The Lazy Person’s Guide to Winning at Fantasy Football
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Oh no, your fantasy draft is this weekend and you haven’t done a damn thing to prepare yourself. How will you ever live down another pitiful year of losing $20 to Kevin from HR who spent the last month reading every fantasy football magazine he could get his hands on?
Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s quite easy. Follow a few simple rules and you can half-ass your way to meaningless glory.
I will note that this airtight advice applies to your typical office or friends and family fantasy league, with the most common set of scoring rules.
Lean on the rankings
What if I told you could pass a class without studying? Sounds pretty good. Now, it doesn’t work for Medieval Lit 302—you actually have to read the books; don’t ask me how I know that—but with your average fantasy league, you can waltz into the draft not having wasted a minute of your precious quarantine time doing the homework.* What makes this path to easy riches possible? The hard work of dedicated fantasy football professionals who parse through the minutiae of every NFL team to rank every single player in the league. Let those rankings be your guide.
In their overall player rankings last year, both Yahoo and ESPN had Saquon Barkley, Ezekiel Elliott, Alvin Kamara, and Christian McCaffrey as the top four players, in that order. McCaffrey was the best of any player at that position (and the second-best player overall, after Ravens QB Lamar Jackson, more in that in a second) with 355 points, using Pro Football Reference’s totals for standard leagues; Elliott was the fourth-best running back. Injuries limited Barkley and Kamara, but the Giants running back still finished with 1,003 rushing yards and six touchdowns—good enough for the 10th-best at his position—despite missing three games last year.
It’s a similar story with wide receivers. Michael Thomas of the Saints had the most fantasy points, and was ran
ked as one of the top four players at his position and top 10 overall. Injuries were more of a problem with the top-ranked receivers (like Davante Adams, Tyreek Hill, and Mike Evans), but they weren’t exactly dead weight when they were in the lineup last year.
McCaffrey is, across the board, the top-ranked player in fantasy this year. I don’t know how much Carolina’s offense is going to change this season, but he’s a unicorn in the modern NFL—he plays a ton of snaps and produces top-five numbers in rushing and receiving.
Which rankings you use really doesn’t matter. Go with the ones you know, or even the ones at the top the search results. (I ignore the statistical predictions included with fantasy rankings.) And while no single list is going to perfectly match actual results, they’re close enough to give you a guide to follow and give you reliable starters for at least three or four spots in your lineup, the players you can automatically start every week.
One caveat to using rankings …
And here’s the dual-threat flea flicker I’m gonna throw at you. You have to go pretty far down the rankings before you start to see quarterbacks. That’s because even the punchline quarterbacks can still produce fantasy points (McCaffrey was the only skill player with more fantasy points than Jameis Winston last year … Jameis. Winston). Whereas there aren’t many three-down running backs who can roll up 1,000 yards and at least half a dozen touchdowns. So you can wait until the middle rounds to get a signal caller or even phone it in and auto draft a guy who’s fine.
However, I believe it’s worth grabbing one particular quarterback early: Lamar Jackson. He had 415 fantasy points last season, 61 more than McCaffrey. Even in PPR leagues he was the second-best producer. Jackson topped 30 points in seven games last season, the kind of numbers that can make or break your Week 12 matchup against Ken from accounting (that smug asshole). Dak Prescott and Russell Wilson, the next highest-producing QBs, each had two games with more than 30 points. He’s worth a first-round pick.
Deshaun Watson matched Jackson with seven rushing touchdowns last season. I think he’s capable of more than 26 passing scores too, but Bill O’Brien is very much one of those coaches who chooses his scheme over just letting his best players play. So maybe wait a few rounds to grab him. Josh Allen’s nine rushing touchdowns, best among QBs last year, had a lot to do with him not being that great of a passer, which limits his fantasy value. I think Cardinals QB Kyler Murray is poised for a big breakout this season, with an impressive supporting cast, a lot of talent, and an offensive-minded coach.
Don’t worry about the sleepers
It’s hard to predict breakout players in the NFL. Some get a chance because the guy in front of him gets injured. Sometimes a coach finds a way to get a particular player in a spot to succeed. And sometimes it all just clicks, seemingly out of nowhere, and a player has a big season.
While it’s not impossible to see those things coming, it takes a lot of time to really dig into the stats and trends to figure that all out. This year’s worse because there was no preseason to help identify a few potential up and comers (not that preseason hype is really all that valuable in the first place.) And the whole point of this little blog is to help you phone in a winning effort in your office fantasy football league.
Most of the aforementioned fantasy experts will usually publish a list of breakout and sleeper picks. It’s worth your time to read those. However, some of those predictions are reflected in the rankings. And in most of your beer leagues, a lot of breakout players are going to be sitting on the waiver wire, just waiting for you to pick them up some Wednesday morning when you most definitely have better things to do.
Don’t waste valuable roster spots on late-round picks
This is a direct correlation to the point above. Most people tend to hold on to their super sneaky sleeper picks who aren’t living up to the preseason hype because they were so smart drafting that guy with a 10th-round pick and absolutely certain he’s going to have a 30-point game any week now. Self-assurance is a helluva drug. Meanwhile, you’re there to scoop up the player who actually is having a breakout season because you give zero fucks about the dead weight on your reserve list. Don’t hold on to an extra quarterback or tight end for eight weeks thinking you can trade him—you can’t because most people who play fantasy football suck at making deals.
You need that flexibility for your roster throughout the season. And let’s face it, scrolling through the waiver wire for five hours on a Tuesday is a great way to make the work day go by faster.
Maintain your lineup
This is where you actually have to do some work, sorry. You have to find replacements during bye weeks, and because it’s a sport in which a few people make unimaginable wealth off the physical pain of their employees, there will be injuries. Don’t forget to make lineup adjustments.
At least half of the people in your uncle’s league will not do this because they forget, they don’t give a shit after two weeks, or they’d rather lose than have someone other than the third-best receiver from their beloved Raiders they drafted in the second round.
Nothing will give you a bigger edge than just making sure all your players are really playing each week.
Don’t overthink it
Look at you, so smart, you benched Saquon Barkley this week because the Giants are playing the NFL’s best run defense. Instead, you wisely started one of New England’s no-name backs because he’s so perfect against their opponent that week. You’re the SaHell, someone should be paying YOU for advice
Don’t play the matchups. When you start scheming like Sean McVay, you will lose. Just like when Sean McVay thought he’d outsmart Bill Belichick by leaving Todd Gurley on the bench in the Super Bowl. GOOD STRAT, WUNDERKID!
That’s it, the path of least resistance to dominating your fantasy football league.