August 10, 2018
The game of fantasy football and the analysis that drives it has changed dramatically over the past decade, with not only the quantity of analysis exploding, but the quality changing amid an analytics takeover of the industry. The casual fantasy player is still out there, but many fantasy footballers are far more savvy today than they were five or ten years ago. Below, our consultants explain how their approach to fantasy football drafts has changed in recent years. Sign up for our services today and get these consultants by your side while you draft.
Denny Carter
I come across very few leagues today in which fantasy players take defenses and kickers in the middle rounds, whereas that happened frequently when we started Draft Day Consultants in 2014. It seems the devaluing of those positions has finally broken through, so one can't rely on league mates throwing away picks on kickers and defenses in the eighth or ninth or tenth rounds. The late-round QB approach seems to have taken hold in most leagues; if you want an every-week starting quarterback, you can likely wait until the double-digit rounds. That was certainly not the case five years ago, when quarterback runs in the third and fourth rounds would leave nothing but waiver wire fodder available by the back half of the draft. There is one way in which fantasy drafts have not changed: people are still very much susceptible to positional runs, especially with running back and receiver. You can almost feel the fear and panic in the draft room once two or three tight ends go off the draft board, for instance. The opportunity to cut against the grain of these positional runs is as viable today as it was a decade ago.
Greg Smith
The fantasy community becoming sharper has made me more player agnostic. I don't lock in on personal favorites as often these days because "my guys" have become everyone's guys. And because smarter players are generating smarter ADP with things like regression baked into player costs, I more often find myself drafting based on value relative to ADP. When I'm surprised a particular player is still available at a given spot in the draft (because he usually goes earlier in drafts), I'm likely to pounce if I need that position, with less regard for how much I like the player. Mining for value, letting the draft come to you -- call it what you want -- I'm trying to approach each draft and each pick with an open mind because the players I like most won't be there a lot of the time, and I need to be ready to evaluate and draft other players.
Peter Overzet
Most of the redraft leagues I play in are long-standing home, work, and friend leagues so my approach has changed over the years to try to exploit specific tendencies and trends within those leagues. Everyone is so up to date on NFL news and basic fantasy strategy that there isn't much of an edge. I spend a lot of time looking at the default rankings on the sites hosting the draft and trying to gauge how my opponents will be using those. At the very least, they will have a psychological anchoring effect for how much people are willing to bid. And in some cases, league mates will shockingly use those default rankings as gospel and repeatedly draft "best" player available. For auction leagues, I find it incredibly informative to look at previous years' drafts to get a gauge on how much certain types of players go for. Playing the meta game within fantasy as it relates to your opponents is my favorite way to get an advantage in 2018 drafts.
Chris Allen
My approach to redraft leagues has become much more structured. Roster construction has become something I monitor much more closely with the increasing popularity of best ball leagues. The formats are inherently different, but I approach building my team the same way from an expended draft capital perspective. A WR heavy start that leads to identifying value RBs in Rounds 4-6. With a deeper understanding of player value and how I can build a core, all strategies become viable. Most importantly, it allows me to be flexible. My drafts don't hinge on a specific player being available. I can pivot and address the position of need when necessary, without sacrificing opportunity cost.
And ... We're Back
We started this little outfit, Draft Day Consultants, four years ago, when half the response to a fantasy football consultation service included weirdly angry tweets and a fair bit of internet laughter -- enough to induce more than a modicum of self doubt.
But here we are, headed into our fifth NFL season, with dynasty, keeper, and re-draft clients returning for our various offerings. While no one wants to use a megaphone from the rooftop to declare their use of DDC services -- this was never in the marketing plan -- our return clients are grateful and offer praise for the consultants with whom they've worked for years.
I've worked with a handful of clients every season since we started this thing in 2014. While most of our dialogue (over text, email, phone, and carrier pigeon) is dedicated to trade offers and waiver wire pickups, we also chat about family and work and life's mundanities. I know these clients, and they know me. We've build trust between each other over the years, and no one has a freak out if their fantasy squad loses two or three straight. It happens. We're trying to make the playoffs. From there, anything can happen, as every vanquished No. 1 seed can attest.
Some DDC clients are intensely interested in learning about the processes their consultants use to create and maintain competitive teams. Others say they're far too busy to pay sufficient attention to their fantasy team -- that's where we come in. And either way -- whether the client wants to know the reasoning behind every wire transaction or doesn't much care -- it's their team, and they get final say. I've disagreed with plenty of decisions my clients have made; sometimes they're right and I'm wrong, sometimes the roles are flipped. Whatever the outcome, the client knows a DDC consultant isn't there to stage a fake football coup. It's the client's team.
My time as a DDC consultant has included moments of absolute glory -- a last minute touchdown in 2016 to win a title game -- along with utter agony, like the Monday night interception that delivered a .3-point semifinal loss to a client's team. My clients have won and lost championship games, they've been blown out in the first round of the playoffs, they've been stunned in a semifinal matchup by a team that lost its starting quarterback and tight end to injury. It's all been part of a worthwhile experience -- one I hope to continue this year, next year, and maybe even when aliens reveal that we are but pixels in their vast computer simulation.
Are we lobbying Congress to make it a requirement for all fantasy footballers to sign up for DDC services? Maybe. But in the meantime, if you want to prepare, draft, and manage with one of your favorite fantasy football analysts, sign up today and experience the edge we can give you in 2018.
3 Reasons Fantasy Footballers Hire Draft Day Consultants
The question arises every summer on the Twitter Machine: why would anyone need a fantasy football consultant?
It's a fair question. I don't begrudge anyone for asking why a fellow fantasy footballer would hire a fantasy analyst to help them prepare for a draft and work with said analyst during a live, online draft. It was a novel concept before Draft Day Consultants launched in spring 2014, unless I'm woefully unaware of a similar service.
Below are the most common reasons folks come to Draft Day Consultants for pre-draft, in-draft, and season-long consultation. You can always email draftdayconsultants@gmail.com if you have your own queries about DDC.
1) People have busy lives: many clients enjoy fantasy football as a game that keeps them watching NFL games throughout the season. They like it because it gives them something to talk about with friends, colleagues and coworkers. They either don't have the time or desire to drill down into the ocean of fantasy analysis every summer. Who can blame them? Studying up on every player and preseason happening and ADP isn't their idea of time well spent. So they come to us, and in an hour or so, we can distill the tidal wave of information and hammer out a plan for how best to approach a fantasy football draft. This includes talking to clients about whether their league mates are savvy/experienced, how they usually draft, how many teams are in the league, and a variety of league settings that fluctuate from client to client. Understanding the particulars of a fantasy league is the foundation of dominating a draft.
2) Some DDC clients tell us they want a self-check in the draft room. "I tend to get caught up in positional runs," one client told me last summer, describing the oh-so-common tendency to panic and draft a tight end, for example, just because tight ends are suddenly flying off the draft board. It's during those runs, of course, that one can find value at other positions. Remaining calm and confident in the face of an all-out positional run isn't easy. In fact, it's hard. I've seen kicker runs take hold in the seventh and eighth rounds during drafts in which I'm consulting. People freak when they see league mates stocking up on quarterbacks in the third round or defenses in the ninth. A consultant is there to offer a different way -- to remind a client that he can build a rock-solid roster because of a positional run.
3) A 30 or 60-second pick clock is the bane of many fantasy gamers' existence. We've had clients tell us that even with notes and cheat sheets -- even after playing out scenarios in their head before a draft -- the short draft clock compels them into what we might call suboptimal decision making. DDC consultants chat with clients throughout a draft -- either by phone, text, G-chat, or Skype -- constantly preparing for the next pick. We suggest players to place into the draft queue. We offer reasoning for why the client should focus on a particular position, but keep a contingency plan should another player at another position should fall down the draft board. Clients appreciate this. They tell us that the lessons they learn during in-draft consultation can translate to future drafts. In that way, our service is much more than a one-off; it's a tutorial into how to approach a fantasy football draft.
Consultants don't dictate during in-draft service. They merely suggest and reason with the client. If a client disagrees with our reasoning and seems determined to pick a certain player at a certain point in the draft, that's fine. It's the client's team. We're there merely to tell the client what we would do.
Consider our range of services if you struggle with any of the above in drafting a fantasy football team. Draft season, like winter, is here.
