Your team stinks. At least that's what you think after going 0-1 and you saw discouraging signs from multiple players on your roster while bemoaning the success of players you could have drafted.
My first piece of advice: Stop being a drama queen.
One bad week is not the sign of your fantasy apocalypse—unless it's a convenient reason to give up in 4-6 weeks like 60 percent of the fantasy football-playing world when they realize in early October that they didn't draft a plug-and-play contender. If so, don't let the door hit you in the backside on the way out.
My second piece of advice: Bookmark this article for the late September-early October when it's clearer that your team may have a problem.
If you want to contend after starting in a hole, you have to compete. I'm going to show you how, but it's going to take work. Like your draft, not everything is going to work as planned. You'll have to scrap for every opportunity to make your team better.
Step One: Does Your Team Have real Problems?
The draft is an exercise in vanity that's a lot like you or one of your family going to the department store to buy clothes. The curve-friendly mirrors and lighting make everything look better than it is and you ask the sales clerks to validate your most deluded questions rather than giving it to you straight.
This is really slimming for my thighs, isn't it?
Have you seen that the draft experts in big media believe Mitchell Trubisky will mature with experience?
Do you think this shade of red accents my autumn undertones?
LeSean McCoy had the worst rushing season of his career, so Damien Williams is better, right?
Does this make my butt look big?
If JuJu Smith-Schuster was good without Antonio Brown in the lineup for a game and a quarter, shouldn't he be fine without Brown for a season?
Fortunately, vanity-induced buzzes usually last just long enough for you to realize midway through your first full day of wearing a new outfit that you look like a clown balloon at a Thanksgiving parade. So with that in mind, welcome to early Week 2 Bozo, here's a pair of sweatpants and a jar of cold cream to get that grease paint off your face.
For those of you who still can't tell if your team had a funny week or two, or you just witnessed all 20 of your players emerged from a Volkswagen Beetle and have a strong suspicion that the show you've feared is about to begin, here are common symptoms that your draft went bad and your team needs help:
Five common signs Your Draft Went Bad
1. Significant injuries/suspensions to three or more players selected within the first 10 rounds: They don't have to be season-ending injuries. A player on the shelf for at least four weeks can hinder your start. While teams can overcome these issue—and we often recommend a player serving a suspension or rehabbing an injury—we're presuming you're not loading your roster with these options because the margin for lineup errors and additional injuries to your roster narrows with each strategic choice of a prospect not scheduled to play a full season.
2. Early picks (first 7-10 rounds) from teams that suffered major injuries or suspensions: Did you grab Tyreek Hill at the end of Round 1 and couldn't resist Antonio Brown and you decided to wait a bit on the rest of your receiving corps and grab Mike Williams and Devin Funchess later? I feel you.
Did Derrius Guice look healthy enough to be your sleeper RB2-RB3? Was Tevin Coleman going to prove to everyone that he's a feature back talent? Where you excited about Hunter Henry's return? There's a good chance 20-30 percent of your starting lineup underperforms for a month.
3. You have a fetish for athletes who haven't proven they have professional-grade technical skills: Did you pull that DeVante Parker jersey from your closet and tell your buds after his leaping catch against Baltimore was the sign that Parker turned the corner when it was little more than Parker continuing to lean on his God-given ability at the expense of opportunities to acquire wide receiver skills? Did Jameis Winston's big arm and Bruce Arians' love of big arms seduce you to believe in the fallacy that one big arm is better than two functioning eyes?
4. You've got that sinking feeling that you've picked the short end of every committee or you're sinking into a murky situation: Did you take Damien Williams as your second or third starting back and after one weekend, LeSean McCoy already looks better? Were you on the Todd Gurley bandwagon only to get stuck blocks from your Week 1 end zone destination as you watched Malcolm Brown emerge with touchdowns and snacks?
5. Offensive line woes: You know Devonta Freeman is still good, but Atlanta's pass protection was so awful will game scripts ever be in his favor? Leonard Fournette looked solid in the opener but how will he fare now that both of his tackles are dinged? Baker Mayfield made some sophomore mistakes from the pocket even before his offensive line had to be shuffled like a Tarot Deck. Will the spread remain favorable this month for the Browns' quarterback?
Realizing you have a problem is the first step. If you don't think you do or that it's a temporary issue, I hope you're right. If you can tell yourself a story where there aren't too many "ifs" in the equation that lead to a turnaround, your existing roster might be worth your patience.
Most fantasy teams have 1-3 potential holes during the first few weeks of the season if managers are critically evaluating their rosters. By the end of September, you should know whether those holes are real or they are products of your neurosis.
Until then, it's best to address what's truly a long-term problem and not what could be a problem. Tyreek Hill's injury is truly a problem. Devonta Freeman's lack of production against the Vikings could be a problem.
Step Two: What to do
There comes a point where you have to decide that making dramatic moves with the risk of failure is more appealing than doing nothing and hoping things get better on its own. If you reach this decision, these points will help you create a crisis plan:
1. Examine your average gap in fantasy points for your losses: Determine the average gap in fantasy points, and see if you can equate it to a specific number of players and/or positions.
I've read emails from reactive fantasy owners who are 1-3 and ready to overhaul their rosters but didn't examine that loss margin. An average margin of 15 points per game may seem like a lot but what if your kicker and defense are bad and there are much stronger free agent options that can easily account for a 10-12 point difference per week? You may realize that upgrading these two positions and the 5-point bump per week that you're expecting from a returning Joe Mixon doesn't make your situation as dire as it appears.
2. Examine the average fantasy points per win for the teams with winning records: This could prove less reliable during the first month of the season and prompt you to overreact to the potentially large margin between your team and the best teams in the league. Still, it's worth examining the average final score for the teams with winning records and measuring the difference between their efforts and that of your roster.
3. Become knowledgeable about position demand: The two tasks above will help you develop a plan with free agency. You don't want to spend 75%-100% of your waiver wire budget on one hot player with "season-changing" potential if your team needs to fill 3-5 holes that even a great player cannot realistically fill on a weekly basis.
However, if you've determined that your 1-3 team has lost 3 games by a margin of 9 points to the high-scoring team in your league each week, one all-in move with a player could turn things around dramatically. The same is true if you can fill the 1-2 of those 3-5 holes with an upgrade at kicker and defense while going all-in on a potential season-changer at a skill position.
An important part of using the waiver wire to your benefit is understanding the level of difficulty associated with acquiring players at each position. This includes waiver wire and trades because the difficulty is different for each.
- Elite players at any position are the most pricey to acquire but when factoring all levels of performance within a position, running back is the most expensive to acquire via trade.
- Quarterback and tight end are among the easiest in traditional lineups.
- Wide receivers are the most liquid commodity in the trade market.
Defenses, kickers, startable tight ends, passable bye-week quarterbacks, and startable wide receivers are commonly available on the waiver wire during the first 6-8 weeks of the season. You might luck out and land a player with top-12 or top-24 skill at any position within the first 2-3 weeks due to an injury or suspension.
4. Become knowledgeable about waiver wire dynamics: While a lesser-known running back on the waiver wire might prove he's worth 75%-100% of your budget, if you need multiple positions, paying a heavy freight on a single player could hurt you more than it helps you. It might be best to take a different approach to your team-building through free agency—especially if you're competing with other teams for that single player who is bound to have the most demand.
5. Stockpile a strength and trade for what you want as an alternative to blowing your FAAB budget: The best player on the waiver wire might not be the best player for your rebuilding efforts. It might be easier to take players you don't need but have value and parlay them into positions of need.
For example, you have four good starters at receiver and two good tight ends but only one startable running back. You could pay that 75%-100% freight on Darrell Henderson after Todd Gurley and Malcolm Brown get hurt in Week 2 but with everyone else gunning for Henderson you're at a disadvantage because you built your team to stream defenses and you're down a quarterback due to injury—and that remaining starter, Gardner Minshew, could be worse than your current No.2 option.
In this hypothetical, Henderson scored a ton of points in relief of Gurley and Brown but the way he did it seems suspect for long-term production and grabbing him for a premium seems risky. Sitting there on the waiver wire are KeeSean Johnson, and Keke Coutee and all of them have been consistent producers while their counterparts Christian Kirk and Kenny Stills have struggled and Larry Fitzgerald and Will Fuller got hurt last week.
You could add both Johnson and Coutee for a fraction of Henderson's price, still have money for a quarterback in the coming weeks, and maintain a budget for streaming your defenses. However, you don't need more receivers and these guys seem mediocre compared to Henderson's upside
Still, it's best if you add the receivers if you truly want at mid-term shot at a running back or quarterback of your choice. Stockpiling a strength will allow you to trade your marquee names at your position of strength for a top player or pair of players at positions of need.
Because the perception of a player's value lags behind his actual worth, it's easier to trade an established stud than a higher performer with a lower "brand value."
You may have been forced to trade Calvin Ridley for Alexander Mattison and T.J. Hockenson—a deal that seems favorable for the Ridley side before the season began, but in this hypoethetical scenario Hockenson is authoring top-10 weeks and Mattison has two strong weeks against good rush defenses and he's gaining a larger share of the volume from Dalvin Cook as the red-zone back of choice. Since your acquisitions and depth have performed well enough that their collective production will exceed your previous lineup if the production remains consistent.
Sometimes, the best route to improving your team is building on a strength and taking 2-3 steps rather than a single step. And, it often means relying on budding stars with little brand value to their name.
Even league winners who didn't make deals often tell war stories about 1-3 lesser-known players coming up big down the stretch. What they conveniently neglect to tell you is how long they waited to start those players over their brand names.
5. Make preemptive pickups in leagues with a first-come, first-serve free agency period: Alexander Mattison is a good example of a preemptive addition because he's shown skill, earned a clear-cut No.2 spot in Minnesota, and Dalvin Cook has been injury prone. So is Deon Cain, who earned playing time and targets early in the Chargers game and then Devin Funchess messed up his collarbone. Cain isn't proven so he should be available on a lot of waiver wires until he's "named" the replacement starter or produces like one.
Brian Hoyer has been hurt how many times in his career? If desperate for a quarterback and Jacoby Brissett struggles, you might not be able to win a bid on Hoyer but you can slip in and take Kelly for nothing when Hoyer slides into a lower-leg injury when escaping the pocket.
You can also find potential preemptive values by targeting players with a track record of disappointing at multiple stops in the NFL. Donte Moncrief is a great example and it means Diontae Johnson and James Washington are worth your consideration. Matt Breida is an excellent talent but he seems held together by duct tape, which makes Raheem Mostert interesting if Coleman misses as much time as we'd expect with a high-ankle sprain.
Ty Montgomery may seem like the backup to choice for the Giants but you Montgomery has played a full season...NEVER...and Bilal Powell is healthy and hardier. You're catching on.
6. Develop your proficiency in the craft of trading: Whereas drafting and free agency are the easiest, key lineup decisions and effective trades are often the most difficult of the four fantasy management skills. The communication and negotiation skills to create a deal are a craft that requires practice—and sometimes you have to be willing to lose a little on one deal to gain a little more on another. It's a long-term process that few fantasy owners ever truly understand and it's why they avoid deals altogether or they're always making lopsided offers that no one accepts.
It begins with understanding which players sustain their early-season performances the best and managing them accordingly.
Based on previous years of research, here's the rate that each position sustained its performance when it began the first three weeks of the season as a top-12 performer at its position:
- QB: 63 percent
- TE: 63 percent
- RB: 50 percent
- WR: 45 percent
Injuries are a greater factor for RBs and WRs than QBs and TEs. These insights should help you as you head into drafts so you can set up your team for effective crisis management:
- The easiest starters to trade away are known commodities at quarterback and tight end: I'd rather be weak at these positions after a draft because I know I should have an easier time to acquire them with a deal. It's much harder to trade these players away for value at receiver or running back.
- Tight ends of value are more prevalent in free agency: If you're going to stockpile from the waiver wire to prepare for a deal, build up your receiving corps or add a tight end to an existing stud at the position who you can trade for players of need.
- If you luck into a waiver wire back of note or you have the luxury to spend big money on one player, go for it. Otherwise, trading for a runner offers you better choices.
For a detailed piece on negotiating as a fantasy owner, check out this article I penned. Specific strategies include:
- The importance of making offers to multiple owners at the same time.
- How to encourage initial discussions and good offers.
- Why you should ask what your trade partner is targeting.
- Why you should make preliminary offers that match what you'd most like to get.
Another article on trades that I also posted in recent years discusses negotiation philosophies:
- Adopting a Negotiator's Mindset
- Being More Process-Oriented Than Results-Oriented
- Be Willing to Lose Big to Win Big
- Know What You're Willing to Give and Take
- Understanding the Framework of the Negotiation as the Seller and the Buyer
- Learning Common Buyer and Seller Motivations
- The Counter Offer
Practice some of these things now and you'll immediately become better at trades—even if you make mistakes year-one. And what do you have to lose? You've already realized that your team is in trouble. Action may not lead to short-term wins but it will lead to long-term lessons that will help you win later.
