Fantasy Football 2008: Top 5 Draft Mistakes You Need to Avoid to Win Your League

Fantasy Football has risen in popularity exponentially over the past few years. With its rise in popularity has come increased scrutiny over what is the best type of draft day strategy to help one be successful throughout the season and win his or her respective league. An area that can sometimes be overlooked when making a plan for the draft is the mistakes that need to be avoided.

The top 5 mistakes to avoid if you want to win your fantasy football league:

1. Bringing your team allegiances into the fantasy football league: It is amazing how often this happens even if leagues where the entrants have a paid a decent amount of money. Every year this happens in a league I have joined. You'll start noticing that Player X continues to draft Carolina Panthers (or whatever team it may be) much quicker than he should be. I always try to keep track of people who tend to pick their team's players too quickly, and let me tell you that these are typically the bottom feeders in the league. While it may be tempting to pick one of your favorite players or a member of your favorite team, only do so if it is a legitimately good value pick.

2. Deciding you have to pick the best defense or kicker or else you won't win: It can get tempting to pull the trigger early on a defense like the San Diego Chargers so that you can be assured a top notch defense, but this is a good way to lose your league. The same can be said about picking a top kicker like a Nick Folk or Shayne Graham. While Folk and Graham are both going to have terrific seasons if they stay healthy, by picking them you are sacrificing far too many points that you should be getting out of other more important positions.

3. Making a pick just to block someone else in the league: On draft day when you start chatting it up with someone in your league who is very cocky it can be tempting to make moves just to spite them, but this is a losing strategy. While you might know that he wants a certain player, unless you believe he is the best player on the board you need to let him get his guy and move on. Pick based on your strategy, not someone else's!