When to hold the draft?

[wannabthechamp]

Right now I am just setting up my most important league, in which I play with a bunch of family members, we are doing an auto draft, I am the commish and I'm wondering this: do you think it is the best to hold the draft now, or wait until closer to the season? I was thinking I should hold it off until closer to the season because of possible injuries in the preseason.

[shortsavage]

Yeah, early drafts give your members a longer period of time to complain about accumulating bad luck. I would hold out until the weekend before the season starts.

[atvjerryrice80]

wait until preseason ends then do it

[steelyeri]

I agree. drafting before the post season starts really sucks. It gives an unfair advantage to "lucky" owners who's players stay healthy.

[Xtreme]

I agree. drafting before the post season starts really sucks.

Sorry, but a funny mistype.

Anyway, I prefer to draft between the 3rd and 4th preseason weeks. This way people can avoid injuries (the dynamics of our league were thrown off last year by Vick and Pennington injuries) and still have time to make some moves (adds, drops, trades) before the first week (remember there is a thursday game to start the season).

[kvnhbbrd]

In our league we draft 2 weeks prior to the start of the regular season. This gives all teams time to drop/add and trade all the players they want to.

[Main Event]

Sept. 5th will be the prime date for drafts this year...i always like having it 1 week before the regular season starts. Also alot of people like to have their drafts the first sunday of the season in the morning before the games start(could be tough on the west coast)...but with having a thursday night game again this year could throw that off.

[wannabthechamp]

Well I'm thinking about maybe having it around August 25th, does that seem like a decent date?

[Vanter]

The 25th should be close enough to the regular season

[Impressionable]

I agree. drafting before the post season starts really sucks. It gives an unfair advantage to "lucky" owners who's players stay healthy.

Injuries are part of football. How is getting injured in the second week of the preseason much worse than the 8th week of the season? Durability is part of research and the drafting process. Every league will undergo problems with injuries, it's an inevitable process through football. It's not any more "lucky" for a player to keep his players healthy throughout the season than it is for them to keep them healthy through the preseason.