Fantasy Football 2022: Five Tips to Win Your League
I’ve played a lot fantasy football. Maybe you have also played fantasy football. This highly frustrating thrill ride attracts around 40 million Americans. Probably at least 20 million have claimed they’d finished the season. We are still playing this highly marketable and lucrative game (for some).
With the wind at my side, I enter 2022. However, I won my 12-person league last season. Although I don’t consider myself to be an expert in fantasy football, I consider myself to be an authority on how to make the entire process enjoyable and productive while still giving you a chance to win. It’s possible to have it work every once in awhile, as it did last season. Let me share five tips ahead of the 2022 fantasy soccer draft.
Auto-drafting is fine if you don’t understand what you’re doing.
Some fantasy football managers might be upset. They’d prefer a pure experience where everyone carefully considers every pick and the true talent wins out. It’s okay, but it’s not your problem unless everyone has agreed beforehand to no auto-drafting policy.
If you trust the machines, the big draft platforms at ESPN and Yahoo, CBS, as well as the NFL’s official site, will provide you with at least a decent roster. Their algorithms will pick the player with the highest ranking according to projections or human pundits. This is a good approach. The fourth round will not allow you to draft a defense/special team unit, or your favorite player even if he has been injured. Bottom line: If you haven’t done your research before draft night, don’t worry about it.
You can still auto-defend, but you should think about your choices.
If you do not do any research and just do manual picks, you won’t be able to do a better job than the machine. Cross-reference cheat sheets to compare how players stack up. This makes it less likely that you will find an outlier and fall in love with the player too soon. Fantasy rankings are available on ESPN, CBS, and NBC. Find out the facts and get lucky when leather meets toe.
Consider how the scoring system of your league will impact players’ performance. While there are some common differences (e.g., whether a league awards points per reception), roster and scoring rules can have an important impact on player value. What is the difference in valuation between a receiving yard and a rushing yard? Spend time researching players to see how they will fare in your fantasy football league.
The majority of quarterbacks look the same. Avoid buying one.
According to ESPN’s standard scoring system Josh Allen was the best fantasy quarterback in 2021. He averaged 23.7 point per game. No. Aaron Rodgers (the 6th and 7th QBs) would be the median QBs for a 12-team league. Jalen Hurts is the 7th. Each averaged 20.8 points per match. This means that there is a gap of about three points between the top player at each position and an average starter.
The gap between Derrick Henry, the top running back at 24.2 points, and Dalvin Cook, who is roughly an average starting running back at 16.1 points or 15.9 points respectively, is much larger. At wide receiver, the deltas are similar. QBs are big point-scorers. In fact, they made up three out of the top five and five out of the top ten overall scorers in 2021. However, you shouldn’t pick one in the first round unless you have a great chance of getting a star that you believe in at end of the round. While QBs are important, they can also be interchangeable.
The majority of tight ends look the same. Most.
One or two tight ends are usually able to produce at the level a top wide receiver. You might think about taking the second round to grab Travis Kelce or Mark Andrews, who were last year’s top tight ends. You can expect a tight end to be around five points behind an average starter in any given week. Buying an early pick on a great one will give you more roster space for high-scoring wide receivers who are easier for you to find.
Take care. It is dangerous to spend too much time on an excellent but not great end if the gap between Kelce and Andrews is large.
You can draft one kicker and one defense in each round, or you can just grab one in free agency near Week 1.
The difference between the 12th-best starting defense and the best last year was only three points per week. The gap was approximately four points at kicker. These aren’t big differences between the best and worst. It’s also difficult to predict who will do well and who will do poorly.
Kicking stats depend more on how teams’ offenses stall out in field goals range than on kickers’ actual talents. It is hard to predict kicker fantasy performance year-over-year. You are probably better off going after skill player and filling the D/ST gaps later. In 2021, I used at most four defenses and three kickers to win my title-winning team.
Additional Resource:
https://www.fantasypros.com/
https://bleacherreport.com/fantasy-football
https://fantasyfootball.telegraph.co.uk/