Fantasy Football Draft Do’s and Don’ts for 2022
Fantasy season is upon us. Every league’s draft will be commencing in the coming weeks. Here are our Do’s and Don’ts to help you crush your opponents.
Do’s
Prioritize a Good Tight End
This does not mean draft Travis Kelce in the first round. I am actually adamantly against that pick. However, it does mean you should be targeting a top talent in rounds 3-4, maybe even if you have the last pick of round 2 (giving you the first pick in round 3). Pitts, Kittle and Waller are players I would be eyeing. If Andrews falls to you at pick 18, I wouldn’t think twice before snatching him up. There is nothing worse than having a solid squad, producing for you week in and week out, only to be getting 5 points a game from your tight end spot. There isn’t much difference between a round 2 or 3 wide receiver and a round 4 or 5 wide receiver. There is a massive difference in tight ends drafted between those rounds.
Always Handcuff Your Top Running Back
Every fantasy player’s worst nightmare is their best running back getting hurt. The first-round pick should be the player your championship team is built upon. If that player gets injured and misses time, even if it’s just a few weeks, your season could be over. The best way to counteract that blow is by drafting their back up. If Dalvin Cook is your RB1, Alexander Mattison better be on your bench. An even worse position to be in than losing your best running back is losing your best running back and having no replacement. If you have the handcuff, at least you have a good shot at keeping your team afloat.
Prioritize a Good Kicker
This rule is similar to the first one and will also catch some hate. I have played fantasy football for a long time and seemingly every season I lose a game to someone who’s kicker has 15 points. Justin Tucker had 9.5 points per game last year. Matt Gay had 9.2, with a 4 week stretch scoring in double digits. Daniel Carlson averaged over 10 points a game. You would love that production every week from your flex, a position fantasy players spend a lot of time on. Yet the kicker spot is basically drafted at random towards the later rounds. Don’t take a kicker in the 7th round, but if it’s round 9 and you already have a full lineup with a few replacements, spring for a kicker. He will likely win you a game or two.
Look at Your League’s Previous Drafts
If you play fantasy football on ESPN, you can look at your leagues previous drafts. This can give you a big insight into your competition’s mindset. You can find out which of your league mates like which players, if any of them are “homers” (meaning they draft a lot of players on their favorite teams), or if they like to draft quarterbacks in the second round. Looking at previous drafts also lets you see where you messed up. Did you pass up a promising wide receiver you should have picked in favor of the safer option? Did you complete your starting lineup instead of taking the best player available? “Watching the game film” is how everyone gets better, including fantasy football players.
Don’ts
Don’t Draft Around Byes (to an extent)
Players bye weeks do not mean a lot if you draft correctly. There are 2 correct approaches and 1 incorrect. I’ll start with the correct approaches.
1. Draft a team with the majority of the better players having a bye in the same week.
2. Draft a team where only 2 players max are on a bye at the same time.
The incorrect way is to have a team that will get hit with a heavy number of byes on two different weeks. If 3 or 4 of your best players are gone on different weeks, you will need a lot of luck to stay in playoff contention. 2 weeks might not seem like a lot, but you only get 12. Starting the season with a record of essentially 0-2 does not sound like a smart decision.
Don’t Draft Christian McCaffrey
I have witnessed a lot of fantasy football writers rank CMC at the top of their draft board this year. I am not going to say when he is on the field and healthy, he isn’t the best fantasy running back because he is. But he has only played 10 games in the last 979 days and a few of those were early exits. His upside is not worth the headache. If I were to put a percentage on the number of fantasy players who won their league when their first-round draft pick missed multiple games, if not the whole season, it would have to be around 20% and that feels high. Does having CMC guarantee you a ring? No. So just save yourself the pain and take a different player who will probably stay healthy and only have 3-4 less points per game anyway. 25+ points per game is only relevant when the player averaging that much is actually on the field.
Don’t Be a Projections/Rankings Slave
In order to win a fantasy football championship, you have to do your own research and have a little luck. We can’t control that second item. What we can control is how much research we do. The upcoming season points projections ESPN puts out on every player aren’t well thought out. They don’t look at matchups, how the head coach calls games or what kind of climate the player will be in. It’s just a simple algorithm that spits out a rounded number. You need to do your own research and come up with players you think are valued too low or too high. Think AJ Dillon will steal a lot of Aaron Jones’ carries? Okay, then you don’t touch Jones unless he falls to the 4th. If you think J.K. Dobbins will bounce back from injury and have a monster season, go ahead and draft him in the third. Rankings and ADP do not mean much. The preseason rankings are never the same as the end of season rankings.
Do Not Stack Players
This is a personal preference, but I have found it works out more times than not. For the newbies, “stacking” means having 2 or 3 players from the same team in your lineup, like Mahomes, Kelce and Hill in previous years. I understand the appeal in week-to-week fantasy. You can stack 3 different pairs in 3 different lineups every week. But in season long formats you only have one shot at your lineup and stacking is too risky. For starters, you have the bye aspect. If a top 3 quarterback is part of your stack, more than likely 2 of your top 4-5 picks are going to have the same bye. That scenario isn’t horrible (like I said above), but it isn’t ideal. Also, if the team you are stacking with has a bad offensive outing, you’re almost guaranteed a loss. Even stacking a top duo like Mahomes and Kelce is very risky. Last year, there were 5 games where those two scored less than 25 points combined (in .5 ppr) and 3 times they scored 19 or less. In week 13 they combined for 9 points. That might as well have been a second bye for those two. The receivers can’t do anything if the quarterback has an off day. It is all about diversification. Sure, the quarterbacks for your other wide receivers might have a bad day, but at least your quarterback and wide receiver didn’t both have bad days.
Following these rules in fantasy football drafts doesn’t guarantee a championship. It will put you a step above your competition though and ensure you’re starting off the season as strong as possible.