How to better understand draft trends, your opponents and stay one step ahead of the pack!
What I'm going to cover here will not be a skill likely acquired during your first draft, or even your first full year of fantasy football. It will come much easier with experience in fantasy football. What makes these skills exceptionally hard is that fact that most leagues you'll likely join, you will not know your opponents personally. Outside of a league with local friends or co-workers that you take part in, but generally, this will not be the case.
Part 1 : Understanding the trends and flow of a fantasy football draft
A trend, defined as, The general direction in which something tends to move. Very much an intrical part of a fantasy draft. Understanding the trends taking place in your draft could very well lead to your success or failure in the draft. Being aware of not only who your opponents are selecting, but the position of that player as well as when they select them can give you the upper hand in understanding their approach to the draft. Again, I will reiterate that doing this successfully in a league where you do not know any of the other players personally can be challenging, but certainly not impossible. I will first focus on the quarterback position.
Scenario. We have reached the 4th round of your 10 team draft. You selected 3rd overall meaning you have used picks 3, 18, 23 and are about to select at 38th overall, the 37th pick is on the clock. Here is your roster thus far.
QB -
RB - Ray Rice (BAL)
RB - Ryan Grant (GB)
WR - Miles Austin (DAL)
WR -
WR -
TE -
K -
DEF/ST -
Selection 37 is made, Phillip Rivers, QB, San Diego making him the 6th quarterback selected thus far. The quarterbacks taken so far include, Rodgers, Brees, Manning (Peyton), Brady and Schaub. Looking at your roster you have a need for 2 more WR's, a QB and TE. You are now on the clock, twice in the next 6 picks, here at 38, and then 43rd overall in the next round. Here is where understanding the draft trend is important, and we're faced with 2 scenarios. You need to be aware of who the 2 teams drafting around you at 39 and 40 have selected already, they also then pick at 41, and 42 before you select again.
This is all centered on the quarterback for clarity. You are without one and have to go down to the 7th best available quarterback on your big board to make your selection, it's Tony Romo. The question is, jump the gun and take him at 38? Or risk waiting til 43? Here's the thing, you need not risk it, because you can know what the right decision will be by having paid attention to who the players around you have been selecting. With Manning being selected at 19 by one, and Brady going 20th to the other, you need not worry about Tony Romo being picked in the next 4 spots and can safely select the best WR on your board, which happens to be Marques Colston. If it were reverse, and those two players didn't have QB's, and you take Colston at 38 trying to wait on Romo, only to have Romo and Brett Favre selected by them, you now have Jay Cutler or Donovan McNabb staring you in the face. So by simply being aware of this, your roster can go from championship material, to middle of the pack.
Marques Colston and Tony Romo
or
Marques Colston and Jay Cutler
Bottom line is, try to dictate the draft, don't let it dictate to you. You want to have the ability to CHOOSE Tony Romo, you do not want to be forced to select Jay Cutler. It's a simple practice but can often be over looked by using what the much maligned draft method ( in my opinion ), the best player available technique. The only time which I would advise you to select like this, is in the very 1st round, and the later rounds of the draft when all of your starting spots have been filled.
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Part 2 : Criminal Minds : Profiling your opponents
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I'm about to get all Jason Giddian on you here in a minute, so lets explain what I'm about to outline. In fantasy football you often have a wide ranging cast of personalities and characters in your league, being, not every owner is going to be a generic drafter following the order of a big board supplied by your Fantasy Football site. You need to have the ability to "read" in a sense, the mentality of your opponents during the draft. Can you give yourself that little edge of knowing the tendencies or habits of an opponent purely by the following... The way they speak/act/interact with other members, are they cocky?, do they compliment others on good selections, and often elaborate on why?, do they have an NFL team name in their own? These may seem small or trivial, but what seem like casual comments or behavior can really tip you off on what type of animal you're dealing with. What type of animal... hmmm.
Cut and Dry Fantasy Football player profiles!
The Lion : Your fantasy football veteran. This player is not going to make ill-informed decisions, and he's not going to deviate to far from what would be considered a conventional drafting style. In the 1st two rounds he'll go RB, RB likely followed by the best available QB instantly setting himself up nicely for the rest of the draft. The Lion after that point will draft bye need too fill out the roster, but once he has his WR's you better watch your sleepers because the Lion is going to draft for UPSIDE. This is the guy that drafted Frank Gore in the 7th round after the 2005 season, or Ray Rice last year in the 14th round. He'll shy away from a player like Antonio Bryant or Lee Evans in favor of a high ceiling player like Mike Wallace or Robert Meachem. So be watchful after the first 6-7 rounds of these players that are rated 10-15 spots lower then were the draft is, because a Lion will not hesitate to scoop them up!
The Hyena : The good thing about the Hyena is he will not take long to let himself be known. This is the guy that will be chatting it up in your draft application and likely already predicting a championship coming his way before the 1st pick is ever made. The Hyena ultimately has two potential outcomes in the league. I call it the Ricky Bobby effect. If you're not first, you're last! If they Hyena misses out on a top 5 pick overall, he'll likely draft somewhat erratically, again, this will be the easiest player to profile. This year, after Frank Gore goes at 4 ( generally ) or Ray Rice, the Hyena is the guy that will select Drew Brees or Aaron Rodgers. If he can't have the best RB, he'll have the next most valuable thing, the best quarterback. He likely will not stop there. If he happened to be picking 10th, therefore picking 11th as well, you can bank on seeing this, 10-Andre Johnson, 11-Randy Moss or 10-Larry Fitzgerald, 11-Reggie Wayne. Once you have this guy pegged, you want to keep an eye on players you may be targeting that have "names", stars, even guys that may be past their prime. The Hyena see's Ladanian Tomlinson, flashes back too 2004, and will pounce! If you were a Shonn Greene owner, or liked LT in general for his TD potential this year, be mindful. You will find it hard using conventional logic with the Hyena, he may have already selected a QB so you let one slide by you, hoping to get him coming back the other way, and sure enough, even with Peyton Manning on his roster, the Hyena selects Matt Schaub purely to hold him ransom on the rest of the league! Approach with caution fantasy footballers! Like I said, this erratic behavior could land him with Justin Forsett and Thomas Jones as his two starting running backs, but they can have the stars align for them sometimes and field a QB, WR core that looks like this,
QB - Rodgers
WR - Fitzgerald
WR - Ocho Cinco
WR - Greg Jennings
All in all, you want to let the Hyena do it's thing, and hopefully it doesn't throw a wrench in what you're trying to accomplish, 8 times out of 10 he will be chasing his own shadow the entire draft and end up a cellar dweller comes years end.
The Elephant: Old reliable. The elephant is pretty close to the opposite of the Hyena, but he's certainly not a Lion. The elephant cares about safety, and reliability more then anything else! Curtis Martin or Fred Taylor would be the Elephants 1999 fantasy RB dream tandem. You know exactly, what you'll get from them, 1100 yards and 7 or 8 touchdowns. Never to much more, and never less. When faced with the choice between Hines Ward and Mike Wallace this year. the Elephant won't think twice and select Ward. He sleeps well at night because of this. You can use his concern for safety to fairly accurately predict what positions he will target, and when, after a few rounds. His roster will likely be completely filled out before he drives into his bench players, this could extend into a TE, Defense and back up quarterback before he begins taking reserves at the RB-WR skill positions.
The Water Buffalo: Confused? Don't be, you will know this player as, "the homer!". Ever watch the nature channel? discovery channel? CP has, and do you know what he never see's? Water Buffalo at the lake, by themselves. Doesn't happen. These guys only feel safe when they're surrounded by their own kind. They won't be troubled with all that Hyena/Lion foolishness, they're loyal to the Water Buffalo way. Ever see this happen?
With the 30th and 31st selections, The D-Town Pride selects Matt Stafford and Javid Best.
You watch as your chat logged fills up with token "LOL'z!" We're obviously talking about fans that target the home town players. Now, a true Water Buffalo is rare, and if you run into one, chances are they're not going to challenge for your league, as even the entire Colts or Saints offensives wouldn't compete with a true fantasy line up. What you need to be diligent about is other players allegiances! If you're in a league with Giants Squash Eagles and you're targeting Ahmad Bradshaw and Mario Manningham in the mid-late round, you NEED to be conscious of this guy. If you think Bradshaw is the RB in NY by week 5 this year, chances are the Giant fan may have the same feeling. Not to mention, as a fan in general he'll likely favor him over a comparable player.
Great white buffalo...
Great white buffalo....
Great white buffalo......
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