It’s been a while, I know. But the 2017 fantasy season is over, and now it’s time to look back and see if there are any lessons we can take away for next season.

The Late Round QB

I’ve been preaching this for a while, but a trend exists, and this is the futility of selecting a top-5 QB. Listen, this is situational advice of course, if Aaron Rodgers is available in the third round you probably take him, but I had people in my league take A-Rod in the first round. And then look what happened. Regardless of the injury, which obviously made Rodgers a terrible pick, fantasy football, a lot of times, comes down to positional scarcity, and the reality is that in a 1QB league, you’re only starting 1 QB a week, meaning that there will be startable QB’s available in the later rounds. Alex Smith was the QB3 for goodness’ sake, and the guy was certainly available in the later rounds. You have to realize that the potential boost of a top tier QB1 will not compensate for poor performance at the RB or WR positions. Think, if you wait until late to grab a QB, you can take a top flight WR and RB, or two RB’s. Those are valuable commodities you’ve snagged, which leads me to my next point…

Elite runningbacks are really, really valuable

Honestly, this season goes to prove that RB’s truly are the kings of fantasy. Sports Illustrated called this year or last, I’m not sure, the Year of the Wide Receiver, but if I’m being honest, they’re missing the point. Sure, WR performance is up across the board, and new elite WR’s are popping up, but you have to go back to that concept I talked about earlier, positional scarcity. Offenses are passing more. The NFL is becoming a league predicated on the aerial attack. This means that there will be more elite WR’s available, and less elite RB’s on the table. I’m not saying go Zero-WR, that’s a terrible idea. But if I’m in the first round and I’m choosing between an elite RB and an elite WR, say Zeke vs OBJ, I’m going Zeke, because I can snag a low-end WR1 in the second round. I’m not sure I can snag a dependable RB1 in the second round though. But a lot of times, and this held true this season, the RB1’s we call RB1’s in the preseason don’t end up as RB1’s, either due to low production or injury. Like, David Johnson. 😦 And that leads me to my final point…

Middle-late round picks and waiver wire adds are critical

In my league, I was able to snag Mark Ingram in the middle rounds and grab Jamaal Williams and Josh Gordon (Josh Gordon!!!) off the waiver wire. I’m not telling you this to grab, I’m simply using these as examples as to how valuable the middle-late round and waiver wire is. The reality is that the early rounds are kind of set. You know you’re going for those highly ranked players, and that may help you if they performed as expected or hurt you if they suck or get injured. The place where you’re free to go with your gut and let loose is later and on the waiver wire, and these places can be sources of real gems. You have to take risks here, screw the pre-draft rankings, and look for guys with situations that can lead to success. Look at Jamaal Williams, sure, he was nobody. But sheer volume got him a solid couple of performances that could make the difference during the grind of the fantasy football season. Stay focused, monitor injury reports, and capitalize off the biases of your teammates.

That’s it for my preliminary lessons learned for this fantasy season. Pretty simple, but they are valuable lessons that I feel a lot of people, even the veterans, sometimes forget. Oh yeah, and the final lesson is to not forget to have fun. It’s still a game after all 🙂

Happy holidays, and stay tuned for more content!