Changing How You Think About Drafts

Sleepers. Break out candidates. Busts. If you want to be successful year in and year out with your fantasy drafts you need to change the framework of how you think about them. Thinking about particular players and pigeonholing them in these roles will hamstring you throughout your drafts. You can like or dislike players all you want, but if you allow your feelings to cloud your thoughts on drafting a player you've already lost a step. It is about the value versus upside in relation to where the player is picked.

I'll use a personal example. Two years ago, I had Tony Romo. He did alright for me all year and I made it to the championship round of my league. He broke his hand that week and had a grand total 0.00 fantasy points. I lost by less than 4 (LeSean McCoy had about six points for me as well, talk about shitty luck). I don't like Romo. I'm not a fan of the Cowboys, and I don't enjoy watching him play. The next year I told myself I was not going to draft him under any circumstances. I get to my draft, and I'm sitting there in the 7th round with no quarterback and Romo staring me in the eyes. At that point, in the 7th round, with no quarterback, I decided to swallow my pride and draft Romo because the value for him that late in my draft was too good to pass up. I ended up having a battle in the semi finals of the playoffs and just losing. Fantasy football playoffs are a shit show once you make them anyway. But seriously. Fuck Tony Romo (for fantasy). I am NOT drafting him this year.

If you drafted Ryan Mathews last year in the first or second round, he was a bust. If you grabbed him in the fourth or fifth round(admittedly you probably didn't), he will have performed up to par to his draft position. This year, I believe he should be a late first or second round pick, and he's being drafted as late as the 5th! Even if you've been burnt by Mathews in the past, why would you pass up on this ridiculous deal. This is like companies buying thousands of dollars of debt for pennies on the dollar for just the chance of the person in debt to pay them back. If you want to argue, "Oh he's injury prone," I would disagree. Rob Gronkowski is injury prone. He's had the same injury and multiple surgeries in the same places. Mathews hasn't hurt the same part of his body once. It's about the value of risk versus reward, and right now burning a fourth or fifth round pick on Ryan Mathews is worth the potential reward.

Don't get stuck with telling yourself, "I have to get a running back with my first pick," or, "If I don't have a quarterback by the 6th round I'm screwed,". No. If you are drafting players for value and not position, you will have the advantage. You can trade for your needs. Be fluid in your drafts. Every draft is different, and pick accordingly.