Off Season Preparations for your fantasy team
It is never too early to think about your Fantasy Football team, and time spent prepping yourself will only help your team during the season. Winning in Fantasy Football takes luck, but it also takes commitment and preparation. Far too often, you will see teams with marginal owners work their way to the middle or bottom of their respective leagues, and the owners who keep an eye on their teams almost always find themselves deciding where to put the trophies or spend the winner's checks.
The formula for winning is relatively simple. Plan in the off season, and never lose sight of your team's goals. There are, however, some things that one must be cognizant of during the off season when building their winner.
1. Read As Much As Possible
Subscribe to weekly publications, and try to read the USA Today daily. Weekly magazines can give an insight to what teams are doing, and a daily newspaper can give specific news on teams and transactions. Owners need to know if their starters will remain starters, or be traded or demoted, and weekly or daily publications can give some insight to that information.
2. Steer Clear From Annual Publications
Stay away from magazines published in May, usually these are published only one a year. All too often, their information is outdated upon its release and useless to the serious fantasy owner in the off-season and on draft day. These magazines also give insight on information that is accurate for only the top players, and even then (Ricky Williams) the information is not completely accurate. Buy these magazines if you want old statistics, but if you want current information, look to other sources.
3. Subscribe To Websites
Spend money to make money. That formula has worked out in many different vocations, and Fantasy Football Management is no exception. You have to spend some cash to get some cash back in the form of winner's checks. Money well spent is in the form of investing in websites that deal with Fantasy Sports, such as Triple Crown Fantasy Sports. These websites provide information on a timely basis, and can prove quite useful in the off season when evaluating trades and forming opinion on who will be your players taken on draft day. Keep your information as up to date as possible and build yourself a winner.
4. Pay Attention To Player Movement
In this day of free agency, it is imperative that an savvy owner keep track of where skill players find work. For instance, a running back who was with Denver in one season will not perform as well the next season if he is with Arizona. The proactive owner will be aware of these things, and will not have to ask questions on draft day regarding a player's whereabouts. This information can also be used as ammunition against less informed franchise owners when asking for a trade. Keep current, and stay ahead of the competition.
5. Get A Grip On Rookies
Rookie performers can be a great source of wealth for fantasy owners, and they can just as easily land an owner in the cellar. The smart owner will know the draft picks, for what teams they play, and their performance in training camp battles. Just because a player is great in college is no guarantee that he will be a blue chipper in the pros. The same works in reverse too, one needs only to remember that Terrell Davis was a 7th round pick. Don't be afraid to draft a rookie over a veteran on the downside of his career. The risk/reward is much greater, but if a choice is right, the rookie will pay dividends for many years to come. Do your homework, and choose a rookie that has a good chance to pay immediate rewards.
6. Rank Players Often
Early in the off season, make a player ranking, and continue to fine tune it and make changes all the way through the off season. There are may times that the player near the top in February is the there in August. That is why you need to keep an accurate ranking of the players at least monthly through June, weekly through July and visit the list at least every other day in August. Keep an eye on your information sources often the week before and the day of the draft. You don't want to be caught drafting a retired player or a recently injured player. It happens all the time, and teams can be written off early. Leagues can be easily lost on draft day if your information is not up to date.
7. Take Part In Mock Drafts
Mock drafts can give owners good insight as to where other owners value players. They are good practice before the real thing. A mock draft will help you get better prepared for your own draft, and it time permits, it helps to take part in more than one. Practice makes perfect, and draining information from as many resources as possible will minimize mistakes made on draft day. A note on mock drafts: Pay particular attention to players who are drafted well above or below where you expect them to be drafted. If you see this happen, immediately find out why this is happening. You can ask the person who drafted the player, or you can search the web for the information. Whatever the case, make adjustments to your own draft list so that you will not err at your draft.
8. Search Out Lemmings
Now that you are armed with information and you have practiced drafting, search out the lemmings from your league and victimize them. They are easy to spot, usually a rookie owner or a magazine drafter. All is fair in Fantasy Football, and getting valuable players and not hurting your squad is paramount. The easiest way to do that is to take advantage of less informed owners. The toughest part of drafting with lemmings is that their availability is somewhat limited, or they hedge on trades. You have to be persistent with lemmings, and soon you will have valuable commodities for a very frugal price.
9. Ask For Trades
Contact all owners in your league and ask them to trade with you. Let them know who is available from your team and who you are interested in acquiring. Don't be afraid to ask for the best players, sometimes you can get them. Of course, you will have to be prepared to part with your best players in return. That is where you will have to weigh out the trade in your mind, and decide if the deal is right for you. If you look at trades as everyone has their price, you will be surprised at who ends up on your fantasy team. On a side note, most owners prefer to be contacted via e-mail, since it puts the ability to weigh the trade on hold for a while before giving an answer.
10. Have Fun
The bottom line in Fantasy Football is to have fun, and it is important to keep that in mind when victimizing other owners. More informed owners have a distinct advantage over their less intuitive counterparts, but don't be so overzealous that there is no fun in the league. The best owners will find a way to delicately mix fun and competition together so that Fantasy Football is and enjoyable experience.
Take these ten principles and put them to use in your league, and see how fast the cream will rise to the top. Knowledge is power, and possessing the Fantasy Football knowledge will make you a powerful force in the 2005 season, and for many years to come.
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