Tip Drill: Make it a November to Remember

Anyone who follows the PGA Tour knows that Saturday, Round 3, is moving day. It’s the time for those in the middle of the pack to put together a snappy round, go low, get into the thick of things before Sunday’s conclusion plays out.

Fantasy Football has a version of Moving Day — it’s called November. Now is the time to differentiate the contenders from the pretenders, the time to take a season that’s partially developed and use it to our advantage.

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With those goals in mind, here are some key tips to consider as you look to make this a November to Remember. It’s time to get into position to get into position.

• Closely Monitor The Drops

Week 9 of the 2016 season is one of the most disruptive bye weeks I’ve ever seen. Six teams are on holiday, and a gaggle of no-doubt fantasy starters cannot help us. Look at some of the fringe Atlanta and Tampa Bay players we considered in the Thursday night game. These are the times that try fantasy souls.

Most of us will be scrambling for sufficient fill-ins, and in many instances, we’ll be forced to drop players we don’t want to. Sure, a 6-1 or 5-2 fantasy owner can sit back and let the game come to him, but for the more desperate owners in the room, more drastic measures are often justified. It is critical that you closely audit the adds and drops on your waiver wire, because some of your opponents will be forced to cut rather valuable players, simply because they can’t offer immediate help.

Drop-monitoring is not a new strategy or a seasonal strategy. But it’s more important now than ever.

• Audit Your League, Trade Now for Later (or vice-versa)

Fantasy trading doesn’t come easy in the early part of the season, when most teams are about the same, on paper and in theory, anyway. Injuries haven’t piled up yet. Optimism flows freely. Breakout stories might be a few weeks from developing. The byes have yet to kick in. There’s not much incentive to drastically shake things up. You monitor the wire, turn over the back of your roster, and let the season settle in.

Things are much different as we enter Week 9. Over 60 percent of the regular season is out the window; the playoffs aren’t that far away. Teams with losing records might have to downshift into “win immediately” mode, while the front-runners could have the luxury to look ahead.

[Week 9 rankings: Overall | FLEX | QB | RB | WR | TE | DEF | K]

Try to be bluntly honest with your team’s current standing and needs. If you’re in a position of leverage, be on the lookout for the teams that need to win immediately. Perhaps they have talent on bye that you can trade for at a friendly price. Conversely, if you’re the team that needs immediate wins, aggressively shopping a name player on bye (or a name player on the injured list) is often a wise, justified move.

• Say Hello to Handcuff Season

I am not a proponent of preseason handcuffs, with extremely rare exception. Many of the depth charts are undefined. Often times we don’t know which offensive line to trust, or which running game will pop. Heck, just handicapping an offensive or defensive unit in the summer can be a bit of a fool’s errand. What did you think of Seattle’s passing game, two months ago? How did you view Oakland’s defense before the season? Did you see Jay Ajayi taking Miami’s backfield by storm? He didn’t even travel with his teammates in Week 1.

The NFL is fluid, I don’t need to tell you that. And obviously more changes are in store — breakouts and breakdowns, usage changes, scheme adjustments. That said, we know a lot more about the true team and unit values today than we did in the summer. We have some numbers and some definition we can hang our hats on.

I often compare fantasy handcuffing with bunting in baseball — it’s a low-return strategy that’s often misguided in the early stages of a game, but it can become logical and reasonable in the later stages, when the path to victory is more clearly defined. With that in mind, now is a good time to consider handcuffing your better running backs, now that we know what systems to trust and what offensive lines to believe in. DeMarco Murray owners probably need Derrick Henry now, even if it’s simply as an insurance policy. Alfred Morris has become more interesting in Dallas, even if he’s not at all flex-worthy while Ezekiel Elliott is healthy. LeSean McCoy owners probably want to consider a Mike Gillislee policy.

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying; running back lottery tickets are always important, no matter what time of year it is. But in the summer, I’m more interested in getting lottery tickets tied to players I don’t own; when the league starts from scratch, I’m playing for the big inning. But this late in the season, I often will downshift to an insurance approach.

• Depth Season is Almost Over

Depth becomes less important in the fantasy playoffs, when bye weeks evaporate and it’s mostly about rolling out your best players. I like to have some playable commodities on my bench during the main parts of the year, but as we get closer to the money weeks, I’ll shift the approach to optimum starters and (perhaps) a few insurance policies when they make sense.

Most experienced players recognize this, but I’ll mention it anyway — it can be a great time to package a few players in exchange for one difference-making starter. Remember, six teams are off this week, four teams don’t play in Week 10, and four more teams sit out Week 11. A team in the middle of a challenging playoff fight might be able to justify a liquidation trade, a package deal that actually makes their current starting lineup stronger.

• Forget “Winning The Trade” — Focus On Making Your Team Better

Every week I field a start-sit question from someone who’s loaded at a position. Often it’s a case of having two super quarterbacks, but sometimes it’s depth at other spots. I’ll generally implore them to consider a trade, and often I’m told they’ve tried, they can’t get something finalized.

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This is where I remind you that it’s not necessarily about “winning” the deal; all that matters is making your team stronger.

If you have two strong quarterbacks, it’s often worth taking a “paper loss” in a deal because it’s going to enable you to have a stronger set of starters. See if you can find a trade partner who can’t hurt you; perhaps you’ve already played them, or they’re not close to you in the standings. You’re not trying to win a PR battle or justify the deal out-of-context; all that matters if that you’re doing something that plausibly improves your setup. Often a deal can be puzzling in a vacuum, but make perfect sense when judged by the context of your roster.