By the time your fantasy draft or auction rolls around, how much time will you have spent on research? How many FantasyAlarmDraftGuide articles will you have read? Hopefully, the answer is all of them. Will you create your own rankings, or use those of somebody you trust? How much time do you think went into all of the research, articles and podcasts you consumed leading up to your draft?
With all of that in mind, do you really feel comfortable throwing out the opinions you formed during the offseason based on one week of NFL games? What about two weeks? Hopefully, the answer is no. It has become something of a cliché, but sometimes you really do need to trust the process.
In some ways, fantasy football is the most difficult season fantasy game because it is so difficult to stay patient. When the regular season only lasts 13 weeks, it is perfectly natural to panic a little bit if your team starts out 0-2 or 0-3. It is much easier to be patient if you fall behind in an MLB, NBA or NHL league because there is more time for your players to perform as you expect and for your luck to even out. The only advantage for fantasy football players is how quickly things can change from one week to the next.
It is not at all uncommon for a fantasy team to go 0-2 to start the season and then score the most fantasy points in the league the next two weeks. Because so much of fantasy scoring is dependent on touchdowns, scoring tends to be quite volatile from week to week. A poor start may say very little about the state of your team and much more about your luck.
One of the best reasons for practicing patience during the season is that so many of your league mates will not. When your league zigs, it is usually smart to zag. If other fantasy players are quick to give up on guys they loved last month, you should be ready to take advantage, not follow suit.
Also, keep in mind that even a lot of serious fantasy players tend to lose focus as the season goes along. It might be easier to find a difference maker on the waiver wire in October when other people stop paying attention, and you may get a crucial win in November because your opponent never bothered to change his lineup. You can only take advantage if you avoid those pitfalls yourself. A win in Week 12 is just as valuable as a win in Week 3. Also, from a practical standpoint, no team is out of contention after three weeks. You can still get hot and make the playoffs, and anything can happen from there.
As a general rule of thumb, there is no reason to make drastic changes to your roster early in the season. The players you drafted to be starters are almost certainly still worth owning, even if it turns out they aren’t worth starting. Your high-upside plays likely still have high upside, even if they are slightly less likely to reach their ceilings than they were before the start of the season. If you drafted handcuffs for any of your starters, you probably aren’t jettisoning the handcuffs yet, either.
By all means, drop one of your fringe players for a Week 1 stud who looks legit, but don’t drop anyone good to do it. Keep in mind, Alex Smith was the number three quarterback in fantasy points in Week 1 last season. He finished 21st in fantasy points among quarterbacks for the season. The top scoring tight ends in Week 1 were Jack Doyle, Dwayne Allen, Julius Thomas, Eric Ebron, Austin Seferian-Jenkins and Larry Donnell. None finished the season as a top-12 fantasy tight end. For every Week 1 hero who actually breaks out there are at least as many who flame out. Someone you thought was good in August is probably still good in September, but the guys who weren’t even on your radar in August are still risky even after they have had a couple of good games.
Conversely, plenty of good players rebounded after a couple of down weeks to start the season, most notably Emmanuel Sanders, Devonta Freeman, Mark Ingram, Jimmy Graham and Russell Wilson. I’m sure they were dropped in some leagues early on, especially Graham, and that would have been a mistake.
This is another reason why it is important to watch the games. It isn’t enough to know a player isn’t getting as many snaps, targets or receptions. Before you give up on someone you believed in prior to the season, you need to know why. Was the player a victim of game flow, or bad luck? Did he run into two good defenses? Is he getting outperformed by someone who was supposed to be lower on the depth chart? These are important questions, and the best way to determine the answers is by watching film.
To this point, we have focused on the need to stay patient when it comes to adding and dropping players early in the season, which is certainly important. It may be more important, however, to remain patient when it comes to making potential trades. This is not to say you shouldn’t make trades early in the season. If another owner in your league wants to panic, by all means, try to take advantage. Just be sure you aren’t the one selling low on somebody you believed in less than a month ago.
This might seem a bit counterintuitive, but it is important to remain patient in keeper and dynasty leagues as well. Anyone who has played fantasy football for more than a year or two can probably think of examples where a team towards the bottom of the standings made a trade for the future and then went on a run to put itself into contention. When that run happens, you will probably wish you hadn’t traded your WR2 for someone who is out for the season. If you get an overwhelming offer or you get into a bidding war you might have to pull the trigger on a trade for the future early in the season, but for the most part, you will still be able to trade your RB1 to a contender at the trade deadline, when you will have a better idea of if you are actually a contender yourself. Remember, if it was easy to be patient, everyone in your league would do it.