By Caden Hendrickson October 09, 2021 

One of the most popular and quickly growing online activities in America is NFL fantasy football. Fantasy football can be played online between friends or random football fans and involves selecting real players who play in the NFL every week and earning points for the stats that those players generate. A standard fantasy league has ten teams, and each team has nine starting roster spots and additional bench spots for players that can be swapped in each week.

The starting spots consist of one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, one tight end, one NFL team defense, one kicker, and one flex spot which a running back, wide receiver or tight end can be played in. Players are selected to teams in a snake draft that involves players one to ten selecting in order for the first round and players ten to one selecting in reverse order in the second round and continuing to switch between opposite orders in each consecutive round. Once one understands the basic rules of the game they can begin to implement strategies that will give them the best chance of becoming a fantasy league champion.

Know the most important positions when drafting. It is easy to make the mistake that the highest average scoring position, quarterback, is the most important to draft; However, this is not the case because there are so many quarterbacks relative to the number of fantasy teams making it relatively easy to find a solid starter. A high volume lead running back is the number one target to acquire when drafting, followed by a high volume number one wide receiver, as these types of players will be sparse and be the second and third most conducive positions in scoring points. You will likely want to fill both running back spots and a wide receiver spot before prioritizing either quarterback or tight end. Tight end is

he least conducive position to scoring points but is also the position with the lowest number of viable starters, so if one of the best players at the position is available one should prioritize them over quarterback. That being said, if the elite options are gone it can be a game-changer to have one of the league’s most elite quarterbacks as they can net your team around ten extra points on any given week. After filling these positions, it is advisable to attempt to acquire one of the 32 NFL teams’ starting running backs leftover for your flex position. Any starting running back provides a greater chance of consistent points than the wide receivers that will be available at this point in the draft. You then want to finish your team by acquiring a second wide receiver and a couple of running backs or wide receivers for your bench, followed by a second quarterback for your bench and then a defense and kicker.

Keep up with injuries and starters throughout the season. When players are either injured or lose their starting job during the season it can greatly impact your fantasy team. Not only will you score fewer points in a given week’s matchup, but also you will be down a viable starting option in future weeks. You can combat this issue by monitoring the fantasy waivers. The waivers are where players that are not on anyone’s fantasy rosters can be added to your team. It is important to keep track of the players that will have larger roles than initially expected due to injuries or rookie breakthroughs and ensure that you are the first to get them on your team. When you do this you will be able to reduce your own risk of suffering from injured players and increase your trade leverage.

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Trade for quality over quantity and trade for playoffs. When making trades with other players in your league it is a good rule of thumb to attempt to increase the quality of your starting roster spots as opposed to trading for more backup options. If you keep up with the waiver players then you should be able to increase your team’s backup options, but it is extremely rare that you will be able to increase the quality of one of your starting positions. However, you can take advantage of other teams’ need for backups and

offer them a greater quantity of starting players in exchange for a quality upgrade at one of your positions. Another important rule of thumb to consider when making trades towards the end of your fantasy season is what players’ matchups look like during the three weeks before the last week of the NFL regular season. These weeks most often make up the fantasy playoffs which are the most important weeks for winning a fantasy championship. There are certain scenarios where you may want to attempt to trade a player that has been better during the season than a player you are trading for because that player is going up against significantly easier opponents during the fantasy playoff weeks.

Fantasy football is of course largely based on predictions and involves a good bit of luck on a weekly basis. Although, utilizing the strategies that have been outlined here are a great way to increase the probability that you have a well-rounded team and have the best chance at scoring more points than your opponent on any given week.

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