OK, so your fantasy football draft is in the rearview mirror. Your team looks great. There's no way you're losing this title. Your work here is done, right? Wrong.
I'm in a lot of leagues -- most of them against industry experts -- but I'm also in a few long-running, casual leagues with college friends, family and neighbors. In both situations, there are extremely active managers and there are extremely lax managers. Some (like me) are rarely content and always tinkering with trade offers and waivers in order to get one step closer to a title. Others attack waivers only when needed (injuries, bye weeks) and are the strongest bet to commit the most heinous act of all -- ignoring trade proposals! (We'll talk more about that later.)
As you might imagine, the active managers win at a much higher rate than the casual ones. Now, is it possible to simply hit on nearly every draft pick and compete for a league title? Of course. In a high-variance game like fantasy football, it happens.
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In fact, that reminds me of the infamous 2007 season in my long-running 16-team, family and friends dynasty league. With zero fantasy football acumen and only Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots and Miami Hurricanes fandom at his disposal -- the perfect storm, as it would turn out -- my brother Matthew, then 13, drafted Patriots Tom Brady, Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Stephen Gostkowski, as well as Adrian Peterson and Kellen Winslow II. So, yeah, that's the top-scoring QB, WR and K, as well as the WR11 (Welker) and top-five finishers at RB and TE.
Matt never (or, at least, very rarely) checked on his team and still started 9-0. The funny part of the story came in Week 10 when the Patriots were on a bye. Matt, whose team otherwise averaged 105.3 points per week, didn't check his lineup and lost 69-9. Having relied only on his draft while failing to add complementary producers during the season, he inexplicably went on to lose in the semifinals.
On the other hand, my team (this was before my fantasy analyst days, by the way) started 0-7, leading me to shake up my roster with a few trades. I won six in a row, somehow made the playoffs and went on to win the league title. His team was way better, but (a) it's a weekly game, and (b) fantasy points come in all shapes and sizes.
Matthew "lucked" himself into a stacked roster, but postdraft negligence cost him what should have been a surefire league title. How do you avoid a similar fate? Let's take a look at a few strategies you can use on the trade and waiver market.