Fantasy Football Auction League Strategy

Fantasy Football Auction League Strategy

The fantasy auction is not very common amongst NFL pools, but is very unique and fun if you get the chance to join one. The fantasy football season itself, is exactly the same, but it’s the draft experience that gives you the real life feeling of managing a team like an NFL general manager.

Rules: Each owner is given a budget, usually $200, to field a 16-player team. Based on a predetermined serpentine order an owner queues a name and people bid for the services of that player, usually under a one-to-two minute time limit. The highest bid wins. It’s that simple.

Common problems:

• Bad money management skills leaves roster spots open but no money left.
• Overspending
• Too cheap and left with a terrible team

Strategy 1: “Budget Master”

This is the ultimate strategy to allow you to have fun and not have to worry about doing a ton of math or running out of money. First create a list with 16 rows for players, list the top 10 rows with $15 next to them, then list the last 6 rows with $1 next each name. Your float money is $44. This is for overspending on the first few rounds so leave a little room on the page to subtract what you need to add it to the big spenders.

This basically gives you a map on how you are going to draft your team, with the average of $15 per player (plus bonus cash for big names) and leaving you 6 $1 roster spots to add sleepers, kickers and a DEF.

• Example, lets say you out-bid the jerk sitting next to you for an overpriced Ryan Mathews at $36. Pencil him in with the price you spent and take what you need off of the float money. Use a calculator if you’re drinking.

Once your $44 of extra fun money is gone, you must stick to a the budget you laid out for yourself. There might be the odd time you buy a player that is less than $15 near the middle of the draft, but try not to reach on anything more than the $15. This will keep you grounded during heated auctions and focused to how much you have available throw-out the draft. It will also keep your team balanced and deep through-out.

Gridiron Experts will have more strategies coming through-out the month of August!

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