Preparing for my draft

[Scott5888]

I was curious on how and what you guys use to prepare for your draft? Do you get the cheat sheets from certain websites? What do you take to the draft? Just wondering what if any strategies other people use. Thanks!

[michaelredd9]

I've heard good things about this website

 

[Scott5888]

Lol using that website would just make too much sense this will be my third year doing fantasy and last year I felt like I made it too complicated. Lol I did win the league but I was rifling through so many papers at our draft.

[michaelredd9]

28 minutes ago, Scott5888 said:

Lol using that website would just make too much sense this will be my third year doing fantasy and last year I felt like I made it too complicated. Lol I did win the league but I was rifling through so many papers at our draft.

 

Why not just print out the cheat sheet?  It should be 2 sheets max.

 

[Big Country]

31 minutes ago, michaelredd9 said:

 

Why not just print out the cheat sheet?  It should be 2 sheets max.

 

 

1 sheet if you can print on ledger size paper

 

But yes, cheat sheet customized to scoring, and at most a few markups or notes. I personally prefer to take the cheat sheet and reformat it to my personal preferences in Excel. But for a live draft, I like to keep it as simple as possible and not get stuck in overload with a ton of printouts. The only other thing I usually like to havve with me is a sheet to track the teams as they are drafted so I can quickly ID if certain teams are waiting on a position, have a bye week issue, etc. so that I can add that bit of info to my mid to late round strategy.

 

For online drafts, I may have a few sites open to do some quick lookups between picks, but usually it's the same setup - printed cheat sheet and team tracker

[Chief Dick]

If the draft is on MyFantasyLeagues software, I just use their list that is sitting there and pick whoever looks good.

 

And really, with all the online softwares - Yahoo, ESPN, etc. If I'm at a live draft I print out a cheat sheet from wherever. I'm not picky.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Chief Dick

[Who Dey 4 Life]

Be sure and have a back up ink pen if you write down every ones picks. Just might come in handy.  

[Scott5888]

Our draft is done through fantasy pros. Think I will do the just one cheat sheet strategy this year. Keep it simple. I've never kept track of what other guys are picking so may do that this year.

[michaelredd9]

40 minutes ago, Scott5888 said:

 

I've never kept track of what other guys are picking so may do that this year.

 

 

It's a good thing to do if you pick at the 2,3,4 or 9,10.11 spots since you can sometimes predict what positions the people closer to the corner will pick once you get past the first few rounds.  If you pick at 1 or 12 or in the middle, it really doesn't provide much benefit. 

 

If I were you, I would also download the rankings from your draft site and mark off the players when they are taken.  Most of the people will use it for their draft so it is a good predictor of where players will get drafted. 

 

I realize this would be 3 separate sheets to follow but it really isn't that hard to mark a player off in 3 places.

 

Edited August 13, 2019 by michaelredd9

[Big Country]

14 hours ago, michaelredd9 said:

 

It's a good thing to do if you pick at the 2,3,4 or 9,10.11 spots since you can sometimes predict what positions the people closer to the corner will pick once you get past the first few rounds.  If you pick at 1 or 12 or in the middle, it really doesn't provide much benefit. 

 

If I were you, I would also download the rankings from your draft site and mark off the players when they are taken.  Most of the people will use it for their draft so it is a good predictor of where players will get drafted. 

 

I realize this would be 3 separate sheets to follow but it really isn't that hard to mark a player off in 3 places.

 

 

This exactly, most beneficial heading into the turns, but I still do it from every spot.

 

A few specific scenarios that I use it for:

- I tend to wait on QB. This is an easy way to at a glance see how many teams do not have a QB yet, and also when the first team picks a backup, as that is often the trigger for the QB run for the other teams also waiting on QB.

- Look at the bye weeks. Most owners try to avoid doubling up on bye weeks, especially when looking at either their last starter at a spot (ie, if start 2 RBs, most don't want their RB1 and RB2 with same bye week) or backup QB/TE. Not all drafts unfold this way, but there have been multiple occasions where I have been able to use this to know when I could risk passing on a certain player I wanted knowing there was a high probability they would come back to me and instead taking a different player before the turn and still getting my main target after the turn

- Most teams tend to fill their key starting lineup positions before looking at backups. Use this to your advantage. If you're in the middle of the round, still need a TE, but all but one team picking after you already has a TE, you can usually safely wait for the draft to come back to you before taking your TE knowing that most likely, only 1 more TE will be taken before you pick, thus allowing you to address another position with a more valuable piece while minimizing the reduction in value at the TE spot.

 

Obviously it is not 100% as some owners do strange things like taking 4 RBs in the first 5 rounds when they can start a max of 2 or grabbing a backup QB by round 7, but then I usually view those things as likely low values moves for those teams, meaning it is increasing the value available to me.