Fantasy University: Course 303 — Don’t make these 5 mistakes in your fantasy leagues!

Experience is the best teacher, and through over 20 years of fantasy play, I’ve made my share of mistakes. My personal playbook has been edited and rewritten through the years, trying to best apply the lessons I’ve learned. I’m happy to share a few painful memories if it helps give you a smoother path to navigating your fantasy football season like an experienced pro.

Here are five common mistakes that fantasy football managers make.

Mistake 1: Being unfamiliar with league settings

I get it, reading rules and scouring settings isn’t the most fun thing in the world. We’re trained in life to ignore the fine print, just race to the signature. But it’s critical to know the roster specifications of your new league, the waiver-wire cadences, the scoring setup. It doesn’t take long to give your league settings a careful audit (here are the default ones on Yahoo), and I also find it helpful to add the free-agency periods to my personal calendar, so I’m not caught by surprise during the week. Life is dynamic and congested; being organized gives you a much better chance at success.

Mistake 2: Restrictive draft plans

Thoughtful and successful fantasy managers will usually construct some kind of plan before they head into draft day, and that’s a good thing. But make sure it’s constructed in pencil; you need to be flexible to take advantage of unexpected opportunities when they present themselves. It’s perfectly reasonable to have your leans and preferences mapped out, but keep an open mind and be ready to adjust if the draft goes in an unexpected direction.

Mistake 3: Summer obsession with bye weeks

Obviously, bye weeks are a key part of fantasy football — start-sit decisions become trickier because part of your roster might not be available on Sunday. But it’s usually an error to put heavy weight on bye weeks during drafts. Come the teeth of bye-week season, your roster will usually have a much different shape than the group you assembled on that first day. Focus on acquiring talent in the summer, and hold confidence that you’ll be able to intelligently tackle your bye-week issues.

Mistake 4: Buying insurance when it doesn’t make sense

Modern baseball theory holds that sacrifice bunts are rarely a good idea. In a game dominated by launch angles and home runs, giving up an out and advancing a runner from first to second is rarely the proper play. When you give handouts to the other team, you cap your scoring upside.

What does this have to do with fantasy football? Well, when you go out of your way to draft the backups of your primary starters (especially at running back), you’re essentially bunting. You’re capping your upside.

In the early part of the fantasy season, I want you to play for the big inning. I want you to try to build the most dynamic juggernaut possible. Sure, you can draft backup running backs or intriguing stash-and-hope runners, but do it when the player in question is not tied to one of your primary starters. Draft the backups that benefit if your opponents encounter bad luck. Build a roster that can improve — not merely survive — when chaos happens.

I don’t want you to draft like your early picks are going to flame out; I want you to draft like your early picks were the right picks. Stop playing it safe.

Let’s be clear, the understudy back can make sense later in the year — much like bunting can make sense in a baseball game, later in the day. The winning scenario narrows the later we get in any contest. If you’re crushing the league come early November and you want a clearly-defined backup to your bell-cow starting back — because your roster doesn’t have bigger problems that need solving — I can sign off. You’ve already put a crooked number on the board.

In August, that’s the wrong way to think. Your goals should be much loftier the day you start assembling your roster.

Mistake 5: Being paralyzed by fear

It’s remarkable how much fear creeps into our decision-making. But the happiest people in the world are usually focused on what can go right, not what might temporarily set us back.

I commonly see fantasy managers who are petrified to cut a bench player, obsessed with the idea that the released player might help someone else. My framing is different for this issue — I’d posit that if you never make a cut decision you later regret, you’re probably playing too conservatively. It’s like the poker player who is never caught bluffing — a sign that you’re playing too conservatively.

I’ve also heard of managers who don’t want a deep roster, because they find the weekly start-sit decisions to be stressful. Maybe it’s a good idea to package depth to try to assemble a better starting roster, but eschewing depth simply because you’re afraid to make decisions? That’s not a reasonable strategy. We want you to think like a confident fantasy football player — not anxious over every decision you have to make.

We touched on lineup decisions to close this class, but now, it’s time to go more in-depth in our next course.