We’re gearing up for the biggest fantasy football draft weekend of the year. You’re going to need some quick advice, some swing shouts if you will. Here’s the digestible but actionable advice you’ll want to hear before you start building your masterpiece.

General design strategy

ADP gets a bad rap. It’s a rough approximation of what players cost in drafts, and that has meaning. I never adjust the order of players in a draft applet, although I might keep a list on the side; I want to know what names my rivals are looking at.

If you can pick a spot to draft, focus on something near the top of the first round. The talent pool flattens out quickly in the second round, where you can’t separate most players. There are more defined small clusters of talent in the first round.

Sketch the plan, but think of it as a pencil sketch. The first rule of all this is to stay flexible. You never know what great opportunities might unexpectedly become available during the draft.

For me, free weeks are nothing more than a deciding factor. It is usually a mistake to let bye weeks have a big impact on draft decisions. If you want a tiebreaker, pick the player with the later bye. Your roster is going to look very different in the second half of the year.

I often find the Strength of Schedule analysis to be of little value. Too much is unknowable. Too much changes in the season; it’s a snow globe competition. If I’m going to do an SOS analysis on my drafts this weekend, it’s going to be the extremes, the outliers. Atlanta’s schedule looks marshmallowy — let’s take that seriously.

If a player is already struggling with a serious injury, I will probably have that player drafted by someone else. Injury optimism is not your friend, and in fantasy football, you don’t go looking for injuries — they’ll find you. I realize you might have IR slots and they’re probably open right now, but that never lasts long. Nick Chubb and TJ Hockenson are basically off my draft board. Drafting like an actuary isn’t fun, but it’s smart.

Try to draft players who are in the front nines of their careers, players who are still on the rise, players who probably haven’t had their best season yet. Sometimes I’m open to a boring, older veteran if the price is right, but you don’t want a group of players that are all back-niners, especially at the non-quarterback positions.

Listen to everyone you respect, but make your own decisions. It’s your team. You know your competition and situation better than an outsider could.

Make sure to refresh your player queue regularly while drafting. This will prevent you from being taken offline halfway through a draft (just make sure the sleepers who come in late in the round aren’t at the top) and it will help you remember which names you want to know.

Teaming up is one of the best fantasy cheat codes, provided you find someone with a similar outlook on the NFL world. If your interest and sophistication aren’t about the same, it probably won’t work. But if the match is right, it’s very powerful. Plus, you always have someone who’s involved in the team, someone you can share the experience with.

It’s fine to have a few picks that are primarily based on the floor, but for us, the upside is more likely to be decisive. No one wins the Masters with 72 pars.

The best form of competition is the one that you and your friends enjoy the most. There are no right answers here. If I were tasked with setting up a league, I would prefer one that allows more players to start, as I think it rewards depth more and smooths out variance more. But please, do what you want.

I also prefer Salary Cap designs to standard Snake Drafts because I like anything that allows for greater diversity in roster composition. I also want a shot at every player in the pool and I like the challenge of directly defending and bidding against the entire room.

Select players or bid on players because they fit the requirements of your squad. If you’re more focused on confusing your opponents, especially in a Salary Cap draft, it can very easily blow up in your face. I’m not saying it can’t be fun to mess with your opponents, but if you don’t really know what you’re doing, it’s a dangerous game. You’ve been warned.

Positional Strategy for 2024

I’m not taking a vain quarterback this year. The pool is absurdly deep with so many interesting prospects. In Superflex formats, I am often the last to draft my QB1, but the first to draft my QB2. That’s not a bad idea either, even if you only start one quarterback per week.

I generally don’t accept running back insurance at the draft table. Of course, I’ll draft a handful of lottery running backs — regardless of your preferred build, any smart manager will. But don’t double up on teams. Early in the season, you want to be playing for the big inning. Later in the season, when the team’s RB rooms are better defined and your personal situation is better defined, insurance can make sense. It’s not something I’m going to chase in August.

(Jordan Mason might be a rare insurance pick for me, as he’s clearly defined as the No. 2 back in San Francisco and the system is great, even with the offensive line being a question mark. This is the exception in the preseason for me, not the rule.)

If your league has at least three wideouts (or maybe more, if you factor in flex), I probably want the best WR room in the league. For example, if your starting requirements are two running backs and two wideouts, the RB position becomes more important. Most of my builds focus on the Hero RB approach, where you grab a signature runner somewhere in the first 3-4 rounds, but you target the other positions with early picks. I will deviate from this if the overall starting requirements are thin.

The tight end is deeper than normal in the first 10 players, but collapses after that. This doesn’t mean you have to be early at the position, but you should at least semi-prioritize it. If your league has 12 or more managers, don’t be the last team to tackle the tight end position.

In the middle of summer, it is often wise to avoid a kicker or D/ST pick and instead choose another contingent, valuable upside pick. But forget about this gamble so close to the start of the season. There is not enough time for much important news in a week. Just fill in all your starting spots.

My picks, pans, goals, fades, advice

We’ve been working on this all summer. Here’s my playbook.

— My boys

— Big names disappear

— Quarterback Levels

— Running Back Levels

— Wide receiver levels

— Tight End Levels

— Team Power Rankings (with lots of player commentary)

— Tips for setting a salary ceiling

Draft like a champion today. Make this your season to remember.