On Tuesday night I attempted a fantasy football auction draft for the first time. This is my long-standing home league and for years I have been the person pushing for an auction draft. Because 2020 has already been weird, we decided this was the perfect time to do it. No one in this league had done an auction draft before and so there was no telling what to expect.

Coming into it, I saw it going one of two ways: either everyone was going to go crazy at the start and run out of money, or everyone was going to be too timid at the start and there would be some good values to jump on.

From the start, there was just a crazy amount of bidding and nominating. No one went for a ton more than the ESPN pre-draft valuations, but there was certainly no hesitation on spending money. To keep up with this, I tried to jump in a few times, ended up spending too much on about three players, and put myself in a not great situation for the rest of the night. There were a few lessons I had to take away from this though.

Don’t Get in A Bidding War

This seems obvious but it’s easier said than done. If you want a guy, spending an extra dollar or two to make sure you get him seems logical. Sometimes though this tends to compound and you end up spending a lot more than you intended. So while you got your guy, your budget takes quite a hit by chasing.

But Don’t Be Too Timid

At the same time, you do have to stay aggressive to make sure that you are able to get players you really like. I’m not saying to go crazy, but if there’s someone you like, you might make sure that you grab them, otherwise you may look at everything left on the board and realize that you hate all of the options left. After all, it’s fantasy football; get your favorite players.

Load Up for One Dollar

I made a living on one dollar and low price players last night. Despite spending way too much on a few players and strapping myself for cash, I was able to get quite a few good $1 values towards the end. Going with this stars and scrubs approach creates some volatility in my outcome for this season, but I believe it also gives my team a ton of upside, something that is needed to win a fantasy championship.

Deals Will Be Had, But Always In Hindsight

There are going to be players in the draft that go for a lot less than expected. That’s just going to happen. It likely doesn’t have anything to do with that specific player either! You won’t have any way of knowing when this value comes and it likely won’t present itself until after the bidding for that player has ended. For example, Devonte Adams went for $36 last night while I picked up Golladay for $40 and many other players, who probably have lower projections than Adams, all were purchased for more than that. You may get some of these deals, you may not, but they will happen and you probably won’t realize it until it’s too late to jump in.

Regardless of how it worked out, an auction draft was an interesting first time experience and I look forward to seeing this season play out. We will now be starting to have fantasy football coverage on Student Union Sports this season so make sure to read all of that and see our NFL previews here!