Creating Your Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet
or It’s not cheatsheet, cheet sheet, or cheetsheet,
it’s cheat sheet.
There are few things more intimidating in
fantasy football than taking the giant leap from using others
projections to creating your own. There are also few things
more rewarding in fantasy football than hoisting the league
trophy at the end of the year knowing that the reason you
are on top is because of your knowledge not because Joe Magazine
Publisher guided you in the right direction on draft day.
There are two ways to create a cheat sheet. You can either
take others’ projections, like
ours, and then tweak them to line up with the way you
feel. Or you can start from scratch, and build the rankings
from the ground up. Many factors go in to deciding which way
is the right way for you to go, the most significant being
time, NFL knowledge, and familiarity with fantasy football.
Whichever path you decide, listed below are the steps needed
to make the best possible cheat sheet.
1. Enter into an excel
spreadsheet all of the draftable players. For the purposes
of this article, we will define draftable as the number of
teams in your league multiplied by the number of starters
for each position multiplied by 2.25. (Ex: 12 owner league
x 3 WR starters x 2.25 = 81 WRs necessary to rank). Create
columns for every stat that is scored in your league. If WRs
are scored for touchdowns, yards, and fumbles, create 3 columns
for these stats. Then two spaces over, create 4 more columns.
One each for:
A.) Coaching changes - offensive coordinator or head coach
B.) Key personnel changes - new skill position players or
offensive lineman
C.) Injury - coming back from use green, injured this season
use red
D.) Age - is the player about to qualify for a social security
check
2. Enter in all of last
year’s stats that apply to your cheat sheet. Some owners
like to use three year averages here while others apply a
sliding scale giving more importance to the more recent years.
(Ex: Value = (Last Year x .05) + (2 Years ago x .03) + (3
Years ago x .02) for players who’s stats don’t
go back that far or were injured values have to be substituted)
The easiest way, however, remains just entering in the previous
year’s stats. Note: If you’re using an “experts”
stats as your base, skip this step.
3. Now, go back through
and make your tweaks to the stats. This is where you calculate
in if that new quarterback will boost his wide receiver’s
numbers, or if the new head coach will change the offensive
philosophy either positively or negatively affecting fantasy
output. Tweaks are the most subjective, and really make you
start to feel like these projections are your own. Take time
to weigh every angle, and make your decisions accordingly.
4. There are a few special
situations to consider before finalizing your tweaks. Is this
a wide receivers third year in the league? Is a quarterback
entering into his second season with a new offense? Has a
quarterback’s touchdown to interception ratio improved
over the last three years? If any of these answers are yes,
an increase in numbers over the previous year is likely and
should be accounted for.
5. Make note of players
that are higher on your draft board than they are being taken
in mock drafts. These are your sleepers. You have noticed
something that the majority of the fantasy football community
has missed. Type in where these guys are typically going in
drafts, and type in a round that you feel is best to target
them. You may have a running back that you feel is worthy
of a first round pick, but he has been falling into the third
round. Wait, and grab him in the second round. It’s
all about getting the most value out of every pick.
6. Make a note of players
to avoid. These players may be extremely injury prone, have
uncertain futures, or other outside forces may make them undesirable
for your team. Then, out to the side determine when would
be a round you would feel comfortable taking them. That’s
right, everyone has a value, and when in your opinion the
reward begins to outweigh the risk a player represents, take
a chance on him. He probably will go much higher in the draft
than this, but if he’s still there, don’t be afraid
to pull the trigger and land a guy who’s downside is
now outweighed by his upside.
7. Take your final cheat
sheet and implement the numbers into a value based drafting
tool. Whether it is one of your own formulas or a
formula that has been proven to work, VBD is the tool
that will take your cheat sheet and give it the most value
at your fantasy football draft.
8. Tweak, tweak, and retweak
your numbers as the preseason dictates right up until draft
day.
Following this eight step strategy, you
can build a fantasy football cheat sheet to rival all of the
“experts” you see out there. Your numbers will
be fresher than magazines, and they will be tailored to your
own thoughts on players. And the best thing about following
this plan is that when you raise your league’s trophy
over your head, or you cash the winnings in your bank, you
will know that you won because you were the best. Nothing
beats that feeling.
© Greg Starling - TheCoordinator.com
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