Fantasy Football 2017 - 10 Tips & Tricks to Win Your League

has an IR spot. Okay, it's eligible for any player that is listed as out or IR. There are players. Devante Booker is one of them. Will Fuller is one of them this year. More will show up. And more will show up in the next few weeks. Sadly. There are players that if you are in your draft and you're in the last round, and let's say we know for sure Will Fuller's coming back in two months. Now, he's not a great example with the quarterback. But there will be players. Antonio Gates was one a couple years ago. I'm trying to remember the running back from

The Giants was one of them. Oh, it took them two months to come back into the regular season. But the point is this. If you have an IR spot, you can draft a player, slide them on your IR and then sign another guy. It lets you maximize your roster, right? Maybe your league doesn't force you to roster a kicker in defense at your draft. So don't draft a kicker in a defense. Draft two more flyers, two more players that could explode in preseason week two, week three.

and then all of a sudden you have more guys on your bench. Just wait until the regular season. Yeah, we say don't draft a handcuff because they're not going to be great in week one. But that's the situation where, hey, take Robert Turbin with your last pick instead of a defense. You'll drop them before the season starts to pick up a defense to play. But should Frank Gore go down in those two weeks, then you got some. I'll add to that in season, if you don't need to keep a kicker in defense on your roster by requirement,

Kick those off at the end of the week. Put two more of those handcuffs on your bench. Wait until Friday, just in case something happens. It gives you another chance at maximizing your roster. And same thing goes for, you know, what are the maximums at each position allowed in your league? If you know that, then you know what your league mates are going to be able to do. Are there any other league rules that you can...

maximize slash exploit exploit um but look know your surroundings and know your league and it doesn't take a whole lot of effort to do that if there's something you don't know ask your commission get clarity figure it out beforehand because there are ways that you can take advantage of people that don't know that in your league or people that aren't

as diligent and willing to do that so yeah before we get to uh before we get to uh before we get to number five here in the top five five through one yeah definitely want to thank today sponsor fantasy champs they are uh the premium look this is basically a a tip as well like tip uh you know one a when when you destroy and win your league when that happens you need to uh

commemorate that. You need to get that trophy. You need to put something up on that wall. I like the rings. Okay. When you win, you put a ring on it, right? Doesn't Beyonce have a song about it? She certainly did. I mean, it's, it not only displays your championship, but also it can be a protective item in a pinch. Yeah. So, look, if you won a hashtag foot clan title last year, head over to fantasy champs.com. Make sure you can use the promo code baller to save 10%. Their rings are great. And check out their ring display.

boxes. We've got one of those in here. We should get this in the set somehow. Oh, so got the mirror back and the nice acrylic stand. Just check it out. You will be impressed if you've already got a ring, display it. Fantasychamps.com. Yeah, and use the promo code ballers.

Ballers. Ballers. Get that 10% off. Also, we want to remind you about the ultimate draft kit. If you don't have it yet, hop in there. We got all our projections. We got the video profiles. We have consistency charts. So at a glance, you can see which guys have been consistent, not only over last year, but over the course of their career. Case you want to balance your roster, right? You want to get your roster. It's all about that construction of the roster. Yeah, you want to balance it out. And they're just ever updated, always updated.

Better Than a New Magazine, Ultimate DraftKit.com. Get that right now. Get prepped up for your draft. Let's go ahead and get back into the countdown. Number five. All right, number five. This is, I told you to name this, drop it like as hot. You talk to, but it's Drop Watch. To father time over there. Drop watch. Which does, in fairness, make a lot more sense to what this tip is.

So the drop watch. I mean, you're welcome that I changed the name. Right. There you go. This is really, really simple, but it is a, it's a tip that everybody that's played before, you're going to hear this, you're going to go, yes, I know, I need to do this better. So be better. So be better. Watch the players that are dropped. Okay, every day, you know, if you're in a fab league or maybe even if it's a waiver wire order priority thing, so long as it runs daily, every day you come and you go, oh, who was taken?

Who did players bid on? What prices did they go? But you know what you're not paying attention to too often is who did that other idiot drop to pick up this guy? And there's nothing more frustrating than when all of a sudden I come in and I see that Mike has picked up a player that I didn't notice was dropped. And I go, what? You.

You got it for free off the waivers. How did I miss that? So whatever you have to do, just make it a habit in your routine or, you know, set a little daily timer if you've got one of those daily waiver wire times of days that your system runs. But when you're looking at that, pay attention to who has been dropped every year.

I mean, you go back and look at who won the championship last year, and you're going to see they picked up some guys on the waiver wires that other fools dropped. You know what it is? Like when I dropped Joyc Bell and you. I'll say Jason's talking to himself right now. Yeah, this is a tip to me. Jason, pay attention to this one. There are two big times when I think that this is really important. One is when the waivers process, maybe it's Wednesday morning, and you see the giant list of names that people signed and you just don't make the extra click to go look at the.

equal amount of players dropped. That is an important time. The other time that is so, so important, it's Sunday morning when people sign a player to play that day, everybody gets caught up in all the big names of who performed that weekend, and those are your waiver wire pickups. And nobody notices that there were three or four guys dropped that also should be considered in that list, but no one's talking about them because on Sunday, five names blew up, and those are the guys that become your waiver wire pickups, and you don't think about these guys. And the reality is that,

When those Sunday drops happen, a lot of times those are better players being dropped because of necessity. They're going, shoot, I had a buy week. I had this other injury. I don't want to drop this guy. Yeah, they try to sneak drop. Don't let them sneak drop on you. Drop watch. Drop it like us, huh? Number four. What is happening? Great Scott. Thank you so much, Christopher, because we're talking about backs to the future. Number four is.

Because running backs are crucial. They are crucial to your team and not. And to your future. Yes. Into your future. Hashtag foot clan title. And we're not just talking about all running backs. You're talking about the top, the top running backs. And when I leave a draft, of course, no, you're going to. Everyone's happy to clap. You're out the door. Yeah, of course. It's a good thing. We've already talked about know your surroundings, know your league settings, and your scoring formats. But.

Almost always, I will leave my draft with more running backs than I have wide receivers because I know the value of a top running back. And I know that those middle tier wide receivers are a dime a dozen. They are on the waiver wire. They are free to just grab and play every single week. We made the joke about trying to stream a top running back and it's impossible. You can stream your wide receiver three. They are readily available.

for you. Meanwhile, when you look at the final scoring of running backs, a cliff happens every single gear right around the edge of the running back twos while you see the wide receiver scoring. It just ticks down. It's a nice little staircase. Meanwhile, there's the cliff of death for the running backs, and that's why I load up on them, especially like...

I don't want to draft a kicker. I don't want to draft the defense. I want running backs who can possibly get an opportunity because when that opportunity comes, everyone's throwing their entire fab at these players. And I want them already on my roster. I want Robert Turbin on my roster in case something happens to Frank Gore. I want James Connor on my bench already in case something happens to Levy on Bell because...

Once the injury has happened to a star player, it's already too late. It's too late. You've lost unless you have all your fab. Another example of that would be a guy like Mark Ingram who's slipping to the 10th round and a lot of draft, where you have the choice. You can draft maybe your wide receiver 3 there, or you can take a shot on a guy whose role doesn't seem to be like written in stone, but is a productive and has been a productive running back. That's one of my problems is I don't like drafting a guy without a defined role.

But you've shown year in and year out that having those guys in your bench has always played dividends, paid out dividends. Yeah, I mean, if you look at the alternative, you know, you finish your draft, you go into week one and all of a sudden you need, you know, like you said about the waiver wire, you need to pick someone up to start. Okay, pick up Robbie Anderson. He, you know, he's going to be out there. He's probably the number one wide receiver. Play him and you'll get points. Pick up Cameron Artist Payne and like.

Don't do that. Yeah, no, that's my point. It's like when you're after after your draft, you are never going to be in a situation where you're sad that you've got enough running backs because of the waiver wire. You don't need as many wide receivers as you think. When you're in those middle late rounds and you're loading up on wide receivers, you're doing it wrong. When I make a trade, if I'm giving away a running back, I always get a running back.

in return. Maybe it's not the same level or same quality of running back, but I want someone who I can at least start because they're all going to be rostered. Finding running backs is so very difficult throughout the year. And when I say that, of course, the waiver wire guys pop up, but everyone now is targeting that running back. Your competition is 11 other people.

instead of no one. Right. And all this advice is still, again, for, you know, the vast majority of the 95% of leagues. But if you are in a full PPR, three wide receiver, only two running back, two flex, then sure. You know, you need to know your league. It doesn't work for every league. But usually this is right. All right. Let's move on. Number three. All right, I got this one.

Then I named it master of trades. How can you be the master of trades? Trading is one of my favorite things. I've always got the most transactions completed in our league because, look, part of it is persistence, right? And that doesn't mean you're wearing somebody down with terrible offers, but it means that you're being creative. It means you're wearing everyone down. It means you're being creative repeatedly. That's what persistence.

I feel like to interject here, I actually thought about this the other day, nothing related to this show or this tip. But I was thinking, you just put in so much more time looking at how to improve your team. You know, you look at other rosters and think, how can I make my team better? You just do that a whole lot more than most people. So that's part of that's persistence. Andy takes the approach. He's like, you know how realtors? Cold.

cold mail, snail mail out, the flyers like, hey, you think about selling your house? You're like, no, because 99 out of 100 people are like, no, I'm not thinking about, but there's that one person. That one, Andy Nabs them. And when you find that one person is really valuable for you. Yeah, I, maybe I get, maybe I get a little bit of excitement out of the reactions of league mates when trades go down. But look, here's the deal.

Remember the value, here's one of the keys to being a master of trades. Remember the value of a two for one and a three for two trade where you are giving up more pieces than you are getting in return. Because what this allows you to accomplish in a two for one trade is one, you're always getting the best player in the deal. Two, you have more of an ability to meet another team's needs. If you look at your opponent and you say, wow, they've got a hole here and they've got a hole here, I'm going to give them a couple of pieces. I'm going to make the case to them.

that this fills a couple needs and I'm going to get the best player in return. Then I guess what you got? You got an open roster spot. In a two for one, a three for two, you've got a spot, even a three for one. You've got two spots that you can use the waiver wire and all of your research and, you know, players that you can pick up and take flyers on. It's not really a two for one because you could just substitute that waiver wire pickup name in for your blank spot. So two for one and three for one trades.