Save Cash for a Rough Patch

Auction fantasy football is a lot like chess. As such every player knows the significance of each player they choose. As such your salary cap and your spending will literally make or break your season. Some say the game is won PRIOR to it even beginning.

Regardless of how much experience your competitors have in auction fantasy football they will still act like a typical auction with human interaction. Especially considering the money they are spending isn’t ‘real’. Therefore, people will spend more money than they should in the first half of the auction, when they have that nice lump sum of a salary cap sitting in their pocket. If you can manage to hold out wait until about two-thirds through the auction start to begin spending aggressively, you’ll take control of the board. Remember that fantasy football is no different then real life, if you spend all your money and get stuck you’ll be like the rest of those guys that were selling mortgage leads back in the day.

This is about the time people can only pay the bare minimum for the rest of their rosters and you have all that money saved up! Be a smart bidder and let those sharks take each other out as they overvalue the players.

With that being said though, make sure that you do purchase some quality starters along the way. The last thing that you want to do is end up finishing the auction with no power players on your roster and a bunch of crap players but alot of money in your camp. You can’t take that money with you so be sure to spend it all!

Setting Up Your Auction Strategy

Everyone has a different amount of time that they can spend on preparing for their fantasy auctions. Some may have fifteen minutes while others spend up to twenty or so hours meticulously preparing for their upcoming fantasy auction. Regardless of your time here is a time tested strategy to make sure your up to date and prepared for the upcoming auction. Keep in mind you don’t want to be pulling your hair out from the stress of not being prepared for the upcoming season, otherwise you may need a hair loss remedy

Create a cheat sheet (will include link later), with this cheat sheet you can generate a mock auction by using the cheat sheet’s values. Theoretically the cheat sheet should be accurate and all the teams should be even. Then you should adjust your player values accordingly - weaker teams generally have overpriced players and stronger teams have under-priced players. After adjusting prices several times and running mock auctions you should have a fairly good idea of decent values for players and pricing.

Now you’ve got a rocking cheat sheet! The most important strategy of fantasy auctions is bargain hunting. Be ready to bid on players that are going for a big discount at the bid countdown. The more of these bargains you pick up the faster you will be successful with your fantasy league.

Auction Strategy for Beginners

I just want to go over some of the basic strategies for a successful fantasy football auction setup. Even if you are a beginner going up seasoned veterans if you follow some of these simple rules you can be guaranteed a solid fantasy team.

There’s a few of us out there (you know who you are) that spend in the upwards of 30 or so hours a week doing research prior to our season auction. Those players that happen to just pick up a preseason magazine a few hours before the auction should stick to this strategy.

Apply the following salary cap percentages on your picks:

• One QB - 10-15%
• Two RB - 50-60%
• Three WR - 25-35%
• Keep the minimum’s for the remaining players

This is an easy but a sure fire way to have a solid lineup for the upcoming season and players to choose from. After each player is sold, write down how much he sold for on your cheat sheet. This gives you a great idea of how your league perceives values for positions which allows you to strategically bid accordingly. By keeping track of players purchased and values associated you can make winning purchases time and time again without overpaying.

I see people have solid seasons time and time again by following that simple strategy. This will help you keep your head on your shoulders and not get caught up in a bidding war and overpaying for players.

How Auction Fantasy Football Works Cont.

Auctions Are Fun! Way more fun than traditional Snake Drafts

It’s really a world of difference between the two. More than half an hour goes by in a traditional snake draft and you may see one or two picks. Snake drafts are a spectator sport waiting for your ‘turn’ in the mix. In the auction format you implement various strategies and can even help ‘drive’ up the prices of specific players. Rather then taking your turns with the traditional snake draft, auctions allow for the whole league to be involved when a player goes up on the ‘auction block’. This process makes it for a competitive and complete league participation. This added layer of competition not only gets your heart pumping but is great grounds for some truly competitive trash talking! Who doesn’t like that? Remember this isn’t an mlm marketing system, this is auction fantasy football!

Auctions Require Strategy

Hands down auctions require added dimensions of strategy not found with your traditional fantasy leagues. Snake drafts ’strategy’ revolves around ‘what position should I take in X round’, followed by the elimination process of ‘everyone else has a RB/WR/etc, so I can wait till the following round to get mine.’ The auction draft changes the boring, repetitive nature to a strategic game like chess, poker, or Risk.  Strategies of raising the bid and not getting caught or identifying key bargains all change the face of the game. You can finally establish the true type of team that you nearly dreamed of, then getting stuck with crappy draft selections. Auction formats allow for a truly mind tricking type of game.

How Auction Style Fantasy Football Works

Like your typical snake drafts, people will take turns selecting players in a serpentine format. Here is where the real fun begins, instead of adding players to their rosters they put the players up on the auction block. The league will set a salary cap, i.e. $1 million or whatever figure they choose and the people cannot go over that cap. The people then begin bidding on players and remove the ending price from their cap. This process continues until all of the rosters  are full.

This adds a real dimension to the game and really gets people riled up and involved. Your typical wait and pick draft turns into a game of strategy, correctly managing your player selection and when to place a bid. Here are some reason as to why your typical snake draft fantasy player switches to the auction style format.

Auctions are Fair

Remember that the salary cap is predetermined before the bidding starts. Therefore everyone starts with an equal share of the pie and have the chance to get any player, regardless of their draft position.  In a typical snake draft system if you get stuck with the 12th pick in a 12-team snake draft league then you practically have little chance for any franchised players. With the auction setup you have every chance to get the top ranked players as long as you’re willing to pay ‘going market price’ for them. This allows for a level playing field from the start and implements strategy.

Auctions Provide Flexibility

Where as with a snake system you are stuck with an ‘evenly’ distributed player selection, auctions allow for you to build a team however you want it to be created. For example:

Got a good feeling on one or two first rounders? You can spend as much or as little as you want on first round selections and balance the rest of your team with sleepers.

Have you had a bad experience with a first round core team? Balance your team by skipping the first round choices and pick up more of the 2nd and 3rd round choices.

Or if you are the good ol’ traditional snake player and want the usual balanced team you can also build that. It’s up to you and your control, if you are a big San Diego fan and wear around nfl helmets of your favorite team and think that their offense is on the upswing then you can make sure that they are all on your squad. Welcome to the beauty of auction style play.