Final Draft Day Checklist
(Posted September 1, 2021)
Your fantasy draft is finally here - you’ve done all of your prep, and you’re ready to crush it. You’ve got your draft board ready to go. A lot of what follows was covered in our other draft preparation pieces, but here is a final checklist of things to do and to think about before you enter the draft room.
Make sure you review and fully understand all of your league’s roster and starting lineup requirements, rules and scoring grid. This is especially true if you’re in a new league, or in a league that changes things up regularly.
Do a final check of recent news and injury updates. Multiple sites have active news blogs that are constantly updated with all the recent cuts, injuries and other player news. You know Cam Newton was cut, but do you know who else didn’t make a roster? Do you know that Irv Smith might be out for the whole season, and that the Vikings traded for TE Chris Herndon? Make sure you are caught up on the latest.
If your draft is a snake draft, be aware of exactly when you pick in each round, and try to figure out the range of players that likely will be available when you make your first handful of selections. For example, let’s say you have the 9th pick in a 12 team league. That means your first four picks are nos. 9, 16, 33 and 40. Find a good overall ADP or ECR list, and look at the players ranked 7-11, 14-18, 31-35, and 38-42. These are some of the players that might be available when it is your turn to pick. And by doing this you will also notice which players are likely not going to be available to you unless you grab them a little early, when you have the chance. You can do this for more rounds than 4, but after a certain point this exercise has less value. The purpose of this exercise is not to push you into taking certain players - use your draft board for that and be true to it - but it is useful in terms of setting your expectations for the talent, by position, that will likely be there for you in each round, and you can mold that useful information into your overall draft plan.
If you are in a salary cap league, it is helpful to outline a budget of how you want to spend your money, at different positions and within each position group. That being said, auctions are notoriously difficult to predict, and you never know when a great value will present itself, or how much money you will have left when certain players come up, and you should always be flexible and not feel compelled to stick to your budget. It is nonetheless a useful exercise and it is best to go in with a semblance of a plan. It is also helpful to look at the prices that certain players went for in prior years.
In addition to your draft board, have your other resources (such as NFL depth charts and anything else you have found to be useful) easily accessible so that you can find what you need quickly.
Highlight the guys on your draft board that you are most interested in having on your team this year. I also like highlighting, in a different color, players I am actively trying to avoid.
Don’t worry about bye weeks. I repeat, don’t worry about bye weeks.
Good luck!
