5 Tips To Be The Alpha Of Your Fantasy Draft

Fantasy Football is one of the fastest growing markets in the world with millions of dollars exchanging hands each season. At this point it seems like almost every male above the age of 16 that I know is participating in some sort of home league draft, and more and more females are getting in on the action each day. 

The beauty of it is that the vast majority of these people have no idea what the hell they're doing. If you're even half decent at fantasy it should be a GD print fest. I’ve compiled a list of 5 things that nobody in your home league is doing and that half of the “sharks” in your high stakes leagues aren’t doing either.

The abundant amount of resources has certainly dulled the edge but it has not yet taken it away. It's hard to screw up the beginning of a draft when all the players are studs or even the middle rounds when in today's day and age everybody is picking off of a live ADP list or some “expert’s” rankings. ***BONUS TIP: top 150 lists are junk and should never be used during a draft. If the list you are looking at isn't tier based throw it away and find one that is.

The late rounds are what separate the men from the boys, where the alphas place a napkin on their lap, grab a can of old bay seasoning, and dig into the all you can eat seafood buffet. Let's just get this outta the way now before the analogies spiral out of control: a fish is somebody that sucks at fantasy. They nourish the entire ecosystem. 

The right way to manage a fantasy roster is to be constantly churning your bench by being active on the waiver wire. This means that there is a good chance most of your late round picks will not be on your roster after the first month or so. Keep this in mind when reading the first 4 tips.

Tip 1: DON’T DRAFT A KICKER. This one's a softball and hopefully you're already doing it. Kickers are a dime a dozen. The difference between the top ranked kicker and the twelfth ranked kicker is negligible, not to mention they are totally unpredictable. There is virtually no reason to draft a kicker, not even in the last round. Instead, take a bunch of players with potentially high upside and see if they make any noise at practice. Drop whichever one doesn’t before week one and grab the available kicker from the team with the highest projected points total for that week. The dumbest guy in any given draft is the one that takes the first kicker. (or I guess in this year’s case, the one that takes Leonard Fournette in the second.) Don’t be either of those people.

Tip 2: If you're not taking an elite defense (one that you think can be a week in, week out starter) wait until the last round and grab one with a soft opening schedule. Use them to coast through the opening weeks without having to lose a waiver spot or spend any FAAB and then stream the position based on matchups or upgrade them via trade. 

We prefer to take the streaming route as it's very tough to acquire top notch defenses mid-season. Plus, I’d rather stream a defense in a good matchup (turnover prone QB, weak offensive line, low scoring offense) than an elite defense in a bad matchup anyways. I’ll be targeting the Eagles and Colts when taking this approach and the Steelers when paying up.

Tip 3: Take a cheap peek at guys in ambiguous situations. This one revolves around the same concepts as the first tip. We’ll most likely be dropping these late round guys at some point anyway so why not shoot for the moon? Take a guy from an ambiguous situation. Perhaps, one where there's a position battle and we don't know who the starter will be, especially if they’re on a high-powered offense. 

It could also be somebody playing on a new team or for a different coach. See what they look like week one and if there's nothing there, drop them to add somebody off the waiver wire that was more involved than we anticipated or that looked good on limited involvement. 

Amongst the most notable players like that this year are James Washington and Damien Harris. I don't mind throwing darts at Bryan Edwards, Antonio Gandy-Golden, and Devin Asiasi in deeper drafts or even taking a stab at Devonta Freeman to see if he lands in a situation that could enable him to be relevant.

Tip 4: Use injuries and contract situations to secure big time keepers for the following year. A keeper league is a variation of redraft where you get to keep one or more players from last year's draft. The easiest way to do it is by taking a quality fantasy player that has incurred a season ending injury before your draft. Once somebody does it the cat will be out of the bag so make sure you're the first to execute it. 

I’ll never forget when my brother, whose nickname is “Snake,” snaked our entire league by taking Jordy Nelson in the last round the year that he tore his ACL and the look on everybody's face. Half of the league looked totally perplexed having no idea what had just happened. The other half looked like they just walked in on their girlfriend banging another dude. 

Another slick move is to take the backup to a running back that's in the last year of their contract (running backs don’t often get second contracts from their current teams especially if there's been any sort of turmoil between the player and the front office or coaching staff.) I drafted James Conner in the later rounds of every draft in 2017. After the Steelers parted ways with Le'veon Bell, Conner entered the 2018 season as the starting RB and went on to be a top 5 fantasy RB that season. Be creative with this one. Last year, one of my sharper leaguemates foresaw Gronk’s comeback from retirement, drafting him in the last round. He now has the 8th round value of Gronk as his keeper this year. Early 2021 candidates for this include Ryquell Armstead, Tee Higgins, and my favorite of the bunch: AJ Dillon.

Tip 5: Stack. It is incredible how many somewhat respectable managers don’t even know what a “stack” is. A “stack” is created by drafting multiple players that are directly correlated. The most basic example is QB/WR or QB/TE. Higher level stacks include 2 or 3 pass catching options paired with their QB. That's referred to as a triple-stack (there's also the QUADZILLA which is strictly reserved for the sickest of sickos or a complete homer for their favorite team). 

Less popular stacks include QB/RB, RB/DEF, and even the vaunted “DOUBLE DIP” revered as the most arcane maneuver in all of fantasy football. This is when you start a skill position player who returns kicks or punts for the team whose D/ST you also start. They take one to the house and both of your assets receive points for the same touchdown. Stacks are beneficial because when trying to beat 11 other people you have to get a lot of things right and because of the tight correlation between players in most of these stacks, they will almost always succeed or fail in unison. It’s just one less situation you need to break your way. 

Many would argue that it's too much of a liability, that if the group of players busted it would be too much to overcome. I don't disagree. However, I consider that theoretically you have an 8% chance of winning a 12 man league. I’m willing to risk my 8% equity in order to give myself an easier path to a 92nd percentile finish. Please hit the x in the top right corner and go buy a magazine dated June 17th for $12.99 if you are playing for anything other than a fantasy football championship. This is FU and it's time to become an Alpha.