Lesson 1: Positioning Your Picks
1. Laying Out Your Position—Take your drafting spots and lay them over a top 150 list that you feel comfortable with. Review what players and positions you would have if you got them in accordance to the Top 150 list.
2. Switch the Players Around—If you don’t like your lineup that you have created by using the top 150 list, then pick a player lower on the list from a position that you would like to improve. For example, in the first 4 rounds you might have two quarterbacks listed on your roster and you want one of them to be a running back, then make the correction.
3. Switch Positions Around—If you find that this method has you taking a quarterback with your second pick and you would like to take a quarterback later, then switch it around some more.
4. Maximize Your Starting Line-Up—Based on your scoring system continue to make changes to your roster and your selections until you come up with a sequence that you feel will maximize your starting line-up production.
Lesson 2: Leveraging Expert Knowledge
1. Check the Experts—If you are drafting 10th in a 12 person league, then look at an expert draft or expert mock draft and see who they got on their roster in the same spot. If you like their team and agree with their picks, then you can mimic their strategy on draft day. If you like the team that was assembled in the expert draft that was picking in the 11th spot better, then try and mimic their strategy.
2. Back Up Plans—Once you have decided on your ideal strategy (and you know what players you would like to pick in each round to maximize your starting line-up) it is time to develop your back up plans. Not every draft is similar. Strange things happen on draft day. Players may fall to you that you were not expecting and other managers may take players that you wanted right before it is your turn to pick. These things happen, deal with it! If you planned on taking RB, RB, WR, TE, WR and there is a massive run on Tight Ends in the third round, then you may need to switch it up a bit. Map out several different strategies with several different positions and players (based on the tiers in your cheat sheet) that will allow you to maximize your starting line-up points by being flexible on draft day.
Closing Thought—If you have done your homework and have followed the above, then you are ready to draft a competitive team. After all, you are using your cheat sheet, you know what your competition knows, you are using your Average Draft Positions and executing your own drafting strategy knowing that you will not take a player too early and will not make a bad pick in your draft.
