What’s up GHL readers?
I’m currently in the works of a 2011 fantasy football busts list which should be good to go by tomorrow. I don’t have a big post today for you, got a lot of other stuff going on. But I’ll be back to the usual pace again tomorrow.
In the meantime, I’ll throw together this little post reiterating something I have spoken a little about already.
I want to re-address the importance of planning out your entire draft. I touched upon this in the “Top Ten Fantasy Draft Mistakes” post last month, but I feel that just touching on it is not doing it justice. This is hands down one of the most important parts of your entire fantasy football season. Think about it. Before you start playing the games and making the decisions about who to start, before you pick who the weeks upsets and busts and sleepers are going to be, before the very first week of competition, you are setting everything into motion. The fantasy football draft is the very first and most important step. It is the catalyst to your entire season. If you have a bad draft, you are pretty much dead in the water.
Last year we had a cute little gimmick where each week I would make my pick’em predictions, and Jordan would make his pick’em predictions, and my girlfriend’s little sister would make hers. She would choose the winner by color or team name or a pretend quarter flipping in her brain. But I promise you that if I set up an ESPN or Yahoo window, she would draft the first four rounds as well as anyone. Because the thing it, you don’t have to know a single damn thing about football to excel in the first portion of the draft.
The true skill of the draft is in the mid to late picks: the backups, the sleepers, the fillers. These guys are your insurance in case something goes awry. These guys are the WR3s and Flex positions that can make or break a team. And if you are going into your fantasy football draft without thinking through round 5, then you are clueless when it comes to filling these all important spots in. You need to take a little time, use a little foresight, and maybe read a GHL article or two and figure out a plan of attack.
Here’s a couple fun little thoughts for you:
1) Of the top 12 fantasy football running backs taken in 2010, only 5 finished in the top 10.
2) Of the top 12 fantasy football wide receivers taken in 2010, only 5 finished in the top 10.
Yeah. Let that soak in a bit. Are you ready to admit that you should probably start thinking things through a little deeper if you have any hopes of competing this year?
The fact is that things happen throughout a fantasy football season. And if you don’t prepare for them, then you really have no point in playing at all. So study up, ask questions, that’s what God Hates Losers is here for. It’s time to make the first step to that fantasy football trophy.
