How To Build a Championship Fantasy Football Team

The draft is an important part of putting together your fantasy team, but you have to remember that it's only "one part" of the process.

A lot of the managers in my 12-team league spend hours—not to mention significant sums of money on fantasy football Web sites subscriptions and magazines—pouring over guide books, stats sheets, projections, and the like.

I believe in taking a minimalist approach. I usually print out a couple of the free Web sites' rankings of the top 50 players at each position and then group the players into four categories for each position - "elite" level players who you play every week without hesitation; "studs" who you play almost every week, but may be sat on occasion due to matchups; "starters" who will be in the lineup a lot; "sleepers" who could be poised to be significant points producers.

I also use the draft lists on draft day to see if a player regarded highly by the "experts" is sneaking through into the later rounds. I also typically try to devise some sort of draft strategy (e.g. two RBs and a WR with my first three picks), but I am also flexible and willing to adjust this based on what is happening in the draft.

For instance, this year I got Drew Brees in the second round, even though I was not planning on taking a QB until Round Four at the earliest. The reason I changed was that all the RBs and WRs that I had rated in the "elite" category had already been taken by the time it got back to me for my second-round pick (the 20th overall selection), and Brees was the only "elite" QB still left - Brady and Manning had already been taken.

I adjusted my strategy so I could get another "elite" player on my roster, and he wound up leading our league in scoring and taking me to the fantasy championship.

When the draft is over, that doesn't mean you have put your team together. By the end of the season, I was only starting two players I had taken on draft day—Brees and K Rob Bironas.

The move that probably made my season was picking up Texans RB Steve Slaton on waivers two weeks prior to the season.

At the time, he was still considered the backup to veteran Ahman Green, but Green's health issues (and declining productivity in recent years), led me to deduce that Slaton would be worth taking and stashing on my roster just in case.

Lo and behold Green was injured in the Texans' season-opening win and Slaton was immediately inserted into the starting lineup, where he rushed for 116 yards and a touchdown against the Tennessee Titans in his first start.

I activated Slaton from my IR after the game against Tennessee, and he was in my lineup every week for the rest of the season—except for the Nov. 9 game against Baltimore.

Two other valuable free agent pickups for me this year were New England running backs BenJarvus Green-Ellis and Sammy Morris. They combined for seven starts and 50 points and helped take some of the sting from my drafted RBs of Addai and Jamal Lewis.

By the time my season ended, four of the starting nine spots were taken by players I had picked up in trades—WRs Randy Moss and Greg Jennings, TE Jason Witten, and D Pittsburgh Steelers.

I got Jennings and Moss in a preseason deal for Anquan Boldin and LenDale White. Jennings ended up outscoring Boldin by only two points, and White wound up having a big season, but given that White started out as Chris Johnson's backup, and I had Addai, Lewis and Slaton on my roster, there is no guarantee that I would have put White in the lineup every week.

Plus, if I hadn't gotten Witten, my TE situation would have been problematic.

However, there is truth that sometimes, the best trades are the ones you don't make. After Ahman Green got injured in the Texans' first game, I immediately started shopping Slaton around to see if I could get a good third WR (a big need on my team at the time). Fortunately, nobody bit.

Another manager in our league tried to trade DeAngelo Williams after his three-TD performance in Week Five against Kansas City, but didn't receive a single offer.

Considering that Williams wound up the No. 1 scoring RB in our league, I have a feeling he's glad he didn't make a deal. I know I'm glad I didn't trade Slaton. (By the way, that's Monty Hall in the photo!)

Perhaps the key deal was trading Dwayne Bowe for Randy Moss prior to Week 11. At the time, Moss was still struggling to connect with Matt Cassel, but I was willing to take a chance their chemistry would improve.

I wanted Moss because I was having a hard time deciding on a second WR each week between Lee Evans and Bowe, and I was able to take advantage of another manager's fascination with Tyler Thigpen to pry away Moss.

I picked up the Steelers' defense for Arizona RB Tim Hightower the week after Hightower's two TD outburst against Buffalo in Week Five. Hightower scored zero or one point in seven of the Cardinals remaining 11 games, while the Steelers' defense put up some big numbers for me the rest of the year.

Drafting Dominic Rhodes did take a little of the sting out of Addai's lost season. Even though I only started Rhodes in three games, he scored five TDs in those games and totaled 42 points for me in those three outings.

Addai scored only 62 points in nine starts, but when you factor in Rhodes' three starts and the five starts for Morris, I actually wound up getting decent production out of my No. 1 RB slot.

If you draft a RB with a high-round pick, it's always a good idea to come back late in the draft and take his back-up, just in case of an injury. When it's a proven backup like Rhodes, it's even more important because you know he can produce.

Looking back at my season, I had 153 total starts (a nine-player roster for 17 weeks). Of those 153, the breakdown went like this: 65 were made by players I drafted; 36 were made by players I picked up on waivers; and 52 were made by players I picked up in a trade. In other words, players I picked up on draft day accounted for slightly more than 40 percent of my total starts.