On last Tuesday's episode of the Fantasy Focus 06010 podcast, Field Yates was running through his free-agent finds for the week and we started, of course, with Elijah Mitchell.
Me: Well, sure, if he's available.
Field: He's available.
Me: I'm in 15 leagues, and he's literally not available in any of them. I have him in some of those leagues, but he is rostered in every single league.
Field: I hear you, but he's available in 99.3% of ESPN leagues. He's available.
It was then I realized that in every single one of my leagues -- those not so deep that he'd not been drafted -- there were a lot of people doing one little trick that clearly, people in 99.3% of ESPN leagues were not doing.
Well.
So I thought about it more and figured there were probably a lot of little tricks -- or fantasy hacks if you will -- that people might not be aware of.
Small things, none of them earth-shattering, none of them that single-handedly will make you win your league, but a bunch of moves that can each give a small edge and that combined together over the course of a season can put more odds in your favor of winning it all.
Many of these are habitual tactics I use in my leagues, and then I got a few from my followers on The Fantasy Life App. Not all of them will work in every league; obviously it depends on your league rules and settings. But fantasy football is a game of inches, of decimal points, of razor-thin margins, where making the playoffs often comes down to one game, one player, one point. So anything that provides an edge, not matter how small, is time well spent.
With that in mind, here are my favorite fantasy life hacks, tips and tricks, helpful hints and the like, in no particular order.