10 Tips for Fantasy Football Novices/Less Experienced Team Owners

The Ten Commandments of fantasy football are really suggestions, okay. Let's not take this seriously enough to compare it to the Bible.

Novices to fantasy football or even relative newcomers to the game need to know some rules of the road. Inexperienced players need to seek advice, but be careful where they get the advice.

There are those out there, fantasy football team owners, I mean, who seek to prey on the less experienced player to further their own team's championship ambitions. Here are 10 suggestions, tips, if you will, to help the less experienced fantasy football team owners in order of the start of the fantasy football season, the draft.

10. Prepare for your fantasy football draft. Buy NFL.com or some other magazine's fantasy football rankings list or download a reputable website's more current list. Don't treat it as the Bible, though. I have found yahoo and foxsports default player rankings to be way off in many cases.

These rankings may have been done way before the start of the NFL season, before injuries and suspensions, etc. Form your own player rankings based on what players may get their chance to shine due to others players leaving in free agency or retirements.

9. When drafting your fantasy football team, be prepared for an extremely fast-paced experience. If you draft late in the first round, you will draft early in the 2nd round with little time to prepare for your next selection.

Do not ever, ever listen to another team owner's advice on what player you should pick. Stick with your rankings. Other team owners offering advice have a conflict of interest as they will be competing with you in the fantasy league. The term "business ethics" may be an oxymoron in most circles these days, but it is unethical to offer or seek advice from your competitors in my book.

8.Turn off the box for PMs on your draft site or pay it no attention.
There are always mouthy fantasy football "experts" in every fantasy football league who make fun of or praise the latest pick. Mainly make fun of or critique the pick. Pay them no mind whatsoever!

Any time spent responding to either praise or ridicule, again mainly ridicule or second guessing, is time that would be better spent preparing to select your next draft choice. No matter how thorough you are, no matter who you have targetted, other owners want the best players also.

There will be times when you have your guy picked right in front of you by another owner and you have to adjust on the fly. Whether you go to the next player on your list at the same position or the best available player at another position is a judgment call. Exercise good judgment and don't listen to your competition. They have a vested interest in your choice.

7. Do not draft too many players with the same bye week. If you overload with too many players from the same NFL team or have half your team with the same bye week, your chances of winning that week are bad. That loss could keep you from making your league playoffs.

6. Immediately after your fantasy draft, check the list of undrafted players. Even in fantasy leagues with experienced owners, there wil be lots of good players who are undrafted for whatever reason. Every team owner makes a pick in haste at times in the fantasy draft due to time limits. A lot of good players get overlooked. Replace any duds from your draft with these guys via the waiver wire as soon as possible.

5 After the NFL season starts, check the NFL team stats in the paper or on espn.com or nfl.com and look for breakthrough players who were undrafted in your fantasy football league. Miles Austin, Steve Smith of the Giants, Sidney Rice and others broke through as fantasy studs in 2009 despite not being drafted in most leagues in 2009.

4. Don't spend a lot of time mulling over any trade offers from other teams. Spend no time cooking up trade proposals of your own. Most fantasy team owners are looking to be overpaid for any players in a trade. There are too many good players available on the waiver wire to mess with trades in my experience.

3. Be patient with and don't cut players too soon who may start slowly or have less productive stats early in the NFL season. Fantasy football is mostly about matchups. If even Drew Brees or Peyton Manning is matched with the N.Y. Jets pass defense, they will likely be outscored by lesser QBs with better matchups.

Your player may just have had tough matchups early. The most frustrating thing in fantasy football is not failing to close a trade or even leaving a player on the bench who could have led you to victory instead of a loss.

As frustrating as that is, the worst thing in fantasy football is cutting a player only to have that player blossom and come back to bite you in the end...playing for one of your opponents. I know this from experience.

2. Don't give up too soon if your team starts slowly. I have had teams that were 6-5 or so at midseason and not in the playoff picture get hot and win my fantasy football league. I have seen other team owners have the same experience. In one league I was in, an owner had an 0-5 record to start with and won the league.

Some waiver pickups of his caught lightning in a bottle and he didn't lose more than one game the rest of the way after having tough matchups to start. if he had given up at midseason or even at 0-5, it wouldn't have happened.

1. Toward the end of the season, which if you follow these tips, you should still be in playoff contention, check for late season additions playing for NFL teams which are out of the playoff picture.

Every NFL season, teams out of the playoffs in the last 3-4 games play young players who have been on the bench, not being considered ready to play. These players, mostly running backs, should have learned the ropes by then and more importantly have fresh legs, not having been beaten up all season like veteran players.

Just be careful about replacing established stars with these guys. Don't bench your main players, mainly use them in place of #2 or 3 running backs, receivers or maybe your TE.