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The most exciting and anticipated event of the fantasy football season is coming up - THE DRAFT! The draft should feel like Christmas at the end of summer. It should be FUN and celebrated. If this is not the case and your draft can be classified as boring find another league to join that does things right. This is the one time of the year when every team gets to talk trash. Every team is undefeated and has championship dreams. Unfortunately it is also on this day that many teams will make foolish mistakes that will ruin the fun of their fantasy season entirely too soon! The goal here is to help fantasy owners avoid some common mistakes and reveal some valuable insight that will help your teams compete for a championship every year!

As a fantasy team owner how many times have you heard the expression, " ... yeah but he was ranked really high." This phrase is generally used as rationale by an owner that realizes his stud is a bust. Owners most likely to make this statement probably bought a magazine late July/Early August for a draft that is several weeks later. Now reading magazines is a good start if not a necessity to process all of the NFL's off-season activities but if your preparation stops there you will get dominated in your league. Lucky does happen but not consistently enough to make an unprepared draft look good come playoff time. The point is prepare early and often but most importantly of all update your player rankings based on current information as close to your draft as possible.

The next bit of advice is to pay attention to the line. The offensive line for the position players you're drafting will impact your team. It is not an accident that Adrian Peterson thrived in Minnesota while Frank Gore got stuffed in San Francisco. Tom Brady was sacked just 21 times last year compared to 48 times for St. Louis QBs. The point is Brady, Moss and Welker significantly outperformed Bulger, Holt, and Bruce. You won't draft Orlando Pace in any fantasy league but he will impact the players that are drafted.

For those that participate in pay leagues plan to draft as many free teams or participate in as many mock drafts as possible. You can never practice drafting enough before your real draft happens. The knowledge of what rounds specific players are being drafted is an invaluable asset. The bottomline - when money is up for grabs leagues get competitive and teams get serious about winning. Besides you don't really want to brunt of those "Donating your Money" jokes.

A common mistake is for owners to over-emphasize the importance of the 1st two rounds. It's fun to debate who might get drafted where in the first 20-28 picks but the reality is everyone gets high quality players with those picks. Losing sleep between picking Addai or Westbrook is not going to help your draft. The point is that successful owners that consistently compete for championships focus more on the mid-to-late rounds of the draft. These rounds have most owners scrambling for whoever is left or picking a name out of a book. If you are prepared for these rounds you will dominate your draft. Last year a huge difference could be found between drafting Lee Evans in round 3 and Wes Welker in round 12. The idea is to get value late in the draft and make better choices early.

The final piece of advice and most important is to have fun and talk trash. Where else besides the realm of fantasy football is it perfectly acceptable if not encouraged to humiliate, insult, and/or degrade another human being? Have fun and enjoy it!

Learn more about this author, Daniel Reinard.
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