When is it too early to do your draft?

[JRsScoregasms]

I have mine set for August 19th, and my league is doing an offline draft. It's been set as this date for a while(while I knew this was a bit early, I chose this date to work around the due date of a pregnant league member).

I'm worried that it might be too early though since the preseason could answer some questions about players, and we will only see one preseason week before the draft date. Do you think the date is a big problem?

[dream_017]

I hate to draft anytime before the 3rd pre-season game. Most starters play the most in that game, so drafting prior to that is dangerous. Always making it later is better, but being able to set time aside with 10-12 different schedules, sometimes you need to make exceptions.

[Chicago 2]

It really depends on the member's of your league.

I have mine set for August 23rd, a tad earlier than I would like but you need to make exceptions sometimes to allow everyone to make the draft.

While major injuries are rare, they happen in the preseason and every team needs to understand that could happen.

[Wood Chipper]

It is fine. The worst that will happen is people get injured in the pre-season that is on someones team.

[V]

My auction draft is already over (slow on-line draft, started 3 weeks ago), and one of my snake draft leagues starts up Monday (slow draft), and will be over by the 3rd preseason game.

[dagnuk]

The earliest I've drafted was on the 2nd week of preseason. It's not ideal, but in order to have an offline draft, sometimes you have to make these sacrifices.

[CrimeDog7]

I like having my off-line draft as close to opening day as possible. Usually late August. Its tough to find a day that works for everybody though. When you have money on the line, you don't wanna see any of your studs go down on injury.

[Willie P]

My league has drafted week 1 of preseason for the past 3 years...It works out well for us, because we get a whole month of trade talk before the league starts.