What do you do during your draft to get an advantage?

[bmault]

By this question, I mean do you track the draft yourself or just watch the board? Do you use any online sites to track players? I think I am pretty good at this, but want some last minute advice before I draft on Saturday.

[FatFoot]

Well, if you're up to date on player news, and actively comparing ADP with Value, and you're willing to assume some risk... I think that's as much of a real "edge" as you can get. Most people draft on "favorites," "gut feelings," and "advice" ... the latter of which can be anything from bad Yahoo columns to random web sites, to legitimate useful info. So any statistical input you can use to give yourself another angle from which to view any pick, is usually something that most of your opponents won't have.

[jupiter33]

I make my projections out ahead of time of the available players. I rank the QB,RB,WR in Tiers based on my projections. Knowing ahead of time, how many points the 1st place team scored last year, gives you a ceiling to draft towards. This year, in my 3 leagues, I'm trying a different strategy. After I grab my 1-2 RB's I'm grabbing 1 top 7 QB, and 3 top 15 WR's. After those picks, I've targeted players that could vault you into the money during the playoffs, such as Ladell Betts, Brian Leonard, Mike Bell, Deshaun Foster, Tatum Bell, Brandon Jackson....

[joelamosobadiah]

I go off my tiered rankings and pick with my gut. Cause its no fun to go strictly off rankings on every draft. So I follow my rankings and in some drafts take a player above a couple of players i have ranked higher if I think they are a high risk/reward type player.

[Cowboys 4 life]

I go off my tiered rankings and pick with my gut. Cause its no fun to go strictly off rankings on every draft. So I follow my rankings and in some drafts take a player above a couple of players i have ranked higher if I think they are a high risk/reward type player.

I do the same. I work from a tiering system and take guys based on the positive and negative factors that might affect them. I don't do any calculations or anything I do it more on instinct and needs. The team I pick may not win every year which takes luck but will be solid enough to make the playoffs 90% of the time. Thats all I can ask.

I also do a bunch of mocks to get a good idea of what rounds the guys will go.

[moonhead]

drink less early than the rest. get drunk after the draft.

[treat24]

i threaten them with knives

[A Fleshner Fantasy]

i threaten them with knives

Maybe that's why nobody trusts treat...

[treat24]

i threaten them with knives

Maybe that's why nobody trusts treat...

I also start having an orgy with my wife and two of her hot friends around round 6, i find that distracts the other owners a lot...

[maddog60]

By this question, I mean do you track the draft yourself or just watch the board? Do you use any online sites to track players? I think I am pretty good at this, but want some last minute advice before I draft on Saturday.

Just had my money league draft, here's what I did to try and gain an edge (I'm too stubborn to pay for software to easily gain an edge)

Did my research, rankings, and came up with VBD values for players. Had them ranked 40-80 deep depending on position, along with their ADP value.
Went through my rankings and the ADP values, and created a short list of 4-5 players to target in each of the first 10 rounds based on how much value they were.

On draft day (live draft via computer), I had open on my computer the following:

- a player news search engine
- my VBD/ADP rankings which I used to mark off taken players
- my shortlist of value players
- an empty listing for 12 team rosters
- a listing by week and bye teams in alphabetical order of the NFL bye weeks

Now this was a lot of work, but I used the search engine in the later rounds to double check situations like "Where is Matt Jones in the depth chart?" or "How hurt is Kevin Jones?" I marked off players on my own rankings as they were taken, and I kept track of all the team rosters (including bye weeks for myself).