Fantasy football is hard.
Yes, you need a bit of luck. Ideally, you need healthy players. If possible, you need to avoid the highest-scoring opponent in your league every single week. (I’m definitely not speaking from personal pain.) But ultimately, you need to put together a successful draft — and properly play the waiver wire and trade market in-season.
Last season, Christian McCaffrey and Tyreek Hill were consensus top-two picks in fantasy. McCaffrey was absent the first two months with Achilles tendinitis, showed up for four relatively lackluster games, and then missed the rest of the season with a knee sprain. Meanwhile, Hill played a full 17 games but busted to a baffling degree, finishing with 959 receiving yards and six touchdowns as the fantasy WR18. Meanwhile, some of 2024’s best players — like Brock Bowers (TE1) and Baker Mayfield (QB4) — were drafted after the first eight rounds.
So, what do you do? Well, you’ve come to the right place. In fact, I’ve got nine things you should do … and nine more you shouldn’t. This is the third annual edition of my fantasy football DOs and DON’Ts column, and it’s got just about everything you need to prepare for the challenging rigors of your own fantasy draft.
Buckle up, grab some popcorn, hold onto your hats, deploy some other random idiom about preparation … I’ll see you in Week 17 for the ‘ship (because, bonus tip, you should never have your title match in Week 18).
NOTE: Discussions of rounds, ADPs, etc. are based on 12-team PPR leagues, using NFL.com ADP.
