Jason Moore of Fantasy Footballers Has Expert Draft Advice

Though the kickoff of the NFL’s 100th season is still over a week away, fantasy football season is already in full swing. Whether it’s via ESPN, Yahoo or another online provider, millions of Americans (more than five percent of the U.S. adult population by some estimates) have, or will, partake in a fantasy football draft prior to the NFL season.

If you happen to be one of those people, Jason Moore of the Fantasy Footballers, an award-winning podcast which debuted in 2014 and had more than 100 million downloads in 2018, has some advice that should help you before, during, and after your draft.

First, Moore suggests putting the players you are considering picking in the draft into tiers as opposed to just ranking them chronologically. “The most important part of prepping for a draft is having tiers of groups of players in whatever lists that you find or create,” Moore tells InsideHook. “Find where the breaks are. If you think there are four top-tier running backs, mark that to show there’s real separation. Because sometimes the difference between five different players is almost nothing. But in a numerical ranking sheet, it seems like, you know, this guy’s five players worse than the other guy. I think grouping players is a really important piece of strategy for fantasy football.”

Another piece of pre-draft strategy Moore recommends, especially for those short on time, is finding a reliable source to get ranks.

“If you only have time for one thing, it’s finding a good resource,” Moore says. “Whatever that resource is, you need to, you know, you just need to find a trusted resource for rankings, sleepers, breakouts and busts. Before I was an analyst, I only had time for a little bit of draft prep and it always came down to just finding what I believed was the right resource. It really mattered. Obviously, we have the Ultimate Draft Kit that we pour our time in and has been proven to be very accurate. But yeah, if you only have time for one thing, it’s finding the best rankings.”

The difference between Aaron Rogers and Kirk Cousins is nowhere near as big as the difference between a good running back and the last starting running back in fantasy football.

As for the draft itself, Moore has a few tips based on trends he’s seen this year. The first of these is what quarterbacks are getting drafted far too early.

“This year it’ll be Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers. People draft these big-name quarterbacks because they see quarterbacks score the most points and that these guys score more points than the others,” he says. “But that is a gigantic mistake in fantasy football. Always draft your quarterback late. In a normal league, you only need 10 or 12 total quarterbacks and there are about 20 really good fantasy quarterbacks in the NFL. The difference between Aaron Rogers and Kirk Cousins is nowhere near as big as the difference between a good running back and the last starting running back in fantasy football. Or wide receiver because you start two or three running backs and wide receivers a week. Think about who the 36th-best running back is in football. They’re terrible. Whereas you know, the 12th-best quarterback in football is great. Don’t get sucked into big names like Tom Brady and Big Ben. Sometimes the most famous players aren’t the best fantasy players.”

There are also a few other position-related strategies to employ on draft day, according to Moore.

“Never draft a rookie tight end and rarely draft a rookie wide receiver,” Moore says. “They blossom later in the year. But, I would always draft rookie running backs. Every single year on average, two of the top 12 running backs in fantasy football are rookies. And draft running backs that catch the ball. I’m very wary of running backs that aren’t utilized in the passing game because they can get game-scripted out if the team is losing. I want a running back, if they’re winning, they’re used, and if they’re losing they’re used. Also, don’t pick a kicker and a defense until your last two rounds because it’s hard to predict and the value isn’t there.”

Moore also isn’t a big fan of handcuffing — the practice rostering one of your top pick’s backups so you can use that player in the case of an injury. “Handcuffing is much more valuable late in the season,” Moore says. “You see a lot more of the injuries happen for running backs and there’s more clarity about who the actual handcuff is. I don’t recommend drafting handcuffs ever because we had so many examples of presumed clear-cut handcuffs turning out to be wrong. So you end up wasting a roster spot on your team early.”

Your team can really go on a winning streak very easily as long as you stay committed after a bad start. In a normal re-draft league, never quit.

Once you’ve filled your roster and the season is underway, don’t be afraid to make changes — quickly. “I think smart fantasy players are more willing to move on from players they drafted quicker,” Moore says. “A lot of times, especially with higher-drafted players, if they fail you can end up holding them all season long and never moving away, never benching them. The NFL changes quickly on a week-to-week basis, and you have to be willing to say whatever happened in the past is irrelevant. Whatever draft capital I spent in the past is irrelevant for making the best decisions going forward.”

And if at first those decisions don’t translate into wins, don’t quit.

“Every single season we get written by people that say, I started 0-4 or 0-5 and then I found your show and won the championship at the end of the year,” Moore says. “Over the last five years, we’ve gotten hundreds of those. All you have to do is make the playoffs to win a championship. And you know, about half the league wins. So what happens four weeks in, when you’re maybe 0-4 or 1-3, so are other people in the league. And the people that quit, they end up becoming easy wins for other people. So your team can really go on a winning streak very easily as long as you stay committed after a bad start. In a normal re-draft league, never quit.”

Even if you don’t win it all, having skin in the weekly games will give you a reason to watch.

“Watching a game between the Dolphins and the Bengals, they aren’t my home teams, can be an exhilarating, fun experience because I need Kenyan Drake to score a touchdown to win and get in the playoffs,” Moore says. “It makes every game more compelling when you’ve got a horse in the race.”