How To: Win Your Office Fantasy Football League

The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and not to mention the bragging rights. Your office fantasy football league offers it all.

With another fantasy football season in the books, here are a couple tips and tricks I learned along the way.

To preface this, I didn’t win our office fantasy league this year. Fantasy football and the NFL, in general, can be flukey and not even the experts know what’s going to happen from week to week. Also, I drafted a terrible team (looking at you Brandon Marshall) so I was doomed from the start.

It all starts with the draft.

Starting the season off with a good foundation is essential in making a run for the playoffs. Beginning in July there are several draft guides that rank every player, and some even tell you when, on average, a player gets drafted.

Aside from a draft sheet, a mock draft can be very helpful to try different drafting strategies. You have the option to draft against a computer, or against a group of fellow fantasy football players.

Weekly Maintenance

Fantasy football championships aren’t won in the draft, they’re won though out the season. Don’t be the guy (or girl) that never sets a line-up or gives up on the season after the first couple weeks.

Most people pick their lineups in one of two ways.

Based on your favorite players or your home team.

Based on the projected points from ESPN, Yahoo!, or whichever service they use.

These strategies are okay, but there are some simple things you can do to set yourself apart from many fantasy football players.

Hawk the waiver wire. Every week there are a couple players that could be big impact players for your team.

Check the rankings each week to select your line-up.

Here is a snapshot of a quick spreadsheet I made to decide which player to use in my FLEX position. It uses an index of rankings from several sites and puts the players in order from best (green) to worst (red).

To make this sheet, you simply input your players, copy and paste rankings for the week, and after a quick VLOOKUP, you’re done. If you want to go the extra mile, you can automate this process by having the player rankings piped into your sheet through a data source.

If you want to go the extra mile, you can automate this process by having the player rankings piped into your sheet through a data source. This is ideal because every week your data will be refreshed and ready to go without any extra work.

Don’t forget to have fun

No matter how bad your team is, nothing is more fun than trash talking.