The Sandlot

I know its only July, but football season is a mere two months away, which means fantasy football drafts are only a month away. After a disappointing third place finish last season (thanks a lot kicker) I'm looking to rebound and take the trophy home again this year.

I've had a fair amount of success in the fantasy realm the last few years. Part of that is preparation. Typically, I start pre-ranking players and getting notes on injuries and trade movements months before draft day. The other part, is a set of rules I try to strictly adhere to on draft day. Some of these are common sense rules, others are more quirky rules you may not agree with. However, as I will illustrate, they exist for valid reasons. I hesitate posting this because my league mates will see this, but I think they know about them anyways.

1. Never draft a running QB. If you didn't follow this rule last year (like Mo who made Vince Young his starting QB) then you got burned bad. Young got benched after a couple games, as did Tavaris Jackson, Jason Campbell stunk the joint up like usual as did JaMarcuss Russel. Only McNabb did decent though he did get benched mid game.
2. Never draft a Denver RB. You just cant predict which one of the seven will start and they're all likely to get a turn. People do though, because Denver RB's have great games. Its just a crap shoot trying to guess which one will be the guy.
3. Try to stay away from old guys. It doesn't really matter the position but once NFL players hit 30 their performance drops. RB's are the most vulnerable to this since they take the most punishment. QB's are the safest bet, but safe doesn't win titles.
4. Stay away from injury prone players. Injuries happen in football. Rarely does any player make it through an entire season without getting banged up a little. That's OK. Its the guys who miss multiple games year in and year out that you want to stay away from.
5. Never take a D or K till the last couple rounds. You can make cases for taking a D/ST unit mid-draft, but a kicker should never be taken before the final round. Its nearly impossible to predict what kicker will be the best since a different guy takes that honor each year and there's plenty of better players you can draft in round 15 (out of 18) than a kicker who could potentially help your team like adding more depth at RB or WR with rookies, sleepers or just dependable back ups for when you lose a player to injury.
6. Don't draft players from crap teams. Sometimes you have to gamble and ignore this one because you don't have a choice. Like last year when I took Steven Jackson in the first round despite the fact he plays for the god awful Rams but at #6 it was too early to go WR and he was the best RB left. (You could say go QB there but I like to take an RB with my first round pick and I got Brees in round 2 anyways) Its tough for even a great player to succeed on a crappy team because odds are hes the only good player on that team and thus his opponents focus only on stopping him week in and week out.