Fantasy Football: Four rules to live by

Fantasy football drafts are in full swing, and players are frantically sourcing the internet for that breaking news or secret information to get a leg-up on their opponents. I could write 500 words on just listing fantasy football websites. There are pure content websites, sites to play on, sites that you pay for, blogs, podcasts, radio shows, and TV shows. How do you know what to do about all this information? I'm going to tell you how to ingest this plethora of information, remembering only the best tidbits and details that you'll want to use in your draft.

Rule #1

Limit your consumption of fantasy football content and news.

It's a fact that you cannot retain and remember all the information that you read about sleepers, RBs, break-out WRs, and IDPs. So what's a fantasy player to do? Find an analyst or two whom you really agree with. Read a bunch of their articles, look for specific stats and fact based writing, instead of just opinions. These "experts" will be your workhorse over the course of preparing for the fantasy football draft. Pick out 3-5 main points or strategies you want to focus on for the draft. Try to stick with 3 rather than 5, but if you are a glutton for more information, you'll probably end up having 5.

Rule #2

Rewrite the most important facts, figures, and information you want to retain.

Once you have these strategies, rewrite them in your own document or on a piece of paper. This will help you remember them, eliminating the need to pull out flash cards during your draft. Thus, saving you the extreme razzing your friends would give you. Next, make sure to re-rank the top 200 players. Start by using your favorite analyst's (circa rule #1) rankings and edit them accordingly. If you have a gut feeling that Monte Ball will be a scrub, drop him a few spots. The "experts" aren't the end all be all of fantasy football, although they're very close.

Rule #3

Apply the info in mock drafts, lots of them. Use your personalized rankings and do mock drafts on whatever site you'll be playing on. Make sure to make notes near players and really get a feel for when players will go and who is available at what point of each round. This will make you great at predicting who you will get as soon as you know your draft position (auction drafts vary a bit here).

Rule #4

Stick to your research! The worst thing fantasy players can do when it comes to the draft is to ditch all their research and knowledge. Not only is it a waste of time, but you'll probably end up with a pretty bad team, or at least not the team you wanted.

Abide by these tips and best practices, and I promise you'll be happy when you look at the draft board once the dust is settled.