which can be used to a major advantage. Some prefer the middle of the pack where your picks come a little quicker, but some such as myself hate this position. This year it's become more apparent that no matter which position I get, my team seems to look somewhat identical. This goes back to the me having a mental picture of what I want my team to look like. No matter where I drafted, be it 3rd or 6th respectively, I still managed to get either the players I wanted or someone close to that player. Of course some jerk took a few picks that I wanted, but when you compare my two teams, the core of my squads are very similar. No matter where you draft, you already have a preconceived thought of how you want to put together your team and there's a good chance you're not going to deviate from the strategy (unless you've had too much to drink during the draft).

Similar teams, but one squad has more players

In the end, it's important to make sure you regardless of whatever strategy you employ in the draft you get a team that you are satisfied with. It's also important that regardless of the outcome of your draft you own up to your picks and not try to blame your weak squad on someone else. It kind of ruins the game when you have those cry babies who want to blame their fantasy blunders on advice they took from fantasy experts. No one is holding a gun to your head and telling you to draft DeAngelo Williams or anyone else. It's your decision, and that's alone is what's going to make your fantasy football season your own unique experience. As always, send me a line on Twitter @donofalldons. 

Draft Prep

Baseball season is next and mock drafts and leagues are opening up on most fantasy sports providers. Usually I don't do mock drafts but being that I needed to do more research for this season, I thought mock drafts could help with this. So I've participated in a couple of mock drafts and I've come up with some interesting observations.

My friend Victor has been reluctant to try fantasy baseball because he's somewhat confused on how the lineup works and most importantly, he's confused about the draft strategy, as am I. The thought of a fantasy football draft can seem daunting but it's not as intimidating once you've realized two things. First thing is to remember that just like in any fantasy sport, your primary goal is to put together a fantasy team that has a solid core plus a decent amount of productive role players which combined forms the ultimate team that will dominate throughout the fantasy season and playoffs with minimum maintenance. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against picking up players from free agency throughout the season, but why when you can draft the potential studs for the season? Free agency is a weapon for players who are trying to climb position. Why climb position when you can draft a first place team right? Second thing to remember is unlike in most fantasy sports, the talent is abundant in fantasy baseball. Of course there are studs like Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw, but there are so many talented players in the MLB that you'll find yourself in the later rounds of your draft and you'll still be able to find quality players instead of players you know you're just going to drop later on.

Okay so there's more than two things to remember and the last thing is the unique position that is the pitcher. I think pitching confuses a lot of people because of the way it's set up. In most leagues that I've played in there's one spot for every position except for outfielders and pitching. Naturally there are three positions for outfielders, but there are eight spots for pitchers and all eight of there spots are starting.  So it's important to keep a balance when drafting so you won't end up with strong hitters but weak pitchers, and vice versa. To make things more interesting, you want to make sure you have a good mix of starters and closers because starting pitches rarely gets you saves and closing pitchers rarely gets you wins.

As far as the draft though, it isn't as long as I had figured it would be. On average during these mock drafts I've spent about an hour completing the drafts, which isn't bad considering you're drafting nineteen starters plus five or six bench players. My strategy which I like the most is to alternate each pick between hitter and pitcher so that one pick I'm drafting a hitter and the next pick I'm drafting a pitcher. This is where draft position comes in play because this strategy definitely works better if you have one of the top two picks or the last two picks. In most fantasy sports these four spots are advantageous and the same is true in fantasy baseball. These spots allows you to alternate between hitter and pitcher and being that your picks are close, you have a greater chance to get the best two available players at those two positions. When the pick was closer to the middle the strategy didn't go as planned and some picks I was able to stick with the plan, but for the most part I ended up just picking the best player available. It didn't come out too bad, but if I had my preference like in most drafts, I want either the first two or the last two picks.

Some last little things to remember, every draft is different because I'm sure there's gonna be someone who is not taking the draft serious at all and is screwing it up for everyone. Also, outfielders are the wide receivers of fantasy baseball. There are many of them, so don't get the urge to draft your outfielders too early. #PhantasySteez

The Difference Between Making and Not Making the Playoffs

I have asthma, and depending on who you ask it's really bad asthma or it's not that bad but when it hits it's devastating. Last weekend my asthma kicked in and I was forced to go to the hospital. I watched most of the Saints/Steelers game before I left, but that was the only game I was able to see. I spent the rest of my Sunday and most of my Monday in the emergency room where I was placed on 24 hour observation. Yeah, my asthma gets that bad. Anyway, being stuck in a room with nothing to do gave me a lot of time to think about a lot of things. I was thinking about my overall success this fantasy football season and prior to being in the hospital I had pretty much written this season off as not a very good one. I only did five teams this year and I had teams not going to the playoffs, and it bothered me a little bit. I was thinking about my teams that didn't make the playoffs and I noticed that these two teams had one thing in common. The two teams that I did not make the playoffs with, I did not draft these teams.





8th place in the consolation bracket in Roughing the Picker

When I first started this blog, my first two posts were specifically about drafting. In the first post, The Draft, I mentioned that if you draft well your team can pretty much manage itself. This season, I think I've proven that theory with the two teams that I didn't draft myself. I missed two drafts this season both due to technical difficulty, if that's what you want to call it. The first draft I missed was in my most competitive league, Roughing the Picker. In this league we have a live in person draft, which if you haven't been in one of these leagues you should find one to join. It's makes fantasy football way better than online drafts where you don't get to meet your opponents. Anyway, the draft was held in California, but I was stuck in Alabama and I wasn't able to attend. My boy Victor committed to drafting my team for me, and even though I appreciate the effort, I was not excited when I saw the team drafted for me. We actually got into a friendly argument about the quarterback he drafted for me, Cam Newton. I didn't like the make up of this team all season long and because of it I know I made some bad moves trying to improve the team. Overall, right now I'm in eighth place and I missed the playoffs. I'm in the consolation bracket right now fighting not to come in last place which has a consequence of paying the third place winner.

The other league I missed the draft in was in Victor's friend's league. Victor had asked me if I had wanted to join the league and I had accepted. About a week later, after I had accepted the invite, Victor informs me that there was a $50 buy-in which I wasn't willing to pay. So I had told Victor to get me out of the league, and he decided he wasn't going to participate either. The next week I get a phone call from Victor saying he hadn't talked to his friend about dropping us from the league and that we had drafted teams. The cold part about it is he actually participated in the draft while I was thinking I was dropped. So now I had this team that I didn't fully commit to and it was a pretty good team for an auto drafted team, but I just was not interested in properly managing it. I started out strong, but after Nick Foles got hurt/benched my team hit a downward spiral. I'm currently in seventh place missing the playoffs and competing in the consolation bracket.


The three teams that did make the playoffs, I drafted myself. They were all online drafts which agreed with my schedule. I had made it a point to attend these drafts because I wanted to guarantee a good season in these leagues, which were all managed by fellow classmates from Dillard University. In one league, Coast2Coast Ballers, I dominated the draft getting just about every player I wanted. That was due largely to the fact that maybe only 4-6 players actually participated in the draft. Everyone else auto drafted, so when it was my turn, I had many options every pick. When you auto draft, your basically going off of a list that is pre-determined by some "fantasy expert." However when you draft yourself, you do your homework and you pick the players you feel comfortable with. I'm currently second in Coast2Coast Ballers, and even though the playoffs doesn't start until week 14, I'm pretty sure I'll remain playoff bound.



This is the original team I drafted in Coast2Coast Ballers

The last two leagues, who are managed by my boy Mike, are interesting leagues. The first league which was reopened from last season, only has four players in it which meant everyone was automatically headed for the playoffs. All four of us participated in the draft and every team is ridiculously good, not to mention the free agency is unbelievable. However, the team I drafted finished the regular season in first place, and I'm pretty confident I can beat the other three teams to win the league. The other league has fourteen teams in it, which is very difficult to manage. I participated in the draft, but it was challenging as I was arguing with my then girlfriend now ex at the time. However, my squad turned out to be pretty decent. Even though I finished the regular season in fifth place, that team which I drafted is playoff bound, unlike the two teams that I didn't draft.
The draft is probably the most important aspect of your fantasy football teams. Now I see why my boy Michael Smith from ESPN is so adamant when it come to drafting teams. When you auto draft, you're not really taking control of your team. You don't know what you're going to get. When you draft your team, not only are you more comfortable with your team, but you have a better chance at success. As always, you can leave comments on this blog, or you can hit me up on google+ at +Marcus Nickerson , twitter = @donofalldons. Oh, and you google+ users, don't forget to +1 my posts.