Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Fantasy Football Tip # 203 Do not Help Your Opponents!

Fantasy Football Tip # 203 Do not Help Your Opponents!

I drafted in a Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC, http://www.theffpc.com/) draft on Monday 10 Aug. It is an Action 77 Draft Masters league which is a “draft and forget” or “best ball” format.

At some point, an owner drafted Matt Stover at kicker. On the online chat box I posted “Ouch isn’t Stover dead or something” trying to be cute, knowing that Stover was a free agent.

The reality is that Baltimore released Stover simply because they did not think he had the leg strength anymore. Despite being one of the NFLs most accurate kickers (when was the last time he missed a XP?), his true makeable (is this a word?) FG distance was shrinking. Therefore, they did not resign him and instead opted to let Steve Hauschka and Graham Gono fight for the position. Maybe they were also tired of having two kickers, Stover and the other kicker for kickoffs (again due to leg strength). But I digress.

Back to the tip.

I should not have said anything.
Why tell my opponent that he may have a chink in his armor in a kicker that he thinks is starting but is not? If I had kept my big mouth shut, he may have drafted only two kickers (unlikely but you never know-check back on Saturday for Draft Master tips), one of which may have been out of work. In this “dream” scenario, his other kicker gets hurt in week one and now he has no kicker points for the rest of the season. Since it is draft and forget, there are no free agent pickups!

Therefore, DO NOT HELP YOUR OPPONENTS during the draft. Even an innocent dig may prove to be a vital help to an otherwise content owner. And it is even more important in a Draft Masters league where no free agent pickups are allowed. In a DM league it is all about the draft baby!

Player Note: Stover may end up coming back to Baltimore or be picked up by another team with a kicker issue, but I am not going to draft him.

Fantasy Football Tips ($9.95, www.amazon.com/dp/0982428669) has 201 Tips so I will be adding additional ones like this one here at my blog on occassion.

Sam Hendricks, author
Fantasy Football Guidebook: Your Comprehensive Guide to Playing Fantasy Football ($19.95 on sale for $17.95) http://www.amazon.com/1602640203

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