The NFL season is just around the corner. That means that it is fantasy football time. I don\u2019t profess to be an expert, but I do believe that you can significantly improve your chances of success in your league by following a few common sense tips. Here, then, are my ten tips to help guide you to a winning fantasy football season.<\/p>\n
1. Five singles beats a home run and four strikeouts<\/strong> \u2013 Too often guys try to show how smart they are by picking the no name player who is going to have a huge season that they can steal in a later round. For every Ryan Grant, though, there are several guys no one has heard of at draft time and still hasn\u2019t heard of now. Winning a fantasy league s rarely about bold, flashy picks. Like in recent Presidential elections, conservatism is rewarded.<\/p>\n 2. Keep an eye on injuries<\/strong> \u2013 It doesn\u2019t matter how talented a running back is if he can\u2019t walk. Players are going to get hurt during the season and you will have to deal with that then, but you might as well start things off with a healthy lineup. Spending a few minutes perusing injury reports is a very good use of pre-draft time.<\/p>\n 3. Don\u2019t trust unstable QB situations<\/strong> \u2013 If you don\u2019t know who the starting QB is on a team, or if there isn\u2019t a clear number one, then stay away from the QBs and receivers from that team. Uncertainty almost never produces big numbers.<\/p>\n 4. Don\u2019t discount kickers <\/strong>\u2013 A lot of people leave the kicker until the last pick and make them an after thought. A good kicker can get you a surprising number of points, though. Spending some time looking at which kickers and coaches tend to kick a lot of field goals can allow you to make a smart mid-round pick while the prime players are still on the board.<\/p>\n 5. Don\u2019t get too fancy in the first round<\/strong> \u2013 The same players are going to get selected in pretty much every first round there is. This is not the time to try to be clever or original. There is a reason why the most popular players are the most popular, so don\u2019t blow your opportunity to pile up the points. It\u2019s hard to win the draft based on your first round pick, but you sure can lose it.<\/p>\n 6. Don\u2019t get an itchy trade finger<\/strong> \u2013 Once you have drafted your team, learn to live with it for a while. Too often guys are tempted to make a pile of trades before the season has even began. Trust your first instincts, and give yourself time to see what you actually have before you make trades or other roster moves. If a guy wasn\u2019t drafted and you play in a big league then there is probably a pretty good reason for it.<\/p>\n 7. Look to the schedule to break ties<\/strong> \u2013 If there are two players at the same position that you like equally, look at who they play in the first few weeks to help make a decision. The guy who plays more teams more suited to his success is a better choice. For example, a running back who plays two teams with lousy run defenses is obviously a better choice than one who plays a bunch of brick walls.<\/p>\n 8. Don\u2019t forget bye weeks<\/strong> \u2013 There is no worse feeling than picking your team only to realize that all of your quarterbacks have the same bye week. Doing a quick check of this as you make your picks is a great idea.<\/p>\n 9. Ditch your biases<\/strong> \u2013 I hate Peyton Manning with every fiber of my being (though I am man enough to admit that he was very funny on SNL). That doesn\u2019t mean that he is a bad pick, though. Fantasy football is about winning, not building a fan club. Make sure that your choices are made for the right reason \u2013 the only thing worse than having a guy you don\u2019t like on your team is getting beat by him.<\/p>\n 10. Add depth only when it makes sense<\/strong> \u2013 Running backs are valuable in fantasy football. Some guys, though, will focus so much on adding running back depth to their team that they won\u2019t be left with anything else worthwhile. You need to prioritize the positions you\u2019ll pick, but you also need to pick all of the positions. NFL executives will pick the best player on the board in most draft situations, but you\u2019ll notice that the Patriots and the Colts don\u2019t spend first round picks on quarterbacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The NFL season is just around the corner. That means that it is fantasy football time. I don\u2019t profess to be an expert, but I do believe that you can significantly improve your chances of success in your league by following a few common sense tips. Here, then, are my ten tips to help guide […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[392,391],"class_list":["post-565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-draft-tips","tag-fantasy-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1167,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions\/1167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}