I don't know when "draft season" officially starts, but August 1st seems just as good a date as any. I've got my first draft coming up two weeks from Sunday and I'm getting excited. I think my rankings are solidifying over there on the right and many FFB articles are flying around the blogosphere.
In all the "draft advice" columns I've seen, though, I've never seen one that helps you recover from a bad draft.
Hey, things happen. To paraphrase what Michael Strahan had to say after Super Bowl 42, everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth. The best set of rankings in the world don't amount to much once you're in that draft room with actual people, some of whom don't conform to the wisdom you've been reading in those other articles for months. How would you react if the TE run starts in the middle of Round 2 and you jump on board, even though you had grand plans of going RB-RB-WR-QB? I had this very thing happen to me last year and I still managed to take 3rd, so I hope you can benefit from my experience.
Here's what happened: with the fourth pick in a 12 team draft where only TEs get a PPR (and you can flex one as well), I reached for Jermichael Finley with the 21st overall pick. Panicked that all the top tier QBs were then off the board, I reached for Joe Flacco in the 3rd round, and then had to settle for Malcolm Floyd as my #1 WR in the fifth. Sandwiched in there was Arian Foster in the 4th; go me!
After the Floyd pick, I knew I was headed down a bad road. I may have had two great RBs and a TE, but my QB and WR corp weren't looking so hot. I had a lot of time to kill between my 5th and 6th picks, so I calmed myself down and figured out my strategy: I'd have to play the QB and WR matchups every week and for that I needed bodies. Lots of bodies. I also needed to, at some point, take a non-WR to use as trade bait.
My next two picks were Dwayne Bowe and Terrel Owens. Okay, now I had 3 decent names to pick 2 from each week.
In Round 8, I saw Matt Forte was still on the board. I didn't LOVE him based on his performance in '09, but hey, Mike Martz was taking over the O and it was the eighth round. I had two great RBs, but maybe someone would want him.
In Round 9, I took Jerome Harrison b/c Monterio Hardesty had gone down and the conventional wisdom was he'd start ahead of Peyton Hillis.
Round 10: Jabar Gaffney b/c I saw in the pre-season he had a good repoire with Kyle Orton. I figured he'd be another body to add to my WR pool.
Round 11: Broncos Team QB b/c I saw Orton had a good repoire with Gaffney and Brandon Lloyd and, hey, maybe that Tim Tebow guy would run in some TDs.
As you can see, once I went into "bodies mode", I made some really good, albeit lucky, decisions. Bowe and TO started many games for me and I flipped Forte for Calvin Johnson after week 1; this solidified my WR1 slot and gave me only 1, rather than 2, choice to make each week. Orton/Tebow started most weeks over Flacco and the rest, as they say, is history.
The important thing was I didn't panic. But even if I continued to draft poorly, I still would've had a shot by working the waiver wire.
And that's probably the most important lesson I can impart: these mistakes are fixable. So if you find yourself in this position, let the panic wash over you (maybe down an alcoholic beverage between picks), regroup, replan and position yourself to win!
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