Fantasy Football: 7 Draft Mistakes You Made This Year and How to Avoid Them Next

Whether you are a player new to the game or a veteran, there are multiple "rules of thumb" or "points of conventional wisdom" that you hear about fantasy football every year. You read them in magazines, hear them on talk shows and learn them from other managers in your league. These have been passed down through the years from one generation to the next.

Some of the rules deal with avoiding rookies at certain positions. Others deal with which positions you should fill early in the draft. You can tell if you have violated one of these rules if you hear snickers after you make a draft pick.

Let's look at how some of these rules pertaining to draft strategies turned out this season.

Bad Rule of Thumb: Don't Draft a QB in the First Two Rounds

In some fantasy circles, there is the general rule of thumb that you should not draft a quarterback in the first two rounds. When a novice manager does so, there is instant smack talk from the veteran managers.

Well, this year that rule of thumb turned out to be bad advice. In the league I run, seven of the top 10 producers this year are quarterbacks as well as five of the top six.  In two of the online draft leagues I play in, a manager missed the draft and his team was selected by "autopick," which takes the highest ranked player automatically.

In both cases, the manager ended up with Aaron Rodgers as his first pick, had a great season and has a high seeding in the playoffs.

Some years just taking the best available player in the draft beats other strategies. This was one of those years.

Good Rule of Thumb: Handcuff Your Best Players

What do Ben Tate of the Houston Texans, C. J. Spiller of the Buffalo Bills and Marion Barber of the Chicago Bears have in common? They all are backups for a running back that was drafted in the first or second round of your draft this year.

Early in the year Arian Foster was injured, and having Ben Tate as his handcuff saved your early season. Now late in the season if you have Spiller playing for Fred Jackson and Barber playing for Matt Forte, you still have a reasonable shot in the playoffs. But without such a handcuff, you probably have a big hole in your lineup and will be making an early exit.

This year handcuffs for running backs really paid off.

Good Rule of Thumb: Don't Take a Kicker Until Very Near the End of the Draft

Most veteran managers wait until as late as possible in the draft to take their kicker. How did this strategy work this year?

Using data from several leagues in which I play, there was on average only 1.5 fantasy points per game difference between the third and the 12th kicker. So clearly, waiting till the last minute to take a kicker was a winning strategy this year.

Bad Rule of Tumb: Don't Draft a Rookie Quarterback

You've heard it all before. A rookie quarterback will make too many mistakes. The defenses will easily confuse and rattle him. He will just watch from the sidelines for most of the season.

Well, tell that to Cam Newton. He has 13 rushing touchdowns and 13 passing touchdowns in his first season.  

Good Rule of Thumb: Don't Worry Too Much About the IDPs

While there are a few standout individual defensive players, this rule of thumb turned out to be on target this year. The decrease in production from the fifth best IDP to the 39th was only two points per game on average.

This means that if you waited in the draft you were not hurt too much. And if you needed to swap out players during the season, you probably could have done so with little impact on your team.

Good Rule of Thumb: Be Wary of Fragile Players

Last year Michael Vick helped many managers, including myself, win fantasy football leagues. So naturally this year he was drafted early; his average draft position was 11 in Yahoo! leagues. 

Vick has injured his hand, suffered a concussion and broke two ribs. He has missed three games. His quarterback rating is under 80, compared with his 100 rating last year.

We usually give injury-prone players the "Joseph Addai" moniker in my leagues. If you ever had him on your team, you will know why.

We're going to have to add Dallas Clark, Andre Johnson, Darren McFadden and Reggie Bush to the Joseph Addai list.

Good Rule of Thumb: Don't Draft a Rookie Wide Receiver

The conventional wisdom is that a wide receiver can't really blossom until his second season. Unless you happened to pick the Bengals' A.J. Green or the Ravens' Torrey Smith, you didn't get too much out of a rookie receiver this year.

The Falcons' Julio Jones has missed several games with a hamstring injury and scored only two touchdowns. Similarly the Lions' Titus Young has scored only two touchdowns.