First things first: this little post is not a guide to fantasy football drafting per se. I liken this more to a methodical approach to working out your drafting demons. If you take fantasy football seriously enough, as I and my competitive, American, comfortably living friends do, you will find doubt and insecurity lurking in your soul around this time of the year.
In every league involving physical friends (those people you see from time to time) there are those willing and unwilling to slowly divulge their draft strategies for the upcoming season. They may not come straight out and say which players they're leaning towards picking up so you're going to have to do some reading between the lines. If, for example, "Wide receivers aren't deep this season" so happens to be blurted out you can rest assured your friend will do one of two things: A) take a wide receiver very early (maybe too early), or B) quit on wide receivers completely and focusing on quarterbacks, running backs, and maybe even tight ends.
Because of your zen like qualities you will not make such brash judgments on the depth of positions. The cornerstone of your draft day strategy is not who, but how. Entering the temple where your draft takes place with certain players in mind is necessary and natural, but it shouldn't be mistaken for a strategy. Let's suppose you have 50 (50 is difficult!) players with a little check next to their names in some wasteland of a compartment belonging to your brain. Let us then look at the possibility that you may walk out of your draft without having drafted more than 2 of those players. This can, and most likely will, happen. You like Calvin Johnson? Well so do I and every single other person drafting unless your league is full of people who didn't watch football last season. Believe it or not, highlighting your preferred players names on a piece of paper bearing the names of every draftable player does not help unless you have a strategy.
What we're trying to do here is obtain an understanding of how we're drafting. Who you draft relies as much on you as on the nature of the draft you take part in. Only strategy can help you avoid falling into the chaos some of your friends will create. Panic can be draft death.
Personally, I have fallen in love with the idea of drafting the best available player. It's simple. I don't care about being weak at a position because I've drafted enough good players to make a trade aimed at fixing my flaws, if necessary. Knowing, or thinking you know, who the best available player is requires research or the memory of a season past. The inevitability of some of your picks turning out to be busts exists with this strategy as much as it does with others. So why not make some "educated" guesses?
Some enter the draft knowing what positions they feel are important to draft early rather than later. They usually have a pretty good idea of who they're taking in the 1st round regardless of their draft position. Once again, research, even light research, is your friend. If you're set on taking a quarterback in the 1st round and the top 3 (Rodgers, Brady, Breese) are taken before your pick, you simply move on to the next position. This may be running back, for example. Knowing that you'll be taking a quarterback followed by running backs/wide receivers for the next couple of rounds can be reassuring and vague enough to keep you from panicking.
I've witnessed fantasy footballers break a sweat over filling positions midway through the draft. "I need more wide receivers!" There's no logic behind this. For example, if you draft the minimum amount of running backs but have enough wide receivers to enable trades, you're fine. If you're lucky, you've weakened a couple of other teams at wide receiver and trade proposals will come to you.
Lastly, I'll take some weight off your shoulders and tell you that even if you "draft poorly" there is a chance you can build a winning team. I'm talking about work. The waiver wire is yours to pick at and trades are yours to make.
Best of luck and enjoy.
-Alex
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