They say that a fantasy league cannot be won in the first couple of rounds, but certainly can be lost. They also say that it is in the middle rounds where fantasy championships are earned.
They also raise valid points. Over-thinking selections in the initial rounds usually leads to diminishing returns, when the safe and obvious pick is the best bet. We should be spending more of our time figuring out who to grab during the meat of the draft since that is where most of the meaningful differentiation between rosters originates.
So if we avoid losing our leagues at the start, and position ourselves to win them in the middle, the end of the draft is where we make it all easier on ourselves. After, say, round 12 is where the fun really starts. Not because you and your leaguemates are truly lit up by then, although that does help. This is the point of the draft where high-upside, roster-deepening, tradewater-chumming nuggets of fantasy gold are unearthed. If the sound of that doesn’t warm your cockles, well, you can always go fetch more Doritos and pick your defense five rounds too early.
The late rounds are where our shackles come off, because the standard deviation of the end-of-draft players’ average draft positions (ADP) becomes too large to project with a comfortable degree of reliability. Basically, this is where you can grab “your guys” before someone else does, without worrying about what round it is and if you should wait a few more to squeeze out maximum value.
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Pat Thorman is a Lead Writer for PFF Fantasy. You can follow him on Twitter at @Pat_Thorman