| 09 October 2009
Last week we saw the beginning of bye week season and it will continue to roll on through this weekend and the next few weeks. Bye weeks are everyones' nemesis during draft day; you just never know what to do with them. You can try and always draft players in similar positions that have different bye weeks, but then you could be limiting your team because of it. You could not pay attention at all, but then you could have a cluster of byes during a particular week. Well I'm here to give you advice about bye weeks. I'll help you out with some drafting strategies for next year, while also giving you advice to what you should do when your team looks like it's in big trouble due to the dreaded bye weeks.
Let's get the drafting out of the way so everyone knows what to do for next year. My whole take on it is to not worry and just draft the best team because it's still going to benefit you more in the long run to have the better players for the majority of weeks then to have a bad matchup for a couple weeks. The best move is actually to draft players who all have the same bye week. Yes, I know, this sounds ludicrous, but statistically this strategy benefits your team the most because for every week, but one, you can furnish the best team possible instead of typically having one or two of your best players having to sit during their respective bye weeks. Now I've never tried this strategy myself. I would think that it would be tough to have enough players to produce a starting lineup during that week and then you would have to make the decision to drop one of your productive players. My advice is to always go for the best player on your list. In the end you are going feel better about your team and not beat yourself over a decision based on a bye week.
Once you get to your bye weeks it's a whole new ball game. Your strategy involved in selecting your starting lineup must change based on what players you have playing and what players your opponent has playing. Most people want to run out and grab the new fantasy stud for the week, but that's not always the best move. First, analyze your team and see what positions you need or could better yourself in. Next, review your opponent's team, think about the matchups he has and determine an estimate of how well you think his team will do. If you have a solid team and need to pick up a player or two and your opponent's team is weak then play it safe. Grab a player who you know will score you 5-10 points, but may not have the potential for anymore than that. Any points are positive points and in these crucial weeks taking the sure thing is better than going for the home run. The opposite of that is if your opponent's team is strong and your team isn't looking so hot. This is when you should go for potential and make a risky play. Remember that most of these players you are picking up aren't going to be weekly starters for you, but by grabbing a potential breakout player you could steal a win and grab a great pickup at the same time.
Bye weeks are some of the toughest weeks to predict. If you don't prepare correctly and make the right moves then you could see your team faltering for a few weeks during the midway part of the fantasy season. This is the worst thing that anyone can do, but by utilizing these strategies you can capitalize on other team's that haven't fully analyzed their situations.
