- Watching movie previews and claiming to be a movie critic
- Acting like an expert rodeo clown on the premise you…
I acknowledge the claim you can be one of the best performing teams in your fantasy football league without watching more than a handful of regular season games (and mostly Vikings games...) in the last 5 years sounds absurd. I assure you though, I am fully committed to this strategy. More importantly, my wife fully supports the countless hours I save by not watching them as well :).
I started playing fantasy football in 2004 and have been playing ever since. Click the expandable text below to see a synopsis of my performances with a few comments. Otherwise the bottom line is listed right below.
Previous Results
Bottom line:
Playoffs made while watching games: 3/7
Playoffs made while not watching games: 10/12
The numbers speak for themselves. The most common objection I receive is I have gotten better as I have gained experience. My counter would be so have all my other league members, especially in the Warhawk league. In addition, the case I am presenting is the ability to win fantasy football leagues without watching games. Regardless of how I improved, I have consistently shown across multiple leagues, spanning multiple years, my strategy of not watching any games has been very successful.
I will showcase transparency by posting my research and plan before my drafts as in 2012. Due to the extensive amount of information and lengthy explanations, I plan to breakdown the topic into multiple posts as follows:
- Overview
- League Rules and Scoring System
- Risk Management Overview
- ADP Charts
- Tiers (initial player valuation)
- Research
- Update Tiers (second player valuation)
- Draft Map
- Mock Drafts
- Draft Day
Draft Strategy Overview –
Most of my time and effort goes into draft preparation. Draft preparation is to fantasy football what rodeo clowns are to bull riders: you don’t need clowns to ride a bull, but things get ugly without them.
My draft preparation starts ~1 month prior to my draft. I recommend budgeting 10-20 hours to complete draft preparation (more detailed estimates are found throughout ensuing posts). My time investment into fantasy football is heavily front loaded. I spend little time managing my team after the draft. Remember, I don’t watch games. The time I save not watching games is far more substantial than the initial draft preparation time investment.
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| Building my house of cards :) |
My edge in fantasy football over my competition comes not from picking winners (aka sleepers), but rather from managing risk and getting good value with each draft pick. I loosely ascribe to value based drafting and finding an optimal balance of risk and reward.
In summary, I want to get the best value for the players I am taking at my draft position. Getting good value is something everyone wants, however, in the following posts I will go into detail exactly how I maximize value and manage risk.
