Preparing Your Fantasy Football Team

The new NFL season has already begun and for those of us participating in fantasy leagues, especially for the first time, it’s an early chance to see how our good our fantasy selections have been.

While competing in fantasy leagues is great fun and can often be extremely competitive, for novices it can also be frustrating sometimes, particularly if our fantasy team isn’t scoring as many points as we might have hoped for. Don’t get disheartened, though, because this is one of those hobbies that gets better with time.

If you thought you were already an avid NFL fan, just wait until you’ve had a season or two in a fantasy league. To help improve your knowledge and understanding, these are a few tips to keep you invested and wanting to get better with your weekly fantasy team preparations.

Following the Best Sportsbooks & Betting Odds

Given that fantasy teams live or die by the success of the players you choose, paying careful attention to performance ratings is crucial towards ranking highly in any given league.

Most fantasy league sites will publish lists of the top-ranking players in each position or team role, based on how they’ve performed in previous weeks. Some sites may go into more detail with feature articles taking a closer look at key positions.

Along with keeping a few quality statistical websites bookmarked, which can be a valuable tool towards identifying which players are likely to do well over the season, another useful tool can be following the NFL spreads each week at leading sportsbooks.

Not only can you find game lines that will help you see which teams are favored to win each matchup, there are also odds for player awards like MVP, Offensive Rookie of the Year, and Defensive Player of the Year.

Sportsbooks are usually unrivalled for the accuracy of their predictions, using a combination of complex algorithms and NFL expert analysts, which all goes towards how they set the betting odds for different markets. Monitoring the odds for individual awards and season leaders can be incredibly useful, given this can be an insightful way to monitor players you might want to consider adding to your fantasy team roster.

Keep Track of the Latest NFL News

Once your fantasy football team has been assembled via the draft, that’s just the beginning of your participation. Each week you will be tasked with selecting your lineup, and if you’re not keeping up with all the latest up-to-the-minute NFL news, there’s a good chance you might miss important information that could affect your fantasy team selections. Get into the habit of browsing the daily NFL headlines, looking for anything relating to your own fantasy picks.

Something many people often forget to check are the bye weeks, when teams might not have a fixture scheduled. Losing potential fantasy points for one player on a bye week is bad enough, if you’ve got multiple players on bye weeks, that’s just a disaster.

Make sure you know whenever a player won’t be playing because of bye weeks for their teams, and ensure you have your alternative options picked in the starting lineup.

Keep your eyes peeled for news of any player injuries or suspensions, as these will undoubtedly influence your fantasy selections when spotted in time.

If there’s any chance any components of your starting lineup are likely to miss games, get them replaced with your alternative or backup options. For this reason, it’s often a good idea to leave submitting your fantasy team as late as possible, just before the weekly deadline for your league.

Switching & Trading Players

One of the great things about the best fantasy leagues, which can directly improve the performance of your team, the option to change players can be a great boost for your fortunes, especially if you’re competitive and want to win the fantasy league championship. Switching players around is a key ingredient towards being successful in a fantasy league.

Striking the right balance is always vital, therefore if you’ve got an abundance of depth in certain roles or positions, always consider using those players in trades to bolster any weaker areas of your team. There’s no point having good players you’re not going to use often, when you can get another player that can provide better opportunities for points in other areas. Don’t forget, only starting players earn you points, whereas those on the bench don’t.

Some NFL players and teams will inevitably go through rough patches during the season. This can be useful because it could bring you some great unexpected trade opportunities.

You might have a couple of average but consistent players with good stats on your roster. These can sometimes be offered as a lure for good trades, if you feel confident there’s a star you want, who could be about to hit their best form again.

Keep Learning & Have Fun

This is the whole point of participating in any fantasy football league. It will certainly get you more invested in the NFL action, and it’s a great way to learn more about the game itself. Before to long, you’re be surprised at just how much you know and can put into practice with your fantasy team. Enjoy!

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