http://davidgonos.com/fantasy/football/top-13-free-fantasy-football-draft-tools/
FREE Fantasy Football Draft Tools
FootballGuys.com Depth Charts
There are plenty of sets of depth charts out there, but I like these the best. No frills, color coded – and you don’t have to go to a different page for every team. They do a great job keeping them up to date, as well.
FantasyFootballCalculator.com Scenario Calculator
Ready to have your mind blown? Plug in which draft pick you are targeting a specific player and it magically spits out the probability percentages of that player being available to you. For instance, with the 4.04 pick in a 12-team PPR league, I have an 80-percent chance of seeing Jordy Nelson available to me, but only a 44-percent chance of getting Dez Bryant. (I played with this for about an hour today!)
FFToolbox.com Fantasy Strength of Schedule
Take a look at which positions face the toughest defenses (against that particular position). For instance, it’s great to know that the Falcons have the easiest schedule for a quarterback AND their running backs. On the other hand, Tom Brady’s facing the toughest pass defenses during the Fantasy season (weeks 1-16). I love that you can adjust what weeks it’s looking at, too. Shonn Greene could frustrate his owners once again in the first five weeks, especially since he’s facing the toughest rush defenses of anyone. But for Weeks 11-15, he’s facing the ninth-easiest schedule for RBs. This is definitely one of my favorite free Fantasy Football draft tools.
DraftCalc.com Draft Pick Trade Calculator
There are a few different draft pick trade calculators out there, but I like this one for telling you which side is better by a certain percentage percent. That way, you know how close you are to making a solid deal. This site also has a trade calculator for dynasty players.
(Keep on the lookout for when TradeDebate.com rolls into the football season. It’s a community-based trade rater, where you vote on other people’s trades, and you can post up your own. Check it out now, while baseball trades are flowing through regularly.)
MyFantasyLeague.com ADP History
I love looking back over the past decade or so (dating back to the late ‘90s) to see what the average draft rankings were for any particular season. I think you can learn a lot, like how the dual-RB system is being threatened by dual-WR systems, as I explained in an SI.com feature. And I like their draft setup, which means running mock drafts for free there are quite helpful.
FootballGuys.com Daily Emails
Sure, there’s dozens of spots to get your player news, but there’s something nice about getting into work each day and having this email pushed to you, ready to read. Sure, it’s a day later than the news actually happened, but sometimes, that’s a much better way to look at the analysis than as soon as it happens.
FantasyFootballCalculator.com Average Draft Position Rankings
This is the great setup for Average Draft Position rankings from the guys at FantasyFootballCalculator.com — check out how player trends can be compared against each other.
This gives you the ability to graph out specific players to see how they are trending in recent mock drafts. Also, can break it into 8-, 10-, 12- or 14-team drafts. It’s a powerful draft prep tool, for sure.
FantasySharks.com Draft Predictor
Rather than just tell you who you should take next, it forecasts who it thinks will be drafted over the next two rounds, so you always know what to expect in upcoming rounds. That allows you to place more confidence in your picks.
RotoExperts.com Quality Matchups RBs
My RotoExpert buddy Bob Lung ranks all of the running backs by their Quality Matchup Success Rate. Think of it this way: What’s the percentage of times that a running back took advantage of a matchup against a bottom-10 defense? This really proves out which players are the most consistent and reliable (hello, Fred Jackson!)
KFFL.com MyKFFL
Set up your own personal watch list on certain players and get all of the news that happens specifically for them. In cases of keeper leagues or dynasty leagues, this is especially helpful. Track your players through training camp and keep up to date with them throughout the season.
FFToday.com Consistency Calculator
A player’s consistency is important when considering who to pick on Draft Day. FFToday does all the work, figuring out a player’s “Consistency Rank Score,” which shows which players score the most on a consistent basis each week. Their stats go all the way back to 2000! (FYI: Tony Gonzalez was the most consistent Tight End in Fantasy in 2000.)
FootballGuys.com Rate My Team
Once you have your roster set, after your draft, come back here and see what the FootballGuys think of your squad. You put your roster in, set your scoring system and lineup settings, then enter your email address and get a rundown. I ran my MFL 10s Mock Draft team through the tool, and it came back with this write-up about my team! (Spolier alert: I have a better-than-average team, and I have an 80-percent chance of making the playoffs!) You even get projections and outlooks for each player, along with some possible free-agent recommendations.
CBSSports.com Player News | RotoWorld.com Player News
When Emack and I worked at CBSSports.com, we swore by the player news updates at CBSSports.com. We regularly beat RotoWorld to the punch, and we had better analysis – period. We posted more updates per day and no player owned in more than one percent of leagues went without an update for more than three weeks. But now that I’m not at CBS, I find myself using RotoWorld more and more. I’m not sure why, exactly, but I do like the most recent updates on a player’s page being available immediately, rather than going to another page. I like CBS’ page layout much better, though, and they are definitely doing a better job of using statistical analysis in their football updates. So I listed both player news sets here – cuz they’re free!
FREE Fantasy Football Draft Tools BONUSx5
TradeDebate.com Community Trade Rater
This is different from DraftCalc’s draft pick trade rater because it allows the online community to vote on your proposed player trades. You can tell it what league type you are using and the amount of owners, so the voters know exactly what they’re dealing with. And then, the voters can choose a trade winner — or they can vote the trade as completely fair! It really is a great tool and one you should give a chance before blindly making a big trade.
Draftologist.com Draft Planalyzer
This tool may very well be your Fantasy Football league’s Mel Kiper. Plug in your league’s draft results from the last three years, and this free tool will help you:
*Zero in on other owners’ tendencies when they draft. You’ll be able to tell which owners are more predictable than others
*Get an idea when an owner usually takes the first player at a specific position.
*Figure out your league’s depth at a particular draft position.
Helmet-hair aside, I think this just made Kiper expendable.
FantasyRundown.com Football 2012 Rankings Compilation Page
Think of this page like a portal to everyone’s Fantasy Football rankings in the world. I’m pretty sure he’s got the Dalai Lama’s PPR rankings on here, too (that guy loves the Marques Colston this year). As of now, I count links to 40 different websites with rankings. Thankfully, it’s not overwhelming, and it’s sorted nicely, allowing you to find exactly what you might be looking for. He updates this daily, also — and here’s a link to an interview I did with FantasyRundown about how he gets so many great links to so many great articles each day.
FantasyPros.com Fantasy Football Player News Aggregator
Get Fantasy Football player news pulled from several sites, including KFFL, RotoWorld and ProFootballTalk.com. They strip out the duplicate news, and they pull out great lines from columnists about a particular player. For instance, check out their work on Adrian Peterson’s page.
You’ll also get the recent NFL headlines pulled from several sites, including CBSSports, ESPN and ProFootballTalk.com.
CheatSheetWizard.com Cheat Sheet Wizard
This great (and free) Fantasy Football draft tool by the folks at FantasyPros.com allows you to “import rankings from any site,
customize them the way you want, and instantly analyze how they perform in mock drafts.” Not only that, but it also connects with your league’s draft, so that your cheat sheet is updated after every click! Well played, FantasyPros, well played! Note that the tool is free to test out. If you want to do unlimited mock draft simulations and synch to your league’s real draft, you’ll need to pony up a few bucks
It’s like they read my “Top 12 Fantasy Football Tools Wish List” and took care of No. 1 — Site Ranking Adjuster!
I hope these free Fantasy Football Draft Tools help you win a Fantasy Football championship! And if they don’t, then you can just say, “Man, those guys are tools.”
FREE Fantasy Football Draft Tools
FootballGuys.com Depth Charts
There are plenty of sets of depth charts out there, but I like these the best. No frills, color coded – and you don’t have to go to a different page for every team. They do a great job keeping them up to date, as well.
FantasyFootballCalculator.com Scenario Calculator
Ready to have your mind blown? Plug in which draft pick you are targeting a specific player and it magically spits out the probability percentages of that player being available to you. For instance, with the 4.04 pick in a 12-team PPR league, I have an 80-percent chance of seeing Jordy Nelson available to me, but only a 44-percent chance of getting Dez Bryant. (I played with this for about an hour today!)
FFToolbox.com Fantasy Strength of Schedule
Take a look at which positions face the toughest defenses (against that particular position). For instance, it’s great to know that the Falcons have the easiest schedule for a quarterback AND their running backs. On the other hand, Tom Brady’s facing the toughest pass defenses during the Fantasy season (weeks 1-16). I love that you can adjust what weeks it’s looking at, too. Shonn Greene could frustrate his owners once again in the first five weeks, especially since he’s facing the toughest rush defenses of anyone. But for Weeks 11-15, he’s facing the ninth-easiest schedule for RBs. This is definitely one of my favorite free Fantasy Football draft tools.
DraftCalc.com Draft Pick Trade Calculator
There are a few different draft pick trade calculators out there, but I like this one for telling you which side is better by a certain percentage percent. That way, you know how close you are to making a solid deal. This site also has a trade calculator for dynasty players.
(Keep on the lookout for when TradeDebate.com rolls into the football season. It’s a community-based trade rater, where you vote on other people’s trades, and you can post up your own. Check it out now, while baseball trades are flowing through regularly.)
MyFantasyLeague.com ADP History
I love looking back over the past decade or so (dating back to the late ‘90s) to see what the average draft rankings were for any particular season. I think you can learn a lot, like how the dual-RB system is being threatened by dual-WR systems, as I explained in an SI.com feature. And I like their draft setup, which means running mock drafts for free there are quite helpful.
FootballGuys.com Daily Emails
Sure, there’s dozens of spots to get your player news, but there’s something nice about getting into work each day and having this email pushed to you, ready to read. Sure, it’s a day later than the news actually happened, but sometimes, that’s a much better way to look at the analysis than as soon as it happens.
FantasyFootballCalculator.com Average Draft Position Rankings
This is the great setup for Average Draft Position rankings from the guys at FantasyFootballCalculator.com — check out how player trends can be compared against each other.
This gives you the ability to graph out specific players to see how they are trending in recent mock drafts. Also, can break it into 8-, 10-, 12- or 14-team drafts. It’s a powerful draft prep tool, for sure.
FantasySharks.com Draft Predictor
Rather than just tell you who you should take next, it forecasts who it thinks will be drafted over the next two rounds, so you always know what to expect in upcoming rounds. That allows you to place more confidence in your picks.
RotoExperts.com Quality Matchups RBs
My RotoExpert buddy Bob Lung ranks all of the running backs by their Quality Matchup Success Rate. Think of it this way: What’s the percentage of times that a running back took advantage of a matchup against a bottom-10 defense? This really proves out which players are the most consistent and reliable (hello, Fred Jackson!)
KFFL.com MyKFFL
Set up your own personal watch list on certain players and get all of the news that happens specifically for them. In cases of keeper leagues or dynasty leagues, this is especially helpful. Track your players through training camp and keep up to date with them throughout the season.
FFToday.com Consistency Calculator
A player’s consistency is important when considering who to pick on Draft Day. FFToday does all the work, figuring out a player’s “Consistency Rank Score,” which shows which players score the most on a consistent basis each week. Their stats go all the way back to 2000! (FYI: Tony Gonzalez was the most consistent Tight End in Fantasy in 2000.)
FootballGuys.com Rate My Team
Once you have your roster set, after your draft, come back here and see what the FootballGuys think of your squad. You put your roster in, set your scoring system and lineup settings, then enter your email address and get a rundown. I ran my MFL 10s Mock Draft team through the tool, and it came back with this write-up about my team! (Spolier alert: I have a better-than-average team, and I have an 80-percent chance of making the playoffs!) You even get projections and outlooks for each player, along with some possible free-agent recommendations.
CBSSports.com Player News | RotoWorld.com Player News
When Emack and I worked at CBSSports.com, we swore by the player news updates at CBSSports.com. We regularly beat RotoWorld to the punch, and we had better analysis – period. We posted more updates per day and no player owned in more than one percent of leagues went without an update for more than three weeks. But now that I’m not at CBS, I find myself using RotoWorld more and more. I’m not sure why, exactly, but I do like the most recent updates on a player’s page being available immediately, rather than going to another page. I like CBS’ page layout much better, though, and they are definitely doing a better job of using statistical analysis in their football updates. So I listed both player news sets here – cuz they’re free!
FREE Fantasy Football Draft Tools BONUSx5
TradeDebate.com Community Trade Rater
This is different from DraftCalc’s draft pick trade rater because it allows the online community to vote on your proposed player trades. You can tell it what league type you are using and the amount of owners, so the voters know exactly what they’re dealing with. And then, the voters can choose a trade winner — or they can vote the trade as completely fair! It really is a great tool and one you should give a chance before blindly making a big trade.
Draftologist.com Draft Planalyzer
This tool may very well be your Fantasy Football league’s Mel Kiper. Plug in your league’s draft results from the last three years, and this free tool will help you:
*Zero in on other owners’ tendencies when they draft. You’ll be able to tell which owners are more predictable than others
*Get an idea when an owner usually takes the first player at a specific position.
*Figure out your league’s depth at a particular draft position.
Helmet-hair aside, I think this just made Kiper expendable.
FantasyRundown.com Football 2012 Rankings Compilation Page
Think of this page like a portal to everyone’s Fantasy Football rankings in the world. I’m pretty sure he’s got the Dalai Lama’s PPR rankings on here, too (that guy loves the Marques Colston this year). As of now, I count links to 40 different websites with rankings. Thankfully, it’s not overwhelming, and it’s sorted nicely, allowing you to find exactly what you might be looking for. He updates this daily, also — and here’s a link to an interview I did with FantasyRundown about how he gets so many great links to so many great articles each day.
FantasyPros.com Fantasy Football Player News Aggregator
Get Fantasy Football player news pulled from several sites, including KFFL, RotoWorld and ProFootballTalk.com. They strip out the duplicate news, and they pull out great lines from columnists about a particular player. For instance, check out their work on Adrian Peterson’s page.
You’ll also get the recent NFL headlines pulled from several sites, including CBSSports, ESPN and ProFootballTalk.com.
CheatSheetWizard.com Cheat Sheet Wizard
This great (and free) Fantasy Football draft tool by the folks at FantasyPros.com allows you to “import rankings from any site,
customize them the way you want, and instantly analyze how they perform in mock drafts.” Not only that, but it also connects with your league’s draft, so that your cheat sheet is updated after every click! Well played, FantasyPros, well played! Note that the tool is free to test out. If you want to do unlimited mock draft simulations and synch to your league’s real draft, you’ll need to pony up a few bucks
It’s like they read my “Top 12 Fantasy Football Tools Wish List” and took care of No. 1 — Site Ranking Adjuster!
I hope these free Fantasy Football Draft Tools help you win a Fantasy Football championship! And if they don’t, then you can just say, “Man, those guys are tools.”
