Preparing for your DRAFT.

There are basically three ways to get players onto your roster.

Auto Draft.

Live Draft.

Auctions.


I'm going to deal with Auto Drafting and Auctions first because MOST likely you will be doing a live draft.


AUTO DRAFTING


Auto draft is easy.
Normally, there is a list of players provided to you.
These players are in the order of importance (usually based on how many points they made last year, using your league's point system).

It is then up to you to rearrange the order if you want to attempt to get certain players.
I'm going to tell you right now that the majority of people just leave the list alone and let the auto pick do its thing. They just wait 'til after the draft to see who they got.

This can be to your advantage.
Know that most Auto Draft programs fill your roster by position first- meaning: after the program picks a QB for you it will make sure you meet all your "active" roster requirements are full before it picks your next QB.

Knowing this- you can kind of dictate what positions get picked first by grouping your picks by position in the order that you want them to happen.

Let's say I want to get an RB first.
I would put my top 5-6 RB choices together.

Then, let's say I wanted an WR next-
I would then list my top 5-6 WR choices (starting at 7 after the RBs).

I would then do the same with every other position (if there are two of the same positions to be filled- because most leagues let you run 2 RBs and 2 WRs) I might add a few more players to my list (instead of 5-6 I would do 8 or 9).

I've had a lot of success with this in Auto drafts.

But here is the important thing you MUST do in an Auto Draft:

YOU MUST BE SURE TO DELETE PLAYERS YOU DO NOT WANT ON YOUR TEAM FROM YOUR AUTO DRAFT LIST.

This is vital. The computer doesn't know that Sidney Rice is going to be out with a hip injury for half the season. It just knows that he kicked butt last season and would be a hell of a draft pick in round 3.
If you take Rice out of your list- then the computer would ignore him and pick another player who isn't going to be out the first 6 weeks of the year.
So, this is important.

Otherwise, Autodrafting is easy as pie. No need to worry. Really. That is why it is automatic. It is rare for the computer to completely mess up your draft.



AUCTIONS

I actually don't have a lot to say about these because I've only participated in a couple and the rules between them vary wildly.

All I can tell you is to know the value of the players and don't be afraid to go for it when it comes to the ones you want. Some people like to spend their money at the top on just a few players and then fill the rest of their roster with whatever fodder ends up at the bottom of the barrel- others like to have a more balanced team.

There's no evidence that one is greater than the other.

The best kind of auction is one where you and all your fellow players get together and have some food and drinks. Auctions are better parties than anything else. If you get the chance to do one, TAKE IT.


LIVE DRAFTS

Ahhhhh... now, this is where the meat of filling your roster is.
Most people participate in Live Drafts online. This is where- one by one, each manager gets a turn to pick a player.

When all the managers have picked a player, that is called a "Round".
So, if you are in a 12 team league- Picks 1-12 would be considered "Round One".

The turns in the Rounds "snake"- so that the picks in Round Two are in reverse order of the picks in Round One.

That means, in a twelve team league, Round One would have the managers pick their players in the order of 1-12 THEN in Round Two, the last team to pick (12) would pick first (yes, that is two picks in a row) followed by the 11th team, 10th team, 9th team, etc.
Until they got to Round Three, where the first team would pick again.

By now, you've read up on a few players and you've gotten an idea of who you want on your team- but before you get into the Draft Room- make sure you have a cheat sheet with you that lays out some backup plans because a Live Draft could very easily go differently than you expect and you don't want to pass up any opportunities or make any mistakes.

A good way to do this is to simply list on a piece of paper the players you think have value- I mean, outside of the ones you KNOW are valuable (you don't have to be told that Adrian Peterson is a good pick- if you are somehow 4th in the draft and the top 3 teams don't grab him for whatever reason...and that DOES happen, believe it or not...you WILL get him.

What I mean is- players that you might forget about if you get flustered. Like if you are interested in Jabar Gaffney- you could very easily get to the middle of the draft and not know who to pick. You forget about Jabar and you grab a Defense instead. Next thing you know Jabar is gone and you missed out.
A list would help you.

Now this is important.

You DEFINITELY need to get online and use one of the many Mock Draft setups that are available.
A Mock Draft allows you to go through the drafting process without having to commit to the team you picked. In other words- its a Live Draft practice room.

There are several and more and more every day but I'm gonna recommend two of them:

The one at CBS sports
and the one at the NFL



This is the best way to let you see how a Live Draft flows.
You will see how players are being drafted and best of all- there is a chat box at the bottom of the screen, so you can ask people WHY they made their picks when they made them.

You can Mock Draft as much as you want for FREE.
So get out there and do it before your draft is due!