Guides · Draft prep
Fantasy football draft prep checklist
A step-by-step fantasy football draft prep checklist: lock your scoring settings, build tiers, plan your slot, and set up live sync before pick one.
1. Write down your exact scoring settings
Half-PPR and full PPR move receiving backs and slot receivers by whole rounds. Superflex changes the top 40 picks entirely. Six-point passing touchdowns pull quarterbacks up. Before you look at a single ranking, write down PPR value, TE premium, roster slots, and how many teams are in the league — every value on your board is downstream of those four numbers.
2. Convert rankings into tiers
A ranked list implies the gap between RB6 and RB7 is the same as the gap between RB7 and RB8. It usually isn't. Group players into tiers where you would be roughly indifferent between them, then draw a line where the drop-off is real. During the draft you only need one question: is this the last player in his tier?
3. Plan around your draft slot, not the board
In a snake draft the gap between your turns is the only number that matters. From the fourth slot you wait 16 picks between rounds one and two; from the eleventh you wait four. Map out which pairs of picks you are willing to live with at each turn instead of planning one pick at a time.
4. Know your ADP, then know where your league ignores it
Average draft position is a league-agnostic average. Your league is not average. Home leagues reach on hometown players, industry leagues over-correct on injury news, and every room has one manager who drafts a quarterback three rounds early and starts a run. Note last year's tendencies if you have the draft history.
5. Build a do-not-draft and a target list
Two short lists beat one long one. Five players you will not take at their price, and five you will reach a round early for. Everything in between is handled by tiers, which keeps you from freezing when the clock is at twelve seconds.
6. Test your setup before draft night
The worst time to discover your sync is not working is on the clock. Run one mock on the platform you will actually draft on, confirm picks appear in real time, and check that your roster settings imported correctly.
Check your league in about a minute
The free analyzer reads a completed or in-progress draft and returns a Draft Panic Score — how far the room has drifted from ADP — so you can see whether your league reaches early, waits on quarterbacks, or panics at the tight end cliff before you prep for it.