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Fantasy Football Email Snake Drafts

Ready to try a fantasy football league? The most convenient draft format is an email draft. Owners take turns selecting players over two or more weeks in a snake or serpentine draft format. This means that the order of the picks is reversed on every even round; the team who picks first in round 1 will pick last in round 2; first again in round 3, last in round 4, and so on.

Your initial draft order will be assigned randomly by the computer at the moment your league fills.

How Email Fantasy Football Drafts Work

First, "email" doesn't really mean "email." The draft picks are all made on our software. You'll log in and select players here on this page. The selections, though, are emailed (or texted, or both, if they prefer) to the other league owners immediately, so everyone knows who is picking whom, and when their turn is approaching.

In most email drafts, you'll have eight hours to make a pick. Rarely does any team take this long; most times, teams pick within the hour, or else they pre-pick players (called "pre-drafting") so that the software picks automatically for them when their turn comes.

There are variations on the draft timer: Regular drafts speed up to 6 hours per pick as the season approaches; Speed drafts have a 4-hour deadline; and DataForce also offers a Banked Hours draft where you can save up time for later picks by drafting quickly.

What If I Miss My Pick?

If you forget to pick, you'll be warned an hour before your turn expires. That is, unless you've turned off this feature in your Owner Setup page. So it's hard to forget unless you're just not checking your email.

But if you do miss your pick, one of two things will happen:

1. If you have prepared a draft list, the software will select the player on the top of the list for you. Custom draft lists can be prepared any time prior to the draft by just ordering the available players the way you want them to appear.
2. If you haven't prepared a draft list, the computer will take the top player remaining according to his Average Draft Position (ADP). This means that the draft tendencies of all other players are setting the order of players to be picked in the event you make a mistake. Hopefully, this will prevent you from getting stuck with a bad player, but you never know...it's best not to let this happen!

Keeping a Watch List

One draft tactic that can come in handy is to keep a watch list of players that you don't want to forget about. Just drag them into your Watch List box so you can keep an eye on them.

Here's a couple ideas for how to use this box:

• When you draft a star running back, immediately pull his handcuff into the watch list, so you won't forget to draft him. A fantasy football handcuff is a backup to your player that is likely to get a significant amount of playing time if your guy, the starter, is injured.
• As you begin to fill out your starting lineup, start selecting sleepers and pulling them into your watch list. They'll likely be too far down the ADP list for you to see them otherwise, but you don't want to forget about these guys. A fantasy football sleeper is a player that has a significant upside, enough that he is worth the risk of drafting a little higher than you normally would take a player with his projected production.

Fantasy Football Draft Strategy

Need a good resource for building your draft list? Check out our player rankings by Matthew Hill, or visit any of a number of internet sites offering similar services. But do be aware that there are a number of parameters involved in tailoring a proper draft list to your particular league:

• Fantasy football scoring system (ours is PPR--"point-per-reception")
• Number of players at each starting position
• Number of players on your bench, so you have an idea of the depth of the draft
• Type of league: Draftmaster leagues require a different strategy than regular leagues, and dynasty or keeper leagues add value to players with upside

But a draft list isn't the only resource you'll need. News comes every day, so in an email draft, you must be flexible, able to react to shifting player evaluations from the changing landscape of the NFL. Find a good news source, and watch it carefully.

It also doesn't hurt to be aware of trends in draft strategies. It used to be that running backs were king; everyone drafted their running backs first, other positions later. That's not so true anymore, and not just because there are so many running-back-by-committee arrangements. The trend today is to trust injury-prone running backs less, and trust the stability of stud wide receivers more. This is just one example of trending draft strategies. Find yourself a good internet site to learn more.

You may also wish to check out the article by Lee Harmon in the page text of the Player Rankings page: How to Plan for Your Fantasy Football Draft (And why common sense trumps mathematical precision).

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