The key to assembling a strong, championship-caliber fantasy team is using all of the tools available for your success. Those owners that utilize more of the available tools tend to achieve more sustained success. Of all the tools available to the fantasy player, none is more important than the mock draft.
How important is mock drafting to your season? It’s a fair question to ask considering that the average player already has precious little time to devote to more fantasy football related endeavors above and beyond the week to week grind of studying, working the waiver and setting a lineup all season long.
Not to mention all the people in your league and life that will actively tease you for caring enough to mock draft. Yes, somehow there are still some people out there that don’t take fantasy football that seriously.
People who play fantasy, play for many different reasons. Money, bragging rights, fun and diversion from the soul-crushing monotony of the rat race are all on the list. The one thing that unites us all is the desire to win.
ROCK THE MOCK
So, can you win without mock drafting? Of course! You can also win by blacking out after one too many pre-draft brews with the bros and going full auto pick. You won’t win, but you could.
If you want to give yourself the best chance at winning, however, you want to be as prepared as possible for the entire season, draft and all. The reality is that you can’t win your league in the draft room but you sure can lose it. There is nothing more difficult to overcome than a bad draft. So if you are serious about winning your league, you had better be serious about nailing your draft.
Mock drafting is one of the most important things a fantasy player can do to prepare for that draft. Mocks are mental calisthenics for fantasy players. Mock drafts help you to get a feel for how the drafting population at large is approaching players.
PLANNING
Us humans like to plan out everything. We plan our days, our weeks, our years and our decades. There is meal planning and outfit planning. We plan and rehearse conversations with our bosses when we plan on asking for a raise. The problem is that those plans rarely unfold the way we foresee. Life is unpredictable. The great Mike Tyson once famously quipped “that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
The same thing happens with draft plans. Most owners mentally map out the first three or four rounds based on personal preferences and biases only to have the draft immediately punch them right in the mouth. Those owners then go on tilt, the draft gets away from them and two hours later they look at their rosters with stomachs sinking faster than the Titanic after it got punched in the mouth by an iceberg.
Mock drafting is one of the best tools available to help you avoid the unforeseen icebergs in your real draft. Mocking can help contextualize the ADP (average draft position) numbers that captivate so many drafters. Mocks can help you test and retest multiple strategies such as RB/RB, Zero RB Theory, early TE, late QB etc. Mock drafts can help you build your cheat sheet (another very important tool for fantasy players).
Whether you mock live on sites like ESPN or use quick, automated drafting like the invaluable Draft Wizard offered by Fantasypros, you will start to see patterns emerge. More importantly, you will become accustomed to the unpredictability of drafts. This will help you become elastic in your draft room, able to quickly and nimbly respond to the ever-evolving and chaotic nature of live drafts. You won’t be blindsided or left scrambling in your actual draft.
MORAL OF THE STORY
Success in fantasy is primarily based off of probability and preparedness. Mock drafting helps with both. The more you mock, the more benefit you gain from mocking. It is self-perpetuating. If your goal is to be as prepared as possible to win your league then you absolutely need to jump into a few mocks at various draft positions in the weeks before your draft.
Once you know the draft order for your league it’s time step up those mocks. Start drafting from your spot over and over again. Get a legitimate feel for how the draft is likely to unfold and compare those results with your original cheat sheet. Start to tweak your cheat sheet based off of data collected and sorted in your mocks. That way, on draft day you have a more realistic idea of how the draft is likely to unfold. Make sure to start mock drafting now so that you can win your championship later. Plus, mock drafting is fun! That is what fantasy football is all about: having fun.
