It’s fantasy football draft season. The best time of the year in any fantasy football league. For many, this will be the one time of year the entire league is in the same room, or Zoom call, together. It should be a time to have fun with your friends and build the beginning of what you hope will be a championship-caliber roster. In the paragraphs ahead, I’ll lay out seven fantasy football draft tips you can implement in this year’s draft and every draft moving forward to both own your draft and have an enjoyable experience for your entire league.
Fantasy Football Draft Tips
Tip No. 1: Be Prepared
It’s 2023, there is no reason not to be prepared for your upcoming draft. Do you need to be the most prepared guy in your draft with a custom draft kit and knowledge of every deep sleeper available? No. That doesn’t mean you should go in with zero prep knowledge. Have an idea of who you like in the first few rounds, if you know your draft order in advance. If nothing else check who is already injured and out an extended period of time or suspended. Between all the content on the internet, and especially in our 2023 fantasy football draft kit, there is no reason you should walk into your draft with no base knowledge of what to expect in the 2023 season.
Tip No. 2: Have a First Round Priority List
This goes along with being prepared, but the first round of the draft should be the fastest round of the entire draft. There is no reason the person picking third overall should be burning up the entire clock trying to decide who to take. You should have an idea of who you like among the top talent of the league going into draft day. You don’t have any positional runs to be wary of or opposing rosters to look at to try to see who may or may not be available when the draft board snakes back around to you. Even in leagues where you don’t know the draft order until the draft room opens, take your league size and rank the top X players necessary to complete round 1.
Tip No. 3: Know Your Draft Room
Maybe as important as any NFL player knowledge you can accumulate pre-draft is the knowledge of who you’re drafting against. If your one friend LOVES drafting Kansas City Chiefs players, and he picks twice before your next pick, then you know Travis Kelce may not be available the next time you’re on the clock. The same goes for any leagues where the QBs tend to go fast. If you’d rather be ahead of the run on passers so you aren’t deciding between Kirk Cousins and Geno Smith, it may not be a bad idea to reach down the draft board a little bit to be the one to kick off that run instead of watching it pass you by.
Tip No. 4: Don’t Be Too Smart In Round One
I always say you will never, NEVER win your league with your first-round pick. You can sure lose your league with your first-round pick though. Don’t be smug and try to show your league that you’re smarter than all the rest and take a fourth-round player you really like in round one. He may turn out to be great, that’s wonderful for you. More likely than not, however, you’ll either miss out on a better player. At best you’ll miss out on another great player to go along with the one you loved a round or two later.
Tip No. 5: Be Bold Late
This may possibly be the best in-draft advice I can give you. You usually don’t win your leagues with your early draft picks. You win with your mid-to-late-round picks and your in-season moves. Don’t be afraid to shoot for the moon late in the draft. Look at last year, Mark Ingram was a safer RB than Isaiah Pacheco when the season started. By season’s end, only one guy looked the part of a starting-worthy fantasy option. Pacheco was a younger player with less than stellar competition in front of him than that of Ingram. Even if Pacheco didn’t work out, those end-of-the-draft selections wind up being among the first roster casualties to the early season waiver wire. You won’t recall the late-round picks you missed, but the ones that win you your league you’ll never forget.
Tip No. 6: Be Committed
Nobody likes a quitter. Your team may not be good, your favorite picks might turn out to be busts. It happens. If you’ve been doing fantasy football long enough, you’ll know that everybody runs into a rough season every once in a while. There is a loser for every winner. Don’t be that guy who starts 0-3 and never sets his lineup again. No feeling is worse than finding yourself a game out of the playoffs going into the final week of the season and the team holding the final playoff spot has an opponent with three active players in their lineup. When you signed up for the league, you signed up for more than just draft day. You signed up for the season.
Tip No. 7: Have Fun
The final but most important tip is a simple one. It should go without saying but that is the point of all of this at the end of the day. Whether this is a free league with a few friends for bragging rights or a big-money league with a large payout don’t forget we do this for the fun of it. You can talk smack, brag, laugh about how you missed out on all your sleepers, whatever. Just keep your spirits high and don’t bring down the draft day mood, the best time of year in the entire fantasy football season. Unless of course, your team wins.
Got a few fantasy football draft tips of your own? Don’t be shy. Drop some knowledge in the comments below. For more great rankings and analysis, make sure to check out our 2023 Fantasy Football Draft Kit!
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— Lisa Ann (@thereallisaann) May 6, 2023