Here are some Do's and Don'ts for Fantasy Football success:

Don't use Strength of schedule as a guide for a Fantasy Player production for the new season.

You will see fantasy articles going over the strength of schedule for a player based on last year's season statistics. This is wrong for two reasons. The first reason is in the era of free agency teams will change their players so much that a good defense can become a bad defense overnight and vice versa. Let's take the Buffalo Bills for instance. The Bills had were 29th in Run defense giving up 132.6 yards per game on the ground with a 4.5 yards per carry. This would show up favorably on the strength of schedule if you evaluated the player's schedule by Run defenses. The ever changing NFL would make this very deceiving. The Bills added so much on the Defensive side of the ball this off-season (Takeo Spikes LB, Sam Adams DT, Jeff Posey LB, Chris Kelsey DE, etc) that they could end up in the top 10 in the league in run defense. The second reason this is not a good way to evaluate a player's upcoming season is the fact that Championships are won in the last month of the season. A player could have a great schedule from September to early December but play three top five defenses in the last three weeks. This would turn a great fantasy season to a bust faster than you can say 'The Miami Dolphins'.

Do weigh a fantasy player's opponents during your fantasy playoffs into a Player's fantasy value.

As I stated earlier, a season is made or lost during the last month of the season (unless you are in a Total Point's league). You have to look at a fantasy player's schedule come your playoff time. An example of this is last year I traded for Clinton Portis in every league I could early in the season. Sure he was a good player at the time but his playoff matchups in my leagues were very nice. He played Kansas City, Oakland and Arizona in the last three games of the season. Oakland was the only Run defense of the three ranked in the top half of the league. Kansas City was ranked 24th against the run and Arizona was ranked 30th against the run. Portis did not disappoint. He averaged 136 yards rushing and 2 TDs in those games. He ended up carrying me to a championship. One of the first things I do when I rank the fantasy players at each position is look at their schedule in December. This can go a long way towards building a championship team.

Don't trade away a player at his lowest value.

This may sound logical but I have seen good fantasy owners do it time and time again. There really is no reason for this. Why trade away Randy Moss for say Troy Brown and San Diego's Defensive team (yes I saw someone do this at midseason in one of my leagues)? Is Troy Brown really going to make the difference for your team? The Answer is usually no! This was in a keeper league so it only makes the trade more foolish. You should wait for Moss to have a breakout game and then trade him. Certain players will always bounce back eventually. You also have to trust that you ranked a player at a certain level for a reason. It is long season and pushing the panic button too soon is a big mistake. Shaun Alexander is another good example of this. He had 500 rushing yards with a 3.4 yards per carry and 7 touchdowns in the first eight games. This includes the 139 yards rushing and 4 Tds he had against Minnesota in week four. There were many owners that traded him away before he came into form (which by coincidence was the same time Matt Hasselbeck broke out. Hmmmmmmmmm!). As most of you who traded for him know, Alexander had 615 yards rushing and 7 Tds in the last 6 games of the season. I bet he won a few championships for the owners smart enough to hang onto him.

Do Trade away good depth at a position to improve your starters.

Some people may disagree with this theory but I always try to trade away depth to upgrade one of my starters in Redraft leagues. My train of thought is if you can put more fantasy points on the board it will win you more games. I understand a good backup is great for bye weeks and good insurance because of an injury, but winning a bye week does not win a championship and if you want good insurance than acquire the real backups to your starters (Maurice Morris if you have Shaun Alexander, Marcel Shipp if you have Emmitt Smith, etc). When playoff time comes around you be glad you can start Clinton Portis and Corey Dillon instead of Portis and Antowain Smith. There is an old Fantasy sports adage, 'The team that gets the best player in a trade generally gets the best of the trade'. If you have an opportunity to upgrade your starters, you do it.

Don't trade with an owner who is weak at the position you are trading for.

This is common sense. If an owner has Marvin Harrison, Terry Glenn, J.J. Stokes, and Frank Sanders at wide receiver, do not try to get Marvin Harrison from him. All this does is makes Marvin Harrison's price go up. If he is going to give up Harrison, it better be worth it to him because without Harrison he is screwed, blued, and tattooed. In fact, the best way to go is trade for a player of a certain position from an owner who is deep at that position. This way he is more likely to give you the player at a better price since he can afford to do so. So if you think about it, who is more likely to give up Corey Dillon? An owner with Dillon, Travis Henry and Jamal Lewis or an owner with Dillon, Emmitt Smith and James Stewart. It is all about supply and demand. The more they have the less the price will be.

Don't worry about giving up too much in an off-season keeper league trade if it makes your keepers better.

A couple of years back I got flack for trading away Doug Flutie (starter with San Diego at the time), Rob Johnson (starter at Buffalo at the time) and Terrell Fletcher (throw in) for Terrell Davis (starter with Denver but coming off an injury plagued season). We start two quarterbacks in that league so a starting quarterback is like gold. My reasoning was simple. I had 12 keepers and we could only have 10 keepers. So basically I traded away a couple of cuts and a player for Terrell Davis. Now that trade turned out badly for both teams but the point is if a trade makes your keepers better for the upcoming season then do not worry about giving up too much. If not making the trade will make your team worse in the end than you are only hurting your own team. Keeper leagues can be a totally different animal when it comes to fantasy football.

Don't ever open trade negotiations with your final offer.

When first contacting an owner, you should never offer the minimum are willing to accept in the trade. This does not give them the flexibility for a counter offer. Most owners do not accept the first offer. They feel they are not getting the best of the deal unless they make a counter. You will also look like you are working with them if you lower your price. This may not be actually lowering the price in your eyes, but what they do not know will not hurt them. The best reason for asking for more than you are willing to accept is you may actually get it. This would be the best case scenario. You would get your player and you would not have to give up as much as you originally anticipated. This is the best of both worlds. Fantasy football can be like a business sale. You never show your actual hand until you are forced to.

Do build a team around good running backs.

A great foundation for a fantasy football team is Running backs. Stud running backs are the most valuable commodity a fantasy football owner can have. There are many reasons for this. The first reason is there are only so many feature running backs in the NFL anymore. There were only nine running backs that had over 300 carries a game in 2002. This makes it hard to get at least two of them on your team. It is back to the supply and demand theory. If there are only….Let's say 15 feature backs in the NFL, and every fantasy team starts two running backs in twelve team league then certain teams with be SOL (Sh*t out of luck). This brings us to the second reason for why being stocked at running back is the best way to go. Running backs are great trade bait. If you end up being weak at wide receiver, you could easily trade a stud running back for a lesser running back and a good wide receiver. The third reason for getting good running backs for your fantasy team is wide receivers and quarterbacks can be had later in a fantasy draft. The top 15 running backs from last year's statistics all went in the first four rounds of my fantasy draft (I only had one new draft, the rest were keeper or dynasty drafts). Wide receivers like Amani Toomer, Hines Ward, Peerless Price, Koren Robinson, and Chad Johnson to name a few all went after round eight of my draft. Quarterbacks like Tommy Maddox, Matt Hasselbeck, Kerry Collins, and Brad Johnson were either drafted later or not at all.

Don't ever forget that Fantasy Football is about Fun.

Some people tend forget this game is about fun. You play it because you want to win and have fun doing so. If it ever becomes like a tedious chore than it is time to get out. I have seen several Fantasy Football Experts become burnt out by Fantasy Football because it became a job to them. Play this game any way that makes it fun for you. If that means just doing only a month of fantasy football research instead of six months than so be it. Some love the whole off-season of preparation and others are more into not starting until training camps open up. If worse comes to worse, you can always email me for advice or insight!

:: comments to tim ludwig