Want To Beat Your Buddies in Fantasy Football This Year?
Have you won your fantasy football league in the last few years or has that idiot Jeff who drafted a kicker in the 4th round taken it down two years in a row?
Winning your home fantasy football league is often one of the biggest challenges for anyone. Personally, I’ve had some big wins in daily fantasy football and I can say without a doubt, winning my home fantasy football league is equally important as taking down any GPP and the fact that I’ve gone two years in a row without winning my home league keeps me up at night.
Maybe you don’t write for a fantasy sports company like I do, but you probably think you are a heck of a lot smarter than your buddies, yet dumb dumb that drafts an injured player in the 3rd round still ends up beating you head to head in the first round of the playoffs. If this describes you then keep reading because this article is going to help you get over the hump and take down your Fantasy Football League this year! Follow these fantasy football league tips and strategies to become a better player.
#1 Do Your Season Long Fantasy Football Research!
If you’re reading this, congratulations! You are already one step ahead of the rest of the members of your league! Seriously though, do your research. Know who is getting drafted where. Who has an injury. Who is going to be the getting touches or who will be in a running back by committee. You need to have a good understanding of the entire draft pool and the personnel of each of the thirty two teams. Use Twitter, follow guys like me @dfsupnorth or @ffootballgeek or I like to find beat writers for teams as they often have the best information about whats going on, especially in the preseason.
Podcasts are also a great resource, our very own Fantasy Football Geek (Kevin) and Season Long Sez do a weekly (and sometimes more) Season Long/Best Ball podcast thats full of TONS of great info. Here are a couple to get you started!
FFootball Geek and Season Long Sez RB Ranking Pod
FFootball Geek and Season Long Sez WR Ranking Pod
#2 Know Your Fantasy Football League’s Rules
Every league is different and every league has its own unique set of rules. My home league is a 12 team 2 QB no PPR league.. PPR stands for point per reception, meaning that your receivers, running backs, and tight ends all get 1 point for each catch they make. There are variations of it such as 1/2 point PPR, but the vast majority of leagues now have at least 1/2 point PPR. The fact that I can’t get my buddies to even go to a half point ppr is infuriating but thats a story for another day.
With that type of scoring, I can’t just go with any sort of player ranking as the way we score is different than most rankings. David Johnson is a great running back and in my opinion he should be going number one in most leagues, but in my home league without PPR he loses a lot of value.
Another good example of two guys that are better in certain types of leagues are Jordan Howard and Christian McCaffrey. Two completely opposite types of players, as Howard is a pure runner, while McCaffrey catches a lot of balls out of the backfield. In Standard Non PPR Scoring last year, Howard was ranked 10th overall while McCaffrey was 15th. Change to PPR and those spots flip with McCaffrey being 10th and Howard 14th.
If you understand your league’s rules and how they score you can sometimes gain an advantage over the other player’s in your league through how you draft.
#3 Have a Fantasy Football Draft Strategy
No RB? All RB? QB 1st overall? Have a plan before you get into your draft. Because of the structure of my league, I don’t take an RB as a general rule of thumb until after the 3rd round. In a normal PPR league though I’m looking at RB right away.
Make sure that you are flexible with your fantasy football strategy though. I really like drafting at the top (duh) or the back end of the draft because you can get a good feel of where everyone else is going because of the length of time between your picks. Nothing worse for then coming into a draft with pick 6 in a 12 teamer. When you have that time you can see where players are making runs.
If others are overpaying for say QB in the 1st round and you see that, you can hammer those high end RBs that maybe are dropping. Or if those top TE’s like Travis Kelce, Rob Gronkowksi, Zach Ertz go early you know that you can wait till late to get the other tier of TE’s and jump on WR’s while others are maybe reaching for TE’s.
Now how do you implement this fantasy football strategy? Like anything else you should practice before the big show. One thing I like to do is do some Best Ball drafts on DRAFT. Best ball is similar to season long, but you after you pick your team you’re done. Whoever on your team scores the most points that week counts for you. Its a set and forget it type of game. The reason I like DRAFT as opposed to mock drafts on other sites is that there is something on the line. You are playing for real money, so the draft goes similar to how your home league will go. So not only can you practice your draft strategy but you can win some real money while you are at it.
Not a member on DRAFT? Sign up by clicking through here DRAFT Sign up and Free Month VIP and you get a FREE month of VIP membership at DFS Army! Use the code FFgeek and you get free entry into a contest right away!
#4 Know What ADP is
ADP? No not Adenosine Diphosphate, Average Draft Position! (Forgive me, I’m wrapping up my masters in Exercise Physiology right now and thats all I think when I see ADP) What is ADP? Well, just like it states its the average draft position of players, so where they are going on average in drafts. Why is this important? Because it can help you make a plan once you know where you are drafting.
For example, if you have the 8th pick in your 12 team draft, you can expect based on ADP that you will have the option of drafting Leonard Fournette, Kareem Hunt, or Odell Beckham Jr. And on the way back of the snake draft you will have the option of Devonta Freeman, Julio Jones, or Melvin Gordon. So you have some options in terms of going RB, RB, or RB, WR, or even WR, WR. Knowing where guys are going helps you get an idea of what your roster can look like and let you dive in deeper to them to make the right decision.
Knowing ADP also helps identify value. For example, someone may fall way below their ADP. I’ve seen Lamar Miller who has an ADP of 54 going around pick 70-80 in some drafts. He’s a guy I really like this year based on being the only running back in a dynamic offense with a weak schedule. So if I can snag him at around pick 70, end of RD 5/beginning of RD 6 I’m ecstatic.
ADP also helps you not to reach for guys. Alex Collins is another guy that I keep eyeing at the end of RD 2 when I’m in that spot in a 12 team. But I know that I can most likely get him based on ADP coming back in RD 3 or RD 4. based on his ADP. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but for the most part it helps you build better teams by knowing where guys are getting drafted.
So where do you find ADP? Well if you use DRAFT they have their ADP for all their drafts which is pretty useful, but what I like to use is our very own fantasy football expert @ffootballgeek has his own rankings that include ADP along with his rankings of where he would draft players. Super useful tool that I’ve been using in Best Ball and Season Long Drafts already!
Check out Geek’s rankings here! Article is Free but the rankings are only for our VIPs!
Geek’s 2018 Fantasy Football Draft Rankings for QB, RB, WR, and TE
#5 Win the Fantasy Football Waiver Wire
Great fantasy football teams are drafted but championship winning fantasy football teams are built through the waiver wire. As I said earlier the NFL and fantasy football for that matter is a war of attrition. There will be blood. There will be injuries. And how you compensate for those injuries is going to determine how you place in your season long league.
Knowing who to pick up and what to spend (if your league does that) on the waiver wire is key. It could be that a running back has a season ending injury and you need to pick up his backup or a player is going to start getting more touches (i.e. Tarik Cohen last year) and you can pick him up before that break out game. Or it could be that your league mates RB went down with a season ending injury and you want to snag the back up even though you don’t need him (I’ve done this, multiple times and then flipped the guy back to them for a big profit).
The waiver wire is key but how do you know who to pick up? Well it comes back to that research aspect, twitter, podcasts, beat writers all great resources but another thing you can do is join a fantasy sports site like ours. We have one of the best slack chats in the business with over 1300 active members in our slack chat along with 40+ coaches giving advice, not only for Daily Fantasy Sports, but season long league as well. Its the biggest think tank in Fantasy Sports and everyone wants to help you win.
We also have a research station that’s updated daily that can help you identify values, particularly for the waiver wire. Even if you’re dominating your league, this is a great spot to find some of those deep values that are trending in the right direction.
The Research Station above is undergoing some changes right now and going to be bigger and better than ever in the 2018 NFL season. Not only is it a great tool for DFS, but also Season long and I can’t wait to use it this year!
Join DFS Army today! UPNORTH for 10% off for life!
#6 Stream Defenses/Kickers
I’m a huge believer in streaming defenses and kickers in season long fantasy football. There are some elite defenses in the NFL but on a week to week basis there is literally no reason to own a defense all year. You are much better off taking your chances on picking up a different defense each weak that has an elite match up. In the past I’ve streamed whichever defense was playing the Cleveland Browns and had a lot of success, this year I kind of like the Browns and am going to have to find a new team to stream against!
There is just not a big enough gap between the elite scoring Defenses/Kickers and the ones you can play off the waiver wire every week to justify drafting one in my eyes. Drafting a defense or kicker isn’t going to win your league. Let your buddies waste a draft spot on a defense/kicker while you snag an up and coming RB or WR that could help you win your league this year!
When you stream defenses/kickers off the waiver wire each week, that also allows you to add more capital to your team through the draft. To get an elite defense/kickers you often need to take one around the 10th round and in that spot you can normally get a solid TE, mid tier QB, or a running back in a committee role. I’d much rather have that on my team than a DEF especially if I’m drafting early in August before all the injuries, etc. have occurred in training camp/preseason.
The same thought process goes into kickers for me. Outside of Greg Zuerlein who had a ridiculous season last year with the Rams. Kickers were fairly interchangeable, with the top 20 all within a few points of each other on average. At DFS Army we have our own Kicker specialist PVAaron who breaks down kickers on a weekly basis for us. I use that info to pick which kicker I’m going to use for the week, and have had some HUGE success in my season long doing that as often times the highest scoring kicker of the day was sitting on waivers anyways!
#7 Fade Your Home team
This is my least favorite piece of advice to give, but you really should fade your home team in season long fantasy football leagues. Not only is it probably better for your own enjoyment of the game, but the real reason is that the other players in your league are also probably fans of that team and they will overpay for players of that team in the draft.
Here’s the prime example, I live in Minnesota and am a diehard Vikings fan. Born and bred, I bleed Purple and Gold. So does the rest of my twelve man league. Now as you know we play in a 2 QB league so quarterbacks are at a premium but Sam Bradford went in the third round last year. THE 3RD ROUND! I wasn’t able to be there for the draft and I skyped in but I had to shut my computer off and walk away at that point. The fandom was insane.
You will have a better draft if you fade your home team. What I would suggest is if you can snag some guys late from your team that might pop its smart to grab them, because if they do pop, you can sell them off in your league at a premium price!
#8 Don’t Fall For the Shiny New Toy
Every year, someone gets talked up as the next big thing in Fantasy Football. Whether its a rookie who is having a great training camp, a player traded to a new team, or a QB with all sorts of new weapons, (even though he never produced with his old weapons) and people overpay for them in the draft. Kenneth Dixon was a prime example Season long fantasy, in my opinion is about consistency and sometimes old reliable is better off over the course of the season than that shiny new toy that might not pop till week 8.
Thats probably an unpopular opinion but I’ve seen it work over the course of the last 15 years playing season long fantasy football. I LOVE DeShaun Watson this year. Improved line, he’s healthy, has the best receiver in the game, legit QB1 threat this year. Given the choice though between Watson and Aaron Rodgers though I’m taking Rodgers every single time. Rodgers has proven he’s been able to do it consistently year after year. Watson had a couple of great games last year and has all the tools to do well, but teams also have had a year to set up defensive schemes to stop what he does best and thats going to hurt his fantasy production as well.
One way I attack Shiny New Toys is through the waiver wire. You only have limited amount of space on your bench and the NFL is a war of attrition when it comes to injury. As we get to weeks 5 and 6 with the combination of byes and injuries some of these toys that people were ALL over at the beginning of the season have barely touched the field and their owners need to make room on their bench for players actually playing so they drop them. This is where I jump in and grab them off the waiver wire and hope that we see them start to produce in the second half of the season. This is a fantasy football strategy that works GREAT with rookies as they often need some time to get their feet under them. You have an owner who snagged Nyheim Hines in the draft before you but by week 5 he drops him because he hasn’t done anything yet, thats a gift and you should be jumping on him and expecting a big second half.
EDITOR’S NOTE – So many of our winners in the daily fantasy game originally came from local season long leagues. We quickly found the deeper analysis from DFS gave us a larger edge in our hometown leagues. The advice, responsiveness to questions, statistical analysis was second-to-none, and as a result, we also have found many others just like us that love to talk fantasy sports of all kinds. From Nascar to PGA to NBA, we have learned lessons from each sport we happily reinvest back to our loyal members in a “pay it forward” fashion. And, many of our VIPs have turned the tables on their local leagues with life-changing money from the daily fantasy games as well. We consider ourselves a one-stop-shop with the track record below to prove it. These top wins were solely from the month of July!
Check out some of these wins from just July! DFS Army has been crushing all summer and thats only going to continue into the fall. Get in now before the prices jump up for NFL and use code UPNORTH for 10% off! Sign up for VIP Access Here!
#9 Don’t Panic During the Fantasy Football Draft (or drink)
It happens every year, someone in your draft, drafts like an idiot. QB 1st overall? Yep seen it happen. Kicker in the 4th round? Yep seen it happen. A run on good TE’s early? Always seems to happen. There will always be someone who completely screws everything up for you. The key is to keep your cool, trust your process/rankings, and draft the best team possible.
I’m a big believer in drafting the best player available regardless of position at least through the first 6-8 rounds, and then worry about filling out positional depth. If someone is drafting like an idiot don’t worry about it, do you and let them screw up their own team.
Don’t get reactionary because a couple of top end quarterbacks have gone too early. That just means that there will be depth guys available later. Like Joel Embiid says, Trust the Process.
As a side note, I love having beers with the boys during my draft, its great time to get together, but you know what I love more than that? Winning. I have a couple buddies who try to turn the draft into a bachelor party every year and they are always the basement dwellers in the league standings!
One other way to prepare for your season long draft is to play Preseason Daily Fantasy Football on DraftKings and FanDuel. Theres a HUGE edge in preseason fantasy football and our very own Scotti B @thebondarbrand aka the Dong Detector from MLB has you covered with everything you need to know.
Check out Scotti’s preseason article for the Hall of Fame Game!
Scotti B’s Hall of Fame Game Article
#10 Join DFSArmy For the NFL Season
Alright, if you aren’t convinced yet let me give you one more piece as to why you should join us for the NFL season, our Research Station or RS as its called, is second to none!
The RS break down match ups, expected points, yardage, catches everything and helps you make every lineup decision you could think of. Need to pick a WR3 and struggling to make a decision between two seemingly equal WR’s? The RS makes that decision clear and helps you to put the best roster you can out there each week.
I’ve played Season Long Fantasy football for 18 years now and I love it and think I’m pretty good at it, but when I started playing Daily Fantasy Football on sites like DraftKings or FanDuel, I became an exponentially better Season Long player. I’m locked in on guys every week and understanding match ups, strength of schedule, etc. and that has helped me to build championship level teams in season long. It also makes watching football on Sundays the best part of my week. The only downside is now I’m locked in on NFL Redzone all day on Sunday! DFS and Season long go hand in hand and playing each has made me a better player in both. It worked for me and it can work for you too!
Not sure you want or need to join a fantasy sports site like ours? Well here’s a great way to try us out. If you aren’t a current member at DraftKings, Fanduel, or DRAFT and you click through this link and make an initial 20$ deposit you will get a free month of VIP Access at DFS Army! Thats 20 dollars to run best ball drafts on DRAFT and you get a 40 dollar VIP membership for free! Thats a great deal and one you should really take advantage of!
I really hope that these tips for fantasy football were helpful and you are able to take down your buddies this year in your Fantasy Football League! I hope that you take a second and check DFS Army out as your one stop shop for Fantasy Football info this year. From our weekly articles, to the slack chat with 1300 members chatting football and coaches helping build lineups, to the our second to none research station, DFS Army is set to crush this Fantasy Football Season! Join us and lets kick some ass this Fantasy Football Season!
Code UPNORTH for 10% off for life! Sign up for VIP Access Here!
Reach out to my Twitter with any questions, or just to talk Fantasy Football @dfsupnorth I love talking anything football and my favorite thing is seeing everyones Season Long Trophies! Send me a photo of your Season Long trophy and I’ll retweet it out and get you some love!