Some Advice For The 2010 Fantasy Season

It’s mid-July again. That means that the 2010 season of fantasy football is nearly upon us.

If you’re a football fan, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. And if you’re the wife or serious girlfriend of a football fan, then you should know, too. Fantasy football has fast become a hallowed tradition in many circles. Everyone from college roommates to office colleagues to regular churchgoers to, uh, people who don’t go to church have gotten in on the game.

And it all really starts heating up in mid-July. All 32 teams are preparing for training camp and the preseason is right around the corner. Right now, seasoned fantasy pros are scouring the internet, the blogosphere, and even the Barnes & Noble magazine rack for all the of expert analysis that they can find, furiously studying every set of player projections and sleeper predictions, debating which players are better than others—just like Trekkies’ constant back and forth over Kirk and Picard.

Meanwhile, the “new guys” that got peer-pressured into joining their friends’ league are just starting to realize what they’ve gotten themselves into.

So if you’re one of these new guys—or just a normal guy looking to tweak his strategy this year—here are some basic tips that might prove useful for this year’s fantasy season.

• Don’t draft before the last week of the preseason. The first rule of fantasy football? Don’t talk about fantasy football. The second? Don’t hold your draft before the fourth preseason game. Don’t believe me? Well, when one of your prized picks in early August goes down with the infamous “preseason injury”, don’t look for my shoulder to cry on.
• Don’t draft any defense before Round 10. You know that voice in your head telling you to make sure you choose the best defense before anyone else does? Ignore it, now. Why? Because it’s an old wive’s tale. Even 2009’s best defenses—San Francisco, New Orleans, and the New York Jets—still had plenty of weeks in which they scored less than 10 fantasy points (and a few in which those “elite” D’s scored negative points). The only reason they’re point totals look impressive is that they also had a few weeks when they went nuts for 25+ points. That kind of up and down isn’t worth an early pick. Here’s the strategy for defense: play the matchup. Most weeks, there’s going to be a defense that will put up points against a hapless struggling team. Plenty of these defenses will be sitting on the waiver wire from week to week. So save your 5^th rounder for the sleeper RB or the potential breakout WR who you think can get you 10 points a week and spend your 10^th rounder on a defense. Chances are you’ll be switching it out for another D more than a few times.
• Speaking of the waiver wire, follow that thing closely. Fantasy football secret #1: The team that you draft before Week 1 will look completely different in Week 10. Some of your draftees will be busts, and some guys might get injured. But just like some draftees fizzle out, there are always plenty of undrafted players who rise to the occasion, and carry some lucky surfer of the waiver wire to the playoffs. Case in point: Shonn Greene of the New York Jets. He started 2009 as the team’s third running back, and after Leon Washington went down in Week 7 with an injury, all he did was rush for 520 yards and 2 touchdowns. Remember that he was playing behind Thomas Jones for most of that time. I’ll bet good money that Greene helped somebody make the playoffs last year.
• It’s OK to use outside resources. This one is definitely targeted at the “new guys”. If you’ve never played before, that’s OK. Don’t feel like you need to tough it out on your own just to prove yourself to the pros in your league. There are a lot of great fantasy resources that will help you pick the best lineup for your team week after week. Check out Matthew Berry’s weekly Love/Hate column over at ESPN, or Michael Fabiano’s “Start ‘Em, Sit ‘Em” feature at the NFL website. Literally, these guys are paid to give fantasy football advice to self-proclaimed “noobs” like you. Makes you feel good about your day job, doesn’t it?

Now, I’m not going to kid you and guarantee that if you follow these four tips, you’ll dominate your fantasy league. Fantasy football is as fortuitous as it is strategic. I’m just saying that they’re some good tips to follow. For those who’ve been around the fantasy football block before, maybe they’ll help you fine-tune your strategy this year; for newcomers, maybe they’ll even help you impress your friends and coworkers. I’m going to try to post some type of weekly fantasy football column from here on out, so if you like what you read here, please, come on back. We can even share advice if you’ve got some of your own.