Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet

Latest News Update About Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: Our friend Brad at Cheat Sheet Warroom? has provided us with a guest post on the importance of fantasy football cheat sheets as well as how to use his free fantasy football cheat sheet generator…

It's football season again and across the nation hoards of grown men will be kicking their wives out of the house and congregating to kick off another season of fantasy football greatness. As most fantasy addicts know, nothing makes the NFL offseason more tolerable than gazing at your gaudy championship trophy sitting atop the mantle next to the ashes of your dog and your wedding photo. The first phase in your quest for fantasy greatness is the fantasy football draft, and no tool is more critical to the success of your draft than your fantasy cheat sheet.

The key to drafting well is being more informed than your fellow fantasy owners on draft day. Especially in drafts where draft picks are timed, it is essential that you're well organized when your number is called. This is not a time to be scouring the Internet for the latest rankings or injury reports. Ideally, your fantasy football cheat sheet should provide you with all of the information necessary to make an educated decision when your number is called. Instead of using this time to determine the best player at each position, you should simply be deciding which position to target.

Cheat sheets, and the manner in which they're created, come in many shapes and sizes. Some owners simply do a Google search and download the first printable cheat sheet they come across. Other owners generate sheets the old-fashioned way: creating a spreadsheet in Excel, manually entering statistic from the previous season, spending countless hours creating formulas to create useable data, and finally copying/pasting players around until they're satisfied with their rankings. Still others pay exorbitant amounts of money for 'fantasy experts' to tell them who they should select on draft day. Although each of these methods might work, most dedicated fantasy football owners would rather control their own destiny, creating custom player rankings using the latest information available.

When creating your fantasy football cheat sheets, several factors are of key importance. First and foremost is fantasy point output from the previous season. Each play's value can swing widely depending on your league's scoring configuration, so try to determine their relative worth based on your system. If that becomes too cumbersome, at worse understand each player's fantasy point output using the standard scoring system. Experience is another key factor. We all know that rookie usually struggle and WRs usually hit their stride in their 3rd year. Know what year each player is entering and even those players who are entering contract year (and thus will be paying all-out for bigger money).

Don't be tempted to print out the first list of static rankings that you find online and expect this to guide you on draft day. Many times the rankings you access on draft day are out of date or based on a scoring system not utilized by your own league. However, compiling supplemental rankings is not an entirely useless exercise. If you find reputable, current, and reliable rankings online, integrate them into your own cheat sheet to provide a reference point for your own rankings. This will give you a general idea of how far your rankings deviate from the norm, and whether you've completely forgot to consider some players.

When formulating your rankings, jot down notes on each player to remind you of any factors to consider when drafting that player. Is this player battling an injury? Are they fighting for playing time? Are they facing a possible suspension? Consider that in leagues with 12 teams and 15 player rosters, there will be 180 players selected at your fantasy football draft. No one can reasonably keep track of the status of 180 players so it is essential that you keep accurate notes (and update them regularly) when you're formulating your rankings.

In addition to your player rankings you may also want to have other lists on-hand. A 'handcuff' list details the running back groupings on each respective team. This can be useful in reminding you to pick-up your primary running back's backup. In this way you have in insurance policy should your starting running back get injured. A list of team bye weeks is also critical. Nothing is worse than realizing both of your running backs, or all three of your wide receivers, have the same bye week. Knowing the bye weeks of the players you've already drafted can provide you with a sort of tie-break when you select the next player at that position (e.e. if you can't decide between a few players at a position, pick the one who has a different bye week than the players already on your roster at that position).

Cheat sheet creation doesn't have to cost money or be a time-consuming process. There are numerous free online tools which can make preparing your cheat sheets easy and above all else, fun. The key is finding the most pertinent player information available, integrating that information into your custom rankings, and using that information wisely on draft day. Knowledge is power, and a comprehensive, well-organized cheat sheet should be your secret weapon in your quest for the next fantasy football championship.

Happy Drafting!

Brad is the creator of the online cheat sheet creation site, CheatSheetWarRoom.com. CSWR is a free online tool that allows owners to create fantasy football cheat sheets using drag and drop, for free. Each custom cheat sheet integrates critical player information (name, position, team, experience),pertinent stats from the previous season (including 'total fantasy points' and 'fantasy points per game), configurable tags (for 'sleeper', 'bust', and 'injured'), supplemental rankings from 3 reputable sources (CSWR, NFL.com, CBSSports.com), and a configurable note. Cheat sheets are then integrated into a comprehensive, printable cheat sheet to take to your draft.