Twas the night before the draft

It’s been more than 15 years since I left those hallowed halls of higher education, but right now I can distinctly recall how it felt the night before a big exam. I’ve been cramming for hours, but I’m still nowhere near ready for a draft, much less the FOUR of them I have scheduled for this weekend. Many more hours of prep lie ahead of me, and I’m kicking myself for waiting until the last minute to “study.”?

So I’m burning the midnight oil poring over cheat sheets, depth charts, sleeper candidates and last season’s stats. Which third-year wide receivers or second-year running backs and quarterbacks stand the best chance of breaking out this season? How far down the quarterback cheat sheet am I willing to go, watching everyone else grab up the best at that position while I stock up on tailbacks and wideouts. Who’s going to be this season’s Drew Brees, Maurice Jones-Drew or Marques Colston?

Draft strategies vary from owner to owner and league to league, but in one respect they’re all the same. Everyone is looking to get an edge over the competition.

For my cheat sheets, I start with fantasysportscentral.com. They gather rankings from several sites on the net then average them out, giving me a good idea of where most players will fall on draft day. I then tweak the list to fit the league’s scoring and to incorporate my own predictions.

I then stick pretty closely to my cheat sheets/rankings. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve observed in past drafts is the propensity of some owners to “fall in love”? with a player and grab him too early, afraid of losing said player to another owner. For example, I remember two years ago when one owner grabbed Quentin Griffin in the third round after being impressed by him in a preseason game. If I remember correctly, Griffin started the year with a 200-yard-game and the owner felt vindicated, but only temporarily. Griffin’s repeated fumbles early in the season saw him fall down the depth chart before he blew out his knee and was lost for the season. I believe he’s playing in Europe now.

It was a terrible waste of a third-round pick, but the worst part was that Griffin probably would have sat around until the 10th round or later, at which point he might have been a great value for his owner. Hindsight is 20/20, but I’d like to think that if I had drafted Griffin that season (let’s say as my fourth running back in the 10th round), I would have traded him immediately after that 200-yard-game to trade up at wide receiver or quarterback. The fact that I had at least three other better, more-experienced, more consistent running backs would have made it easy to let Griffin become someone else’s problem. And it’s much easier to trade a 10th-round pick than a third-round one.

Finding good sleepers and/or undervalued picks in the mid- to late rounds is often a huge key to fantasy success. In one league last year, I was lucky enough to get Joseph Addai in the seventh round, Donovan McNabb in the eighth and Frank Gore in the 10th. It helped that our league drafted in mid-August and I grabbed Gore a day or two before Kevan Barlow was traded from the 49ers to the Jets, making Gore the uncontested No. 1 in San Francisco. Gore was my No. 5 RB to start the season (behind Shaun Alexander, Willis McGahee, Reggie Bush and Addai, and perhaps I should mention that it’s a 10-team league), but he soon became my No. 1, especially after Alexander’s injury. Here’s hoping I find a few more gems like that one this year.

So here are a few sleeper candidates I like this season, but remember that sleepers should be drafted in mid- to late rounds. These players should all be drafted as backups except in very large leagues.

Alex Smith, QB, San Francisco—The 49ers added several wide receivers this off-season, and the third-year quarterback should reap the biggest rewards. With wide receivers Darrell Jackson, Ashley Lelie and rookie Jason Hill joining likely studs Frank Gore and Vernon Davis on offense, Smith has a plethora of weapons at his disposal. He should be more comfortable running the offense this season, and I’d be more than happy to get him as my No. 2 QB.

Brandon Jackson, RB, Green Bay—Fellow rookie running backs Marshawn Lynch and Adrian Peterson have garnered much more attention, but Jackson could prove to be the biggest bargain if not the best running back among the three. He’s the Packers’ starter until Vernand Morency returns from injury, giving Jackson an opportunity to earn the full-time starting job, but the Packers face some tough defensive opponents to start the season. Jackson could prove great trade bait if he starts off well. If he starts poorly, a panicked owner might let him go for cheap, and Jackson should still get some serious playing time after Morency returns.

Deion Branch, WR, Seattle—The departure of Darrell Jackson moved Branch up to No. 1 on the Seahawks depth chart. Branch was rather unimpressive last season, but that was largely due to his early season holdout and subsequent trade plus injuries to Matt Hasselbeck and Shaun Alexander. It’s a whole new ballgame for Branch and the Seahawks this year, and he could make an excellent third wideout for one lucky fantasy owner.