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7/7/00
Email Tim
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In addition to our friends here at FFToday, there are websites
and magazines by the hundreds devoted to giving you every edge on
draft day. The day before the draft all of us are geniuses--we've
studied, analyzed, plotted rankings, even conducted our own mock
drafts (at least those of us without a life). We just know that
Marshall Faulk, Randy Moss, Brett Favre and Wesley Walls will soon
be ours. However, drafts can and do go bad, and this article is
geared towards those of us who have stunk up draft day. You can
still win it all.
I don't know about you, but I always enter draft day with an unwarranted
"feeling" that I will draft early (guaranteeing a super stud in
the first round) or very late (which means two close picks and two
studs out of the first two rounds). In my fourteen team league,
the 13th and 14th picks seem to always do well for that reason.
Then, reality sets in.
Almost certainly you get a middle of the round pick, with less available
than the high picks and yet more decisions to "blow" than the low
picks. I can tell you that the second round pick is a long time
coming around while second guessing yourself after your pick. Then
of course, it gets worse. Every player you want gets nabbed one
or two picks before your turn. You see a run on a given position
-- you panic and grab a lesser player at that position instead of
the right player for you at that moment of the draft. You forget
your pre-draft strategy, if you had one. You let the derision of
your fellow owners get to you as they laugh so hard at your selections
that they wet the floor. You lose your confidence. You may turn
to the solace of alcohol -- you think, "Hey, baseball season's only
six months away!"
Don't lose heart. All the above has happened to most of us, with
the possible exception of the floor-wetting. In the last four years
of our league, which drafts anew every year, I have made the playoffs
every year, made the Superbowl three times, and won it twice. And
I am known as a poor-to-average drafter by the other owners. I say
this not to toot my own horn (really) but to give you hope if your
own draft is less than successful. Here's how you can turn your
loser into a winner:
1. It's not as bad as it seems: Simply stated, you must believe
this. If you doubt me, remember this fact: In 1996, I won our league
even though the first running back I drafted was Aaron Hayden. Aaron
Hayden! (By the way, I know this undercuts my credibility severely.)
You will have at least one or two higher quality players on your
team, no matter how badly you've chosen. My 1996 team also had Brett
Favre. Furthermore, you will probably have one surprise player who
performs better than expected, as Michael Jackson did for my team.
These players will form the nucleus around whom you will rebuild
your team.
2. Pay particular attention to fielding your best team early
in the season: You still have ample time to fix your draft.
Just remember that every team is a little unsettled early in the
season as they find the right mix of players. Some players live
up to expectations, while some over- and some under-perform. Use
this time to your advantage! Make intelligent decisions in fielding
your week-to-week lineup. Of course, this means to be aware of bye
weeks, read the injury reports, etc. But more than this, you must
look at matchups, and maximize them. Two similar players are likely
to perform differently if one is up against the Bengals defense,
and one is up against the Ravens'. Early on, while you are improving
your team, try to steal one or two early wins against an unthinking,
contented, well-drafted team. All wins count in the end, and you
will be glad you paid attention early.
3. Be aggressive with free agents: Everyone is looking to
improve their teams, so you must be out in front. Be informed; pay
attention on Sunday to the notable performers in the league and
be ready to claim them right away. Look online and find out who
is injured and whether there are capable backups ready to step in.
In the NFL, injuries are a way of life. Few fantasy teams will go
through a season without one of their studs getting injured. Not
only will this bring them down to your level, you can use it to
affirmatively improve your team. For example, in 1998, Brad Johnson
(then with Minnesota) was a good pick at quarterback. When his owner
learned he had suffered his annual mortal injury, imagine his dismay
to learn another owner already nabbed Randall Cunningham. Same situation
occurred last year, without the injury, with Cunningham and George.
In fact, it happens all the time. Keep up-to-date on players who,
for whatever reason, are playing more, producing more. Your team
can go from bad to good to great by being on the cutting edge of
free agent pickups. And you will earn the respect (if not hatred)
of your fellow owners if you can consistently turn their misfortunes
to your benefit by being alert.
4. When trading, prepare to "overpay", but deal from surplus:
At first blush, you may think you do not have anything anyone else
would want in order to trade at all. On draft day this is probably
true, and I would recommend that you not try any trades on draft
day, unless you are the beneficiary of a free will gift. It is on
draft day that owners are most in love with their teams and have
no objective, on-the-field performances to dampen their enthusiasm.
If you succeed in trading at all, you are likely to be fleeced.
However, by following the above steps, your Week 2 or 3 team will
be a different story, as will theirs. Believe it or not, you can
obtain position surplus and parley it into starting player quality.
There are emerging players at every postition, not foreseen on draft
day, whom you can grab as free agents. However, nowhere is this
more true than at wide receiver. You can most easily build a quality
wide receiver corps through free agency. Remember the 1996 draft
where I drafted Aaron Hayden as my "top" running back? Well, I read
online that Jimmy Smith was on the rise in Jacksonville, and that
this number 3 receiver was cutting into star Andre Rison's time.
I read a little further and learned Jacksonville was thinking of
letting Rison go. I signed Smith, and the rest is history. He became
my best receiver. That enabled me to deal Curtis Conway (early,
before he went in the tank) and another running back for Jerome
Bettis. It made my team. In 1997 I signed Andre Rison and Rod Smith
as free agents just as they were beginning to pay dividends. This
gave me an extra receiver, and I parleyed it, along with Raymont
Harris, for Warrick Dunn in his rookie year. Not an earthshaking
trade, but it gave me quality starters in all skill positions, instead
of depth at one and surplus at another. Obviously, you have little
margin for error or injury with this strategy, but it is made necessary
by your poor draft. In the above trades, I probably overpaid each
time, but always from surplus, trading free agents nobody wanted
to draft for players who were drafted fairly high. Viewed retroactively,
you have received extra draft picks for free.
5. Year-to-year, learn and adapt: It feels great to turn
a loser into a winner over the course of a single season. However,
it gets a little harder to do every year. You will get a reputation
for making shrewd pickups and trades. Owners might be a little less
eager to trade with you. They will become more vigilant on the free
agent market. But, hey, you have a brain, too. Your drafting skills
will get better. You will increase your vigilance on free agents.
But most of all, people will always trade with you if you are an
honest dealer. If you don't lie, but are merely a better negotiator,
you will always have trading partners. The same talent evaluation
skills you use successfully one year will stay with you the next.
Take chances and be aggressive. I have never regretted taking a
risk and blowing it, though I have regretted not taking chances.
In addition to all your analysis, there is always a place for playing
a hunch.
Well, there it is -- a poor draft is not the end of the world. Keep
up hope, be aggressive, have fun, and you just might have a winner.
:: comments to tim
wichmer
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