Best Time to Draft / New Feature Spotlight
We spotlight a recent FanDraft feature addition, and do a deep-dive into "When is the best time to draft".
New Feature Spotlight:
"Additional Team Info" Box
We recently added a fun little (optional) feature, that displays a bit of history for a team/owner. You can now manually enter a team’s prior year 1st pick, record, and playoff information, all via the TEAMS area.
If you choose to populate those historical info fields, the data will appear on a team’s PreDraft slide.
In addition to it being shown on the PreDraft slide, the info will also sporadically appear during the draft when that owner is on deck to draft (during non-Auction style drafts only).
When is the best time to hold your fantasy football draft?
There are generally two camps that have decidedly different opinions on the answer to this question:
As close to the kickoff of NFL season as possible
Any time after the NFL Draft (June through early-August)
The two sides in this debate both hold valid arguments, and neither camp is right or wrong. The key is deciding which is best for your league.
As Close to the Kickoff of the NFL Season as Possible
(Late-August through early-September)
Reason: This gives owners the most information possible before the season begins.
The preseason games will give a glimpse into which rookies may pan out, and likely decide winners of players in position battles. Also, every year during July and August, some player(s) will get seriously injured. If you’ve ever held an early draft and had a player that you selected in the 1st or 2nd round get injured for the season, then you know what a heartbreaking experience it can be.
Leagues that choose this option tend to draft following one of the final few preseason games. Since this year there are only 3 preseason games, there is a wider window to choose that date. Preseason in 2021 concludes August 29th, with the regular season kicking off on September 9th.
Any Time After the NFL Draft
(June through early-August)
Reason: This allows the opportunity for owners to be rewarded for their preparation work.
Owners who put in a lot of research, oftentimes feel that they can better predict potential standouts before their ADP is reflected in the rankings. Early-ADP and “Expert Rankings” are always significantly different from June/July to late August. There are always going to be a couple of guys in your league who are ill-prepared and simply draft based on these things (ADP / Rankings). It’s a real bummer watching your personal sleeper climb these ADP ranks through the summer, knowing all too well that some lazy owner will steal them from you simply by default.
What’s the Best Time for YOUR League
Commissioners usually have a lot of influential control over deciding a league’s draft date, so it’s important to sway things towards “what’s best for the league”.
If you have a casual league, the case is usually made for a late-August / early-September draft. A vast majority of your owners will prefer this time period, and it will cause the least amount of friction in your league.
If you run a more competitive league, where owners put in a lot of time doing their own research, then holding an earlier draft should really be considered.
But really, the best time to draft is…
When the majority of owners can attend.
The best drafts are when you don’t have half the league auto-drafting. Participating in a draft gets owners invested in the league early. If you’ve ever had owners checkout midseason, the majority of the time you will recognize that they were also auto-drafters. Holding a draft when nearly everybody can attend is the key to a successful league.
Scheduling Your Fantasy Draft
We often recommend using the Doodle Online Scheduler to help commissioners pick a draft date that works for everyone in their league. It’s a free online tool, where you can set up a list of potential dates, and owners can then directly access the page and mark their availability.
The image above is a true draft schedule we set up for a personal league. Our league owners all have jobs, so the only time they can get together (in-person) and really party it up is during the weekends — thus the commissioner only set those dates as possible options.
You’ll see this tool visually makes it very easy to find which dates are going to work best for the vast majority of the league.
No matter what date you select for a draft, there will be owners who think it’s too early or too late. However, selecting a date when the most people can attend gives an easy explanation to these fickle owners as to why a specific date was chosen.