Thursday, December 29, 2011

Fantasy Football Tip #222: Information management-what you need to know and how to compile it

Unfortunately this is too late for the 2011 season since most leagues have played their championship games this week. I highly encourage week 16 League Championship Games (LCG) because if you play them in week 17 you are much more likely to get players resting or not playing entire games (see GB in week 17). NFL teams do this to prevent an injury to key players when those teams have nothing to play for in the remaining regular season games. This is much more common in week 17 than in week 16. Although in previous years there have been some rare week 16 shenanigans...but I digress. This tip is how to manage the information flow during the week. From the news flashes on Sunday and Monday night to the following Sundays pregame shows, a ton of information is out there and you need to organize it.

I start with a clean sheet of paper and label the top with the week ahead and any bye week teams that will be out.
Next I divide the top 1/3 into 4 columns:
New Starters     ETP (Expected to Play) P (probable)  Q (questionable)

the 2nd 1/3 of the page is labeled with 6 columns:

D (doubtful) GTD(Game Time Decision) NETP (Not expected to play) OUT   DNP-W/Th/Fr   Watch

Finally the bottom 1/3 of the page is for free agents to add and drop, so labels are:

Add: QB RB WR TE K DEF and Droppable

Now as information comes out I can place it under these categories:
If a starter is out he goes in the OUT column and his replacement goes in the New Starters column. Players who miss practice go in the DNP (Did not practice) Column and beside their name is a W for Wed practice; Th for Thursday and Fr for the dreaded miss of Friday practice (never a good sign).

The watch category is position battles or injuries not yet reported or performance/disciplinary issues.

I also have a sheet where I track free agency deadlines each week and lineup decisions. So that I do not forget to do either in a league.

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