What I will take to the Draft with Me

My big-money league will be drafting on Wednesday (I am actually taking a day off from my "real job" to drive 200 miles to the draft). For those of you that are also in leagues that draft at the last possible moment, I thought I would go over what I will bring to my draft.

First of all, since you are reading this, hopefully you won't be one of these guys that it shuffling through 3 or 4 different magazines every time it is your turn to pick ("Has Marcus Colsteen been taken yet?"). You need to keep your papers to a minimum, so that you won't be fumbling around looking for the sheet you need to make your pick.

I will bring 5 sheets of paper with player rankings on them - 1 for QBs (about 30 deep), 1 for RBs (about 60 deep), 1 for WRs (about 100 deep), 1 for TEs (about 30 deep), and 1 with kickers and defenses (about 15 kickers and all 32 defenses). The defenses will have the team's bye week printed next to it for reference during the draft. As a player is drafted, I will cross him off the list. These sheets are usually stapled together so I can flip through by position easily. The lists posted to the right under "2008 Positional Rankings" are a good place to start.

I will bring 1 sheet of paper with blanks for my team on it - so that when it is my turn to choose, I will be able to see who I already have, what positions need to be filled out, and what players are on bye weeks when. When I draft a player, I will put his name on this sheet (under the position he plays), with his bye week out to the side (the bye week is on the list of draftable defenses).

I will bring 1 sheet of paper with Rotoworld's average draft position draftboard printed out on it - this will let me know where the player I am about to take is typically drafted, so I don't take a guy 2 or 3 rounds earlier than I could draft him. I may skip the top player on my draft list if I think I can get him a couple of rounds later.

I will bring 1 sheet of paper with a blank draft board on it. When my opponents select, I will write down the position of the player selected only. Don't worry about putting the whole player name - you only want to know how your oppenent's teams are shaping up, so you can guess if the running back (or whatever position) you want will slip down to the next round. This paper becomes useless around the 7th or 8th round, as it is impossible to predict how your opponents will fill in their reserves.

So that's it - 8 sheets of paper, organized in a manner that it easy for me to find what I need, when I need it. By coming to the draft organized, you won't lose out on a pick by not knowing who the best player available is, or when to draft him.