It’s the end of August folks, where we are confronted with the hardest task of a year, getting 10 grown men to sync up their schedules for a fantasy football draft. Now I’m not the best fantasy player ever (2 championships and 2 last place finishes in 7 years) but I’ve done it enough to notice some patterns. Here are my rules, tips, tricks, and hypothetical questions for surviving and winning this fantasy football season. As a bonus I’ll throw in my list of top 300 players (PPR).
WARNING: If you are in one of my fantasy leagues PLEASE STOP READING, it is against the law to steal my draft strategy.
- Rule number 1: Nobody cares about your fantasy football team. Did you have a great draft? Did you get absolutely robbed by your kicker on Monday Night Football? Nobody cares, keep that shit to yourself. (that means you too Bill Simmons)
- Fantasy football isn’t even cool anymore, you want to do something cool, gamble like a real man. (now that gambling is legal maybe it’s not cool anyone either)
- Ask yourself the question “Does our friend group need a fantasy football league?” Like a Mike Greenberg radio tease the answer may surprise you. You do not. My high school friend group doesn’t have a FFL and guess what we’re doing fine. We don’t need fantasy football, if we want to talk about football we just talk about football, we don’t have to force it. (I say we, but really it’s just me keeping this friend group alive.)
- Hypothetically let’s say you have a work league fantasy football championship. If you have to get a retired employee, one of your suppliers, an employee who quit right before the busy season, and an employee who quit right before the busy season’s father to play so that you can play fantasy football. Maybe you should just let the league die. Again totally hypothetical, a situation I made up in my head.
- Have the draft in person. Ninety percent of the fun of fantasy football is drinking a beer and saying “great pick” or “you dog I was just gonna take him” or “Jay, Who did you just take? He wasn’t even on my list, you are the biggest idiot I know.” You know, fun little things to say to my friends.
- Play in a PPR league (preferably not on espn). You score more points in PPR and scoring points is fun. I don’t like espn because they separate you into divisions. Why? What’s the point? Real Sports have divisions because up until the 1970’s they traveled by train so you would play the local teams more often to reduce travel. Fantasy football is played over the internet so you don’t even travel at all! GET RID OF THE DIVISIONS ESPN! (please read that in a yelling voice, it angers me)
- Come up with a cool name: Now that you have a league come up with a cool name that has a pun. One of my names is “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Team” . My father’s team “Big Al’s Punters.” One that i just googled one “Stroudy with a Chance of Meatballs” (play on CJ Stroud)
- Make sure there are steaks (stakes) (I prefer T-bone). They don’t have to be high, even if it’s one dollar it’s something. Don’t want to gamble money because you have superior morals? First off the bible doesn’t say that gambling is a sin, second you can wager on an activity with your friends. Example: one time I lost and had to do hot yoga, which I wrote about here: https://bteamballer.com/2021/10/24/downward-dog-downward-spiral/ Second example, one time I won and my friend had to acknowledge the fact that she went to Johns Hopkins on facebook.
- Let the draft come to you. The best available is the best available player. Don’t reach. “The Reach” is a Stephen King short story about an old woman who lives her whole life on an Island without ever going to the mainland, not a description of your next pick.
- I don’t care what the experts say, having a quarterback who balls out is fun, so go ahead and take Lamar first overall.
- David Montgomery is going to get you 8 points. (Just looked it up, David Montgomery is only 26 years old, I’d swear this man is 32 and has been in the league for ten years.)
- You want the best player? (Eric you need to stop with the hypotheticals) Draft Nick Chubb plain and simple. He’s the best coolest player in the NFL, if I was in 3rd grade I’d bully my parents into buying me his jersey.
- Get a new defense every week. The Cardinals are going to be terrible this year, so just pick up whoever is playing the Cardinals.
- Once you have the starters filled, go ahead and take Justin Tucker before everyone else. I know I said don’t reach, but tell me who you’d rather have, the NFL’s leading points getter, or Jarvis Landry’s 3 yard outs? I rest my case.
- I normally am against drafting rookies but Jaxon Smith-Njigba is the second best player I’ve ever seen play in real life.(Ndamukong Suh is still number one) I saw him absolutely light it up against the greatest 3 win team in college football history and knew he was going to be special. I’ve been talking about drafting him since he was a true freshman at Ohio State. If I was in third grade I’d bully my aunt into buying me his jersey. (he plays for Seattle and my aunt lives in Seattle for the context of this joke)
- Let the winners back in! One time during covid I was a good friend and filled in for The Harrisburg High School Former Wrestlers Class of 2000 Fantasy Draft (you guys know my boys Tim and Nick) I destroyed this league, only lost like one game and won the championship. Next year I ask if I’m back in, nope gave away my spot. I WON IT’S NOW MY LEAGUE YOU CAN’T JUST NOT LET ME PLAY AGAIN! (actually a win(-)win, I don’t have to play fantasy football and get to complain about being wronged, Best of both worlds Hannah Montana)
- Just Have Fun. I complain every fall to my best friend (on paper) Adam that I don’t want to do fantasy football again, but you know what, if you put 5 minutes a week of effort and one trash talk text, it’s fun. And I never pass up a chance to take Mike Lynde’s money.
Good luck to everyone this year, and make sure to text everyone in your contacts on a weekly basis how the squad is doing.
bteamballer 