Fantasy Draft Master

When does the 2009 Fantasy Football season start?
The actual start date of a fantasy football league depends entirely on the league itself. Most fantasy leagues coincide directly with the NFL season. Because of this, most fantasy football leagues begin on labor day weekend with their fantasy football draft. In most leagues, the 2009 fantasy football season starts September 4 through September 7. If you have not found a league by September 7th, don’t fret, there are plenty of other procrastinators. There will be leagues that are still drafting into the second week of the season. To find a league where you can play for free and find a draft right into the second week of the season, some good places are yahoo.com, espn.com and cbssports.com

How does a fantasy football draft work?
In redraft leagues the draft order is usually picked randomly. Some Fantasy Football Leagues use a software service to select the draft order, some fantasy leagues go old school and draw names out of a hat. Once the draft order is selected, the player who was lucky enough to draw number one selects the player that they want. Most drafts have a time limit per selection. This prevents players from taking an excessive amount of time on picks and causing the draft to last many hours. The selections go from first to last in the first round. Most leagues operate in a serpentine pattern so the second round would go last to first. This continues until all rosters are filled. Some fantasy football leagues have required numbers of positions. For example 2 Quarterbacks, 3 running-backs, etc. These requirements will differ from league to league.

Who should be the first pick in Fantasy football this year?
Conventional wisdom say that the first pick should be the best running-back available. With teams in the NFL increasingly using the running-back by committee approach in order to offer a change of pace and keep high production running-backs fresh and on the field in crunch time, this ideology may change but for now, it is sound. This being the case, the consensus first pick in the 2009 fantasy football draft and on most Fantasy football cheat sheets should be Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings. He is one the last true feature backs in the NFL and he amasses close to 1900 yards last season and 10 touchdowns. If you are in a league the awards 6 or 7 points for a quarterback’s thrown touchdowns, an argument could be made for Drew Brees as the number one pick but since most leagues only allow you to play one quarterback and several running-backs at the same time, stock piling running-backs is always a good idea if you can do it.

What is a serpentine draft?
A serpentine fantasy football draft is in which the draft order starts with round one going 1 – 10 and then round 2 proceeds with the player in position 10 starting the round and the player in position 1 finishing the round. This pattern continues until all rosters are filled. The reason for the serpentine draft pattern is to ensure that every player gets an equal opportunity to draft the best team. Without the back and forth progression, the player in the early positions would have a great advantage since they would always be drafting early in every round. With the serpentine draft order, the person who picks 1st would get picks 1 and then 20 and then 21 and then 40. The fantasy football player who picks 10th would select 10th and then 11th and then 30th and 31st. In a standard draft sequence the player who picks first would pick 1st, 11th, 21st, 31st, while the 10th position player would select 10th, 20th, 30th and 40th. The fantasy football play in position 10 of the fantasy draft would be at a serious disadvantage.

What is the best position to draft first in fantasy football?
The easy answer here is running back. Conventional wisdom is draft a running back first round, but this really does depend on the scoring system of your league and your draft position. If you are in a league that scores favorably for quarterbacks, and you are in picks 6 or later, you might want to think about Drew Brees or Peyton Manning or even Tom Brady if you are feeling confident about him after missing a whole season. In addition, if you are in a 12 or 16 team league and are in position 11 or later, you might even want to take a flyer on a Larry Fitzgerald or Andre Johnson or even Calvin Johnson. The drop off in quality of wide receiver after those guy go is big. The thing about wide receivers and to a lesser extent quarterbacks, is that they go in runs. If you are in a 16 person league and the person in position 11 take a wide receiver and the person is position 13 take a wide receiver, you might want to think about taking one of the top three wideouts if you are in the last couple spots in the draft. In a 10 person league, you can pretty safely say the most Fantasy football cheat sheets will tell you to take a running back but it is not always that simple.

Who is the best fantasy football quarterback?
For the past several seasons the quarterback on the top of almost everyones Fantasy football cheat sheet has been “Peyton Manning”. The guy is like the post office…always delivers. However, the last 2 years in a row there has been someone else at the top of the QB list when the season ended. Two years ago it was Tom Brady (breaking the touchdown record that Manning had set the season earlier) and last year it was Drew Brees taking the high powered New Orleans offense into the record book by almost breaking Dan Marino’s passing yards record. This year, who knows. The prognasticators have Brees as the number one pick but there might be someone new ascend to the top. If in doubt, Peyton Manning is always a safe bet.

Who is the best fantasy football running back?
This year, this will be a very tough question. The best fantasy football running back depends on several factors. The first is the system. With many teams going to the running back by committee or RBBC as it is often listed, it is difficult to find a feature back that gets 80% of the workload. There are a few of them left, Adrian Peterson (Min), Steven Jackson, Clinton Portis, Frank Gore and this year Maurice Jones Drew, to name a couple of marquis option. These are only good options if they stay healthy and health is the second key factor. With a position like running back in the NFL, these player are quite literally getting pounded week in and week out and if the player is a true feature back like the ones listed above who will get most of the workload, players do tend to breakdown. Many seasons it is enough to just stay healthy and you will be in the top of the running back class. The final key factor is play calling. With many offenses there is a even mix of run and pass, this usually works out well for the running back stats. Some offenses go as high as 70% pass, this is not so good. The only time this is good is if the offense is like the Philadelphia Eagles, where even if they do pass 70% of the time, 50% of the passes are to the running back. This is especially good if you are in a point per reception league. The best possible situation is to own a running back that is a true feature back in an offense that runs more than 55% of the time…and of course hopefully he stays healthy. This year the best option appears to be Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings.

Part 2- Coming Soon!!

What is a Fantasy football cheat sheet?