Every fantasy football manager is familiar with using a fantasy football cheat sheet during draft preparation and on draft day, but many are not aware of the benefits of using a cheat sheet in conjunction with a comprehensive fantasy football draft assistant. There are plusses to using each of these methods, but which is the right fit for your fantasy football team?
Below, we will show you what a fantasy football cheat sheet provides, talk about how a fantasy football draft assistant enhances real-time draft decisions, compare the flexibility and control between these tools, discuss which tool works best for different league formats and go over how you can use these tools together in preparing for your fantasy drafts.
What a Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet Provides
A cheat sheet offers a simplified, pre-built list of player rankings and tiers designed for quick reference during a draft. These rankings are an essential part of fantasy football draft strategy since they will often drive your draft-day choices.
These fantasy football rankings work best when they are customized, as they should reflect the different scoring format types of each league. They also must be continually updated to include elements such as recent changes to the NFL injury report. Cheat sheets must also strike a fine line between being comprehensive and easy to read. When all of these criteria are met, they can make a difference between having a fantastic fantasy draft and having one that leaves your team at a deficit from the start.
How a Draft Assistant Enhances Real-Time Draft Decisions
A draft assistant, such as the one you get once you subscribe to RotoWire, works during the draft by tracking picks and updating available players as each draft selection is made. It is designed to reduce the draft-day workload for fantasy managers, so that they can concentrate their efforts on the next move rather than checking names off of a fantasy football cheat sheet.
The time savings alone makes a draft assistant a highly valuable device, but a draft assistant also adjusts draft recommendations based on roster needs and projections. When this is incorporated into the customization tools provided in the RotoWire fantasy football draft kit, the result is a combination of automation and live data that helps fantasy managers instantly react to league trends.
Comparing Flexibility and Control Between the Tools
It's clear that cheat sheets offer simplicity and full manual control for those managers who want to focus on tracking draft-day changes. This is an old school approach that is still quite popular in leagues where fantasy managers are familiar with the fantasy football ADP draft patterns of their opponents and thus want full manual control.
Draft assistants are the go-to for fantasy managers who prefer automated insights and data-driven suggestions. This method can provide the same type of outputs as a manual control approach, if given enough input information in advance. That method works best when combined with multiple mock drafts done via the RotoWire fantasy football mock draft tool.
Which Tool Works Best for Different League Formats
Cheat sheets are a perfect fit for casual leagues or small drafts where you and your buddies are putting together a league just for low-intensity fun. In these environments, the draft isn't likely to go very deep into the NFL depth charts, so a relaxed approach works like a champ.
Draft assistants should be your default setting when you are playing in competitive leagues or large drafts. In those cases you need to take every advantage available, even if it only means a difference of a few points in the RotoWire fantasy football projections.
A fantasy football draft assistant is also highly recommended if you are playing in formats such as Superflex, 2QB, dynasty or Best Ball. Positional value shifts frequently in these leagues and that can leave you at a deficit if you are utilizing a manual approach via cheat sheets.
Using Both Tools Together for Draft Preparation
It's worth pointing out that this is not necessarily an either/or choice. Many successful managers combine both tools in their prep process. They will often use a cheat sheet for quick guidance during pre-draft planning and then shift to a draft assistant on draft day to help them with their live decision-making process.
The key here is finding the method that gives you the best balance between preparation and real-time adaptability. The former can be tougher to manage as draft season kicks into full gear, especially if you end up having a lot of leagues draft in a short amount of time as Labor Day closes in. That crunch time also showcases another benefit of using a fantasy football draft assistant.
If you set the draft assistant's settings in advance, you can instantly stay ahead of the curve on ADP, injury and depth chart changes and thus gain a huge advantage over fantasy managers in your league who don't take advantage of this powerful software.
