7 More Fantasy Draft Mistakes Ruining Your Team

DFS Army’s Gthom breaks down 7 more fantasy draft mistakes that can lead to a bad season. You can see the first 10 fantasy draft mistakes by clicking here!

Follow Gthom on the cesspool they call twitter, @GarettThomas.

Not Utilizing Tier Based Rankings

You have your normal 1-200 ranking of every player in fantasy football, and that is a great place to start, but if you want to gain an edge then you need to implement tiers into your draft. Tiers allow you to group similar players into one group, or tier, and filter out lesser players into lower tiers. What this does is keep you from reaching on players accidentally.

For example, if you are stuck between player X and player Y at the same position, then you can see if these players are listed under different tiers. If they are on separate tiers, go with the higher tiered player. It’s that simple to avoid this fantasy draft mistake.

Let’s expand further! Let’s say you are in the middle of your draft and you see a huge run off the board, the last 10-of-12 picks were RBs. Now it is your turn to pick and you are seeing the last player remaining of tier-seven WRs and multiple tier-nine RBs. Tiers quickly show you that the value on the board is at WR. Plus, those remaining RBs will likely still be available at your next pick since there was a huge run of RBs prior to your selection. Not all positional tiers are created equal (WR tiers are not weighted the same as RB tiers), so keep that in mind too.

There is much more to tier based drafting but that should be enough to get you going for your own draft research.

Drafting Your Starting Roster First

Picking all of your starting roster before moving onto your bench is one of the most detrimental fantasy draft mistakes, especially if you go so far to select your kicker and D/ST before your bench players. Normally beginners do this and it makes sense to do when you don’t understand the fantasy game.

When you draft your starting roster first, you put yourself at a severe disadvantage because your opponents are grabbing valuable pieces that you left on the board – that is direct leverage against YOU. Primarily you should be drafting WRs and RBs (even if they will start on your bench) because they are harder to roster once the season kicks off. Furthermore, consistent fantasy contributors at WR and RB are much harder to acquire in round 10, compared to a QB in round 10.

If you are curious about what I do: as long as I trust my QB and TE to be an every-week starter, I only draft RBs and WRs with my other picks. I will draft two QBs or two TEs if there are trust issues at the position, but two players at each aforementioned position is something I try to avoid. Kickers and defense are my final two picks and I only select one each.

Drafting QB Too Early In Single-QB Leagues

Quarterbacks are one of the easiest positions to replace in single-QB leagues. That is why it can be very hard for fantasy managers to draft players like Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, or even Justin Herbert, in single-QB leagues.

Draft QBs late in single-QB leagues. The biggest benefit you get by drafting a QB late is additional, valuable, fantasy assets from rounds three – seven (normally when top QBs go off the board). Within the aforementioned rounds there easily could be one-or-two league winners available to draft at RB, WR or TE. If you hit on a league winning player, along with a late-round quarterback, it truly can unlock your fantasy team.

If you want to see some historical data you can check out an article I wrote about this topic in June. You can also see what to do if you miss on all the good late quarterbacks and which late quarterbacks I will be targeting.

Picking Injured/Suspended Players Without An IR-Spot

We see an elite player every season get selected in fantasy drafts, only to sit on a manager’s bench for six weeks because he is hurt or suspended. That is a lot of value sacrificed for someone who cannot play until later in the season. The player also has to comeback and get “game ready” which takes additional time. Reliability is availability in fantasy football, and suspended/injured players do not have that.

Many managers talk themselves into drafting an injured/suspended player: “But think of how good my team will be in the playoffs,” they say. But it rarely, if ever, works out in a managers favor. And when it doesn’t work out, now you have wasted time and a roster space holding the injured/suspended player. Not to mention you could be forced to trade him in order to receive healthy pieces back (often for much less value). That’s not a winning formula.

Some managers want to get elite players for a discount and that can be done with injured/suspended players. If you were to do this, make sure your league has an IR-spot that can hold the designated injured/suspended player. Keep in mind that not all IR spots allow suspended players to occupy them.

If you are new or this is your first few seasons in fantasy football, it’s just not worth drafting an injured/suspended player. I certainly avoid them as an expert, no matter what.

Failing To Project Other Team’s Draft Picks

If you are not examining opponents’ rosters in real-time you are not drafting to the best of your ability. This takes time getting used to but it can help you poach the right players at the right time.

During your draft each team has a player-counter for each position. This player-counter quickly tells you how many QBs, RBs, WRs, and TEs every team has. This is important because it can give you a clue to where a rival manager will go with their next few draft picks. You can also quickly identify when a positional run (where multiple players from the same positional group are drafted heavily, usually consecutively) is about to happen.

You weaponize this information by examining your team’s needs and analyzing the teams right before and after your draft pick. If a team is in round 10 with no quarterback, well they easily could go grab one with their next pick; that information could be why you end up with Trey Lance (QB, SF) instead of Derek Carr (QB, LV). This also can be a tool to identify potential value. If every team has drafted a TE except for you, you may be able to pass on an available TE at their average draft position (ADP) in order to see if they drop later into the draft, thus making them a value-addition.

Be calculated. Knowing the best sleepers and value picks is apart of that equation, but sometimes just looking at your draft board, mid-draft, and seeing what positional needs other teams have can keep you ahead of the curve.

Drafting to Trade

Drafting with intentions to trade is a gutsy game to say the least. It rarely works out in the managers favor for many reasons. Football is extremely volatile and any player could go out and get hurt or fail to return value from where you selected him. Both scenarios can make you look stupid.

In the end, you really need to understand your league and your league mates. Some leagues are notorious for being trade-heavy, while other leagues trust no one; every trade is rejected; and no trades ever happen. Again, if you are a beginner avoid drafting with intentions to trade.

Selecting Kickers And Defenses Too Early

Never select a defense or a kicker before your final two picks. These two positions do the least for fantasy managers and they are hard to predict too (especially in draft rankings). Kickers and D/STs are the easiest positions to replace on the waiver-wire too. You rarely want to start the same kicker or defense every week for the whole season. There will be turnover at this spot for your roster.

With Kickers you can get away with starting the same player every single week if they are elite enough but for defense, this is almost never the case. The only few recent D/STs that were elite enough to start every week: 2017 Jaguars, 2018 Bears, 2019 Steelers and the 2019 Patriots. There has not been an every-week-defense to start since 2019.

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