I have been playing fantasy football for many years now. I have been a league champion (thanks 2007 Tom Brady) and I have had some bad years. The last two years I have been commissioner of our family league, A House Divided. Playing with a lot of new people including my sister who is playing for the first time this year, inspired me to write this blog. I do have some credibility to write this as in the other league I am in I have sucked several years for different reasons. But when I try, barring a slew of injuries, I am a pretty competitive fantasy football manager. The last 2 years I have finished in second place. Two years ago, I mismanaged my team in the championship game which is on me. This year I needed Jamar Chase to score 3 points for the tie and 4 for the win. Chase hadn’t scored less than 3 points in any game all year. So I felt good about my chances. Then Damar Hamlin basically died and came back to life and the game got cancelled. It is hard to complain about losing a fake football league with your fake football team when someone almost dies. So I am less bitter than I normally would be. Anyway for those of you who are new or just want to get better or just want to read funny things about fake football teams, this is for you. There are 3 parts of Fantasy Football and Fifth-Down is giving you 5 tips for each part.

Pre-Draft:

Figure out the rules, scoring, positions, etc. of your league:

First you got to get the basics down. Is your league PPR, Half PPR, Standard scoring? How many points do you get for yards, touchdowns, turnovers, etc.? What positions do I have to start each week? So what do these things mean? PPR stands for points per reception. That means a player gets 1 point for every reception. Half PPR means a player gets half a point for every reception. Standard scoring does not give any points for receptions. All the leagues give points for yards and touchdowns. Some leagues give less points on TD passes for Quarterbacks. Some leagues give a point for every 10 yards where another league might only give a point for every 15 yards. All of these rules can be found on the league page online. This may seem silly, but let’s be honest the entire fantasy football thing is silly. But based upon your scoring, positions needed, and rules you may draft differently. Or at least you will know what is going on during the season.

Do Some Research:

When I first started playing, we did the draft in person with paper and a poster board. I would have 3 or 4 fantasy football magazines handy to give me tips on who to draft, etc. Now, the draft is online and much smoother and shorter. Along with that, your research options have grown drastically. The magazines are still there. But there is also online sites, podcasts, programs you can buy, etc. Now if you are new (or just not very good), you don’t need to go spend a bunch of money. But you can at least go online and look at rankings by position. There will be varying opinions on those rankings but there will be a lot of consistencies too. You don’t need to be a football expert to have a successful fantasy team but you do need to read the occasional article. Heck, you can even watch tv shows about it.

Mock it up:

How do you best prepare to manage your fake football team? Well by doing fake drafts, of course. You can again do these within the system that your fantasy league site. Mock Drafts are great practice for the actual draft. It’ll give you a feel for how the draft will move and how things happen. It can also be super addictive. I may or may not be mock drafting right now. This sounds obvious but make sure you pick a mock draft that has the same amount of teams as your league. (Also, you should know how many teams are in your league).

Who’s hurt and who’s in trouble:

Before the draft you also want to make sure you know who is injured and for how long. If they are out a couple of weeks that might not be a big deal. If they are out for 10 weeks you probably shouldn’t draft that person. Same with suspensions. You may want to wait a few extra rounds from drafting someone who is out 3 or 4 games but they are still draftable. Someone who is out for much longer than that you may want to pass on them or only take them in the very late rounds. Also, don’t draft Michael Thomas. He isn’t hurt but he will be soon enough.

What’s the make up of your team:

You need to know how many players you need at each position. Typical leagues will have something like this.

QB, RB,RB, WR, WR, TE, WR/RB/TE, K and defense and then usually 4 or 5 bench spots you can fill with any position. The WR/RB/TE in the starting lineup can be filled by any of those positions. This means in general you are going to need more wide receivers and running backs than anything else. You don’t need a back up kicker or defense on your bench. Not knowing what positions you need is a recipe for draft failure.

Part 2: The Draft

It’s Draft night, You’ve done your homework, now what?

Don’t be a homer:

3 years ago, my kids wanted to be a part of my fantasy football experience. It was in the middle of the pandemic so who was I to say know. We decided to only draft players for our 4 favorite teams in our house; Chiefs, Packers, Eagles and Broncos. This is much harder than you think especially in a league where most players are Chiefs fans. Needless to say we did not win the league. This may or may not be why I created our family league. This is an easy mistake to make. Your excited about your team so you say, draft Russell Wilson and Courtland Sutton early in the draft. The problem isn’t just that we pick players on our team. It’s the fact that we pick them too early. No one knew picking Russ and Sutton was such a mistake prior to the season. But drafting them in the early rounds was the mistake either way as they could have been drafted much later. In my non-family league, the person with the first pick drafted Kirk Cousins because he loves Kirk Cousins. (Who doesn’t after that Netflix special). Kirk is a quality fantasy football quarterback. The problem is they could have gotten Kirk in the 8th or 9th round instead of with the first pick.

You can wait on Kicker and Defense:

Another common mistake of new players is they feel like they have to fill all their starter spots first. So they draft a kicker or defense in the early to mid rounds. There is not a big gap between the best kicker and the 12th best kicker so you can wait on that. So just because all your other starting spots are open and you have a glaring hole at kicker doesn’t mean you need to draft one in round 7. Fill up your bench and get a kicker later.

You might want to wait on QB or TE as well if you don’t get one of the best ones early. There is also not a big difference between the 4th best QB and the 9th best QB.

Look ahead…with options:

The system will give you a ranking of players and even give you suggestions of who to draft. You have your person that you want to draft but the person right in front of you picks the player you were going to draft. You have to make a quick decision and in a panic you pick a quarterback and you already have 2 on your roster ( which is probably already 1 too many depending on your league). It’s happened to the best of us.

So as you are watching the draft unfold, try to have 3 or 4 players you are looking to draft. That way if your first choice isn’t there, you are ready to go.

The Clock is your friend, not your enemy:

Depending on your commissioner you will have somewhere between 30 seconds to 2 minutes to make your pick. Don’t let the pressure of the clock get to you. No matter what the time frame is, you have plenty of time. So take a breath and then take your time and make your pick. At the same time, you don’t have to take the whole time to make your pick just because you can. I love the draft as much as the next guy but that doesn’t mean we have to make it last as long as possible.

Your Draft Grade matters…just not that much:

At the end of the draft, you will get a grade for your efforts. This will give you a sense of how good your team is and how you compare to the competition. But honestly it mostly based upon what the system thinks you should have done so don’t put too much emphasis on it. As the old saying goes C’s get degrees so if you got a C or better you are fine. And no one knows what is going to happen anyway so the grades are pretty worthless.

Part 3: The Season

Okay, you did some preparation, you drafted your team now lets play some fake football.

Check your line up:

The easiest recipe for failure is to not have enough players in your lineup. Fantasy Football is not the time for a “my team is on the court” Hoosiers moment. Chances of you winning each week goes down dramatically if you don’t have a full starting roster. Every Sunday about an hour before each game they announce who is not playing. Also, you need to pay attention to which teams have byes. If you have a wonderful commissioner like me, they will remind you to check your lineups and give you an extra reminder when you have holes in your lineup. But you might not be that lucky and if you are, you should still check your lineup.

Work the Waiver Wire:

The Waiver Wire is where you can pick up players who aren’t on anyone’s team. You have to drop a player to pick up a new player. You don’t have to do this every week or anything but you should do it occasionally. The draft is fun but really just the beginning of building your team. Some players you draft will underperform and so you can cut those players and add other players who are doing better. You can even pick up players you don’t really need in order to keep someone else from getting them. Not that I ever do that.

Do a little bit of research:

How do you know who to pick up, might be your next question. Well guess what there are tons of articles, shows and podcasts about this exact topic. If you have the app for your league on your phone, these articles will actually pop up and they are typically 3-5 minute reads. They put the information right in front of you. All you have to do is read it.

Don’t be a quitter:

It happens every year that certain players tend to be active early but if their team struggles or starts to get some injuries they stop trying. This is a bummer for the player and the league. Other teams that play that team get easy wins and it makes the whole thing less fun. We have a player in our family league who has not had much success the first two years. But there hasn’t been one week where she hasn’t at least tried a little by making sure she at least has no holes in her lineup. You won’t always have a winning team but you can be a winner by trying. Sure she doesn’t have any championships, but she has my respect. Which is really more important. Okay, not really but it is a nice consolation prize.

Watch football and enjoy:

I would already watch all the games regardless. But now all of the sudden we have interest in games and players we normally wouldn’t. We watch in excitement to see our players on our teams score touchdowns and light up our scoreboard of our fake team in a fake game. It is hours of fun. Now that first week game between the Cardinals and the Commanders as some meaning. Not a lot because there aren’t a ton of draftable players on either of those teams…but still a little bit of meaning. So soak it all in. The next 20 weeks you will be tracking football like never before…even if it is only because I have reminded you to do so.

Good luck to all the managers of fake football teams out there. May the injury report be in your favor.