Any true fake football truther understands that the August fantasy frenzy tied to the NFL preseason makes these next four weeks the most exciting time of the year! It’s early in the draft season, so you still have time to nab a premium subscription and get a huge edge on your leaguemates by practicing countless quick custom mock drafts in our Draft Wizard, while learning how to dominate your draft with our Draft Kit.
Winning the draft doesn’t guarantee a title at the end of the year, but screwing it up can easily cost you a chance at fantasy glory. Getting a solid start to the season depends on avoiding as many draft mistakes as you can. A championship is well within reach if you have a successful draft coupled with solid roster management through December. To prevent you from walking into the drafting pitfalls that commonly trap fantasy owners, our featured experts are here to warn you of the most common draft mistakes and advise you on how to avoid them.
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Q. What specific draft mistake do you most commonly see, even among advanced fantasy owners?
“I think the most common mistake made by all fantasy owners is not staying true to the ranking sheet. A fantasy football draft moves at a rapid pace and fantasy owners have only a minute or two to make draft picks. It is one thing to do a mock draft with nothing on the line, it is another thing to maintain discipline when the real draft is happening and there is a run at quarterback in the sixth round and you swore you would not take one prior to the eighth round. Fantasy drafts are not only about selecting good players, but drafting them at a position where there is good value. It is about starting runs and anticipating runs, not reacting to runs and settling for players after the run on a position has started. Any draft where I have had buyer’s remorse at the end is because I was doing more reacting and settling than staying true to my board and taking players at the appropriate value.”
– Derek Lofland (FantasyPros)
“Spending early draft picks on quarterbacks is the one I’d like to point out. Sure, getting Patrick Mahomes or Andrew Luck is nice, but the quarterback position is crazy deep. There is not much of a difference in points between the second- or third-ranked quarterback compared to the 15th ranked quarterback. Plus, platooning players at the deep position can deliver fantasy production that’s just as good as many of the elite quarterbacks you would have to grab early in drafts. It just seems like a waste of a high-draft pick to go early on the quarterback position come draft day. You are likely better served grabbing a top running back or receiver with early picks. There is more uncertainty surrounding those positions, especially as the draft proceeds.”
– Jeff Paur (RTSports)
“One mistake that happens on draft day, even with avid fantasy owners, is losing track of what’s going on around you. A great way fantasy owners can squeeze even more value out of their drafts is being aware of what other teams have already done. This is especially important when picking close to either end of the draft. For example, if you’re picking from the ninth spot, you have a short turn until your next pick and you haven’t taken a tight end yet, then you should take a peek at the teams picking behind you. If all three teams, or even two of the three, have already addressed the tight end position, you’ll get more value in taking another position in that spot and picking up a tight end in the next round due to it being unlikely the teams behind you will take a second tight end.”
– Kyle August (FF Fellas)
“Drinking! Well, kidding. Drafts are about having a good time as well as the competition, but do not impair your judgment too much. On a tad more serious note, you must be flexible and adjust to the flow of the draft. I love getting three running backs within the first four rounds, but if the draft is running back heavy early and a top tier wide receiver is available, you take the wide receiver. Do not reach; it will catch up to you in the long run. In Round 1, I really want a running back. In my opinion, the sure-fire, could-be studs end after Round 2, so I want to go RB-RB, but with the 10th pick, Travis Kelce, Julio Jones, and Joe Mixon are the best available players. Mixon would be my third choice of these three players. You must play the board and get the best players early in drafts.”
– Ken Zalis (Pressbox)
“The most common mistake I see in fantasy football drafts would have to be overdrafting the “onesie” positions. Too often, people are tempted to draft multiple quarterbacks or tight ends when you only start one from each position. There isn’t a problem drafting a backup to your quarterback and/or tight end, but when you are drafting your second quarterback and tight end with quality wide receiver/running back options on the board, you’re vastly limiting your depth at the most important roster positions. I’m not saying don’t draft a second quarterback or tight end, but you should be focused on loading up at wide receiver and running back while lowering your priority of grabbing a backup quarterback or tight end until the much later rounds.”
– Nate Hamilton (Fantrax)
“Tunnel vision with positions is what I’m going with. In recent years, fantasy experts have shown us we don’t need to pick quarterbacks early and that’s become clear even for running backs. Handcuffing ourselves to positional restriction is dangerous. Instead, we need to adhere to overall value and team building. For example, unless you have a top-10 pick (and maybe even just top five), you will ideally remain completely open-minded as to how to begin your draft. Forcing a running back onto your roster because you feel you need a high-end back (even when that pick may not equate to one) could be ill-advised.”
– Kevin Roberts (Breaking Football)
“An all-too-common pitfall is not striking the right balance of safety and upside. I’ve tended to err on the overly cautious side, which can lead to a fifth-place finish with a roster full of Lamar Miller types who will perform to their ADP, but not win leagues. Conversely, other managers will take the Ricky Bobby approach (“if you ain’t first, you’re last”) and recklessly swing for the fences with every selection. A successful drafter must learn to strike the right balance, strategically building a balanced portfolio of boring cornerstones and boom-or-bust gambles.”
– Andrew Gould (FantasyPros)
“The worst trend I see is when fantasy owners feel the need to follow a trend. There’s plenty of time in home leagues where owners will panic if there are seven quarterbacks off the board by the fourth round. By that time, the elite ones are gone. You’re much better off waiting until everyone has their starter and landing someone in the 13-20 range. Did you know that the top three quarterbacks from last year were drafted outside the top-12 quarterbacks in last year’s drafts? Don’t panic. Just load up on running backs and wide receivers — you’ll be fine. ”
– Mike Tagliere (FantasyPros)
“It’s acceptable to draft one of the top quarterbacks or tight ends, but spending a pair of early-round picks on top guys at BOTH positions is a misstep. Running backs and wide receivers are the engine of your team, and you need to keep pouring in the early-round motor oil. People fall into the early-round quarterback/tight end trap because it makes their starting lineup look pretty. They forget the extent to which injuries and bye weeks test running back and wide receiver depth during the season. If you walk away from the table light at both of those positions, you’re dead money.”
– Pat Fitzmaurice (The Football Girl)
“I often see fantasy owners reach for a position in a draft after a small run instead of taking the best available. For example, an owner panics after Travis Kelce, Zach Ertz, and George Kittle come off the board since they feel like they will have a deficit at the position. As a result, they reach a couple rounds for their tight end and miss out on a solid starting option at running back or wide receiver. Adjust to your draft!”
– Zach Brunner (FlurrySports)
“If you use the Draft Assistant, this mistake won’t be quite as bad, but still, don’t do this. Don’t be the guy or gal who takes their FULL 90 seconds to make each pick because they’re desperately searching for a draftable player. Drafts move pretty fast. At least six or seven picks before your draft slot comes up; you need to be actively looking at the remaining players, figuring out who might fit, and making sure they’re in your queue. Because you know there is going to be that round where you think there are a ton of players left and then boom-boom-boom-boom, you have no idea who to pick. I may not have yet convinced you of the importance of using your queue. So, if you need another reason, you always need to guard against your toddler accidentally resetting your wireless router during the middle of your draft and making you auto-draft Chase Edmonds because you didn’t have anyone in your queue and the draft-room rankings are wonky.”
– Dan Harris (FantasyPros)
“If you’re a regular fantasy football player, you’ve probably played in leagues hosted by several different websites. So I don’t have to tell you that some of the rankings in the draft room are plum crazy. Sometimes I legitimately think that one of my leaguemates found a way to hack the draft room and put in fake player rankings for the rest of us. The draft room rankings can create several problems. I guarantee you, you’re going to be sitting there in the eighth round while your competitor drafts someone who should’ve gone three rounds earlier, but who you didn’t realize was still on the board. Just take the 20 minutes and personalize your rankings in your draft room with something you can trust. If you’re in a time crunch, just important the FantasyPros expert consensus rankings, so you’ll know there’s no chance of someone falling through the cracks that way.”
– Dan Harris (FantasyPros)
“Remember when that cool strategy of waiting to draft a quarterback came around? Right, well now so does everyone else. Most savvy fantasy owners know that waiting to draft a quarterback is a winning strategy. But, for the most part, quarterbacks aren’t going in the first or second round anymore. If everyone else is avoiding quarterbacks and the elite quarterbacks start lasting later than expected, you need to be at least open to pulling the trigger. I will stress that waiting on quarterback is a generally sound principle and one I will surely employ this year. But there comes a point when you need to consider taking a QB earlier than usual. And don’t lock yourself into avoiding that.”
– Dan Harris (FantasyPros)
“You know how most football fans who live outside of New England hate the Patriots? Well, now imagine you’re a die-hard Jets fan. Who then married a woman whose family is full of Patriot fans. Who then moved from New York to New England because ‘happy wife, happy life.’ How do you think this person feels about drafting Julian Edelman and other members of the Patriots? Well, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. That imaginary dude is me, and the way he feels about drafting Patriots is that it makes him feel like a ‘wicked mawron.’ But you know what? I owned LeGarrette Blount on a ton of teams in 2016 and rode his many lumbering one-yard touchdown runs to a championship or two. Because while it may rip apart a small piece of my soul to have root for one or more members of the Patriots each season, you do what you need to do to bring home fantasy glory. That means check your fandom in when entering the draft room.”
– Dan Harris (FantasyPros)
“Check the news. No matter how well-prepared you are, it won’t do much good if you’re drafting a quarterback who just fractured his back or tore up his knee earlier that day. Of course, sometimes life gets busy, and you won’t always hear about the breaking football injury news on the day of your draft. But do yourself a favor — follow @FantasyProsNFL on Twitter and just check the feed five minutes before your draft. If it’s clear of injury news, you’re good to go.”
– Dan Harris (FantasyPros)
Thank you to the experts for their mistakes to avoid. Be sure to give them a follow on Twitter for more great advice and check out our latest podcast below.
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