Fantasy Football Advice?

"Brian, The Life of" (familycar)
08/13/2015 at 16:23 • Filed to: None

So I’m doing a fantasy football thingy at work. Never done one before. Roster for this league is:

Can any of you FF-seasoned Oppos offer any advice? How much does the research really matter? What about bench strategy given the position mix? Ours is a 10-team league, BTW.

DISCUSSION (17)

BrtStlnd > Brian, The Life of
08/13/2015 at 16:25

Stay away from RBs who beat their kids.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > Brian, The Life of
08/13/2015 at 16:26

Make sure you have 2 QBs, that’s the biggest. Also, a mistake i made the first time playing FF, pay attention to BYE WEEKS.

If both of your QB’s have the same bye week, you’re shit out of luck that week.

Bye weeks apply to everyone, if you have 5 WR’s and 3 of them have the same bye week, you’re also screwed.

BrtStlnd > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
08/13/2015 at 16:31

I’d argue that in a 10 team league with only one starting QB, you don’t need 2 QBs on your roster.

Entropic Force > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
08/13/2015 at 16:32

Definitely this. It’s important to make sure you can field a full team every week.

The other big thing to look into is how points are accumulated in your league. Depending on the rules your group sets up, passes might account for more points that runs, fumbles might cost you a bunch or points, etc... Use this information to determine which players are best suited to get those points.

Brian, The Life of > BrtStlnd
08/13/2015 at 16:38

Don’t I need one on my bench for the starter’s bye week? What about as a hedge against injury?

ceanderson920 > Brian, The Life of
08/13/2015 at 16:39

Draft who you think will be good, then keep an eye out on the wavier wire (players who haven’t been drafted) sometimes you can find some very good players on their who will end up having a monster season. Another thing is watch which team your players are playing each week. Say if your RB is playing a team with one of the best run defenses in the league you might want to sit him and play a backup who is playing against a shitty run defense. This is if you have a mediocre RB, if you have Eddie Lacy or AP you will want to play them everyweek. All in All have fun and don’t take it to serious, especially since its year. After a few weeks you will be able to figure out who you want to put in or not.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > Brian, The Life of
08/13/2015 at 16:40

I think he’s implying there should be enough to pickup an unused QB on your bye week.

But if everyone uses my 2 QB strategy, your pickup QB that week is probably going to be at a high school football quality LOL

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > BrtStlnd
08/13/2015 at 16:41

Yeah but if everyone in the league uses my 2 qb strategy, he’s screwed on bye week day, there won’t be anyone to pick up

Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif > Brian, The Life of
08/13/2015 at 16:59

RB’s are the best value early. Then WR’s. Don’t take guys based on there names alone.

Depth charts!!!!! These are huge in later rounds. Look for guys who have been injury prone and who backs them up.

The best way I found was to make sure your starters are the best you can get, bench players can be filled in on injury or bye weeks. Worry about filing your active roster with the best you can do. NFL.com has weekly waiver wire targets that help a lot through the season.

Get solid QB1 and likely can pick up a QB on the bye week or in a late round for insurance.

SVTyler > Brian, The Life of
08/13/2015 at 17:10

Draft:There’s no ‘correct’ draft strategy, just one you feel works and gives you the best team.Is it a PPR league? If so you’ll want to draft at least one WR in the first two rounds regardless. If not, go with the best available player. This year a lot of previous RB1’s (your primary rb and usually the first players off the board) like McCoy, Murray, and Forte have changed teams or coaches or become part of an RBBC and probably won’t score as well as they did last year so you’ll probably end up wanting to draft WR’s anyways just for value (my own bias, others might say differently). It all depends on your draft position, really, normally late-round picks (6-10) start to pick up the top two QB’s and WR’s. You’ll want to fill out your starting lineup so don’t draft a bunch of players at one position unless they’re absolute steals.

For backups you’ll want to have mostly RB’s and WR’s so you can play matchups; for the most part you can stream (add and drop weekly based on matchups) D/ST’s and K’s so you only really need one of each to begin with. Grab a backup QB in the late (10th and onward) rounds; you’ll get guys like Matt Ryan and Big Ben who will put up solid numbers for you on a bye week, or if you missed out on a top QB’s you can wait until about the mid-7th round to start looking for your QB1.

Above all, you need to be flexible during the draft and have two or three backup picks ready in case your guy goes to another team. Common adage is that you won’t win your league with your first four picks but you can sure as hell lose it so don’t freak out and use your head.

Research: As far as ‘research’ goes you can grab some really great later-round picks just based on a few hours of reading. Obviously you won’t have time to look up 100+ players so look through expert rankings and find maybe a dozen players you really like and go from there: how are they doing at camp, have their circumstances changed since last year, how’s their injury record, how do they score their points (TD-dependent or yard-monster), etc. Rounds 5-10 are where your league will be won because the smart picks become less obvious so you’ll want to do the majority of your research looking through players ranked overall 50-100. After that point it’s honestly a crapshoot of filling out your backups; people will brag about getting someone like OBJ in the 11th but it’s all luck.

Besides that all the research you’ll need will be right in front of you on draft day when you have the player list. Compare overall draft rankings to specific position rankings to get an idea of where you should draft what player so you don’t overreach and pay attention to bye weeks so you don’t get completely screwed.

That’s about all I can add from 7 years of FF, anything else you can ask.

BrtStlnd > Brian, The Life of
08/13/2015 at 17:13

It depends on how many bench spots you get. If its several then keep one qb on the bench. If not then just get one from waivers.

Brian, The Life of > BrtStlnd
08/13/2015 at 17:14

There are six bench slots

BrtStlnd > Brian, The Life of
08/13/2015 at 17:52

Ok well then I'd keep a 2nd qb but wait till late in the draft. Also don't be afraid to use a middle pick on a DEF, the performance there drops quickly after the first few. Is it ppr?

BrtStlnd > Brian, The Life of
08/13/2015 at 17:56

Oh and follow Matthew Berry and John Paulsen on Twitter. Just scroll through feeds and you'll get a lot of questions answered.

BrtStlnd > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
08/13/2015 at 17:59

I guess I was basing my thought on having a short bench. I’m used to only having 3... So to me bench spots are for WRs with good match ups. If you get 5 or 6 you’re right you need another qb that can start.

Brian, The Life of > BrtStlnd
08/13/2015 at 19:02

This is the first even mildly useful thing to me that I’ve ever heard about Twitter. I’m still not compelled to create an account.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > BrtStlnd
08/14/2015 at 09:34

That makes sense, and I default to that way of thinking because i’m always in big team leagues.