How to Prepare for Your Fantasy Football Draft (2025)

The NFL season is right around the corner, less than a week away from kickoff. Labor Day is one of the busier times of the offseason, with fantasy drafts taking place all weekend long. Every league is different, but it’s important to have a plan going into the draft to best set yourself up for success.

Fantasy Football Draft Prep

Know Your League

Understanding the rules and regulations of your league is a critical part of the game plan, with significant ramifications in how you draft. Whether it’s redraft, dynasty or best ball, player values and average draft position (ADP) will vary league-to-league depending on the format and starting lineup requirements.

The scoring system (standard, half-PPR, full PPR, TE-Premium, etc.) also plays a critical role in how players and positions are valued due to the difference in projections. Finally, be sure to check if your league offers an injured reserve (IR) spot, which could be the difference between buying the dip on a player set to miss time or dodging what could be a roster clogger.

And there is no better way to leverage the history of your league than using our Draft Intel tool. Draft Intel is a tool designed to give you insights into how your leaguemates draft. When you sync a qualifying league with FantasyPros, Draft Intel will analyze up to five years’ worth of draft data to discover patterns and tendencies in how your leaguemates prioritize positions, what positions they draft by round, and more.

Fantasy Football Rankings

Having a set of reliable fantasy football rankings that are preferably catered to your league is paramount on draft day, regardless of your level of expertise. The rankings could be your own or from a site/projection system you trust, helping guide you throughout the draft.

Sometimes having multiple sets of rankings is the preferred route, gathering different opinions on who should be the pick when it’s your time on the clock. Rankings are a great tool to help you in the decision-making process, but don’t be afraid to think for yourself and make the draft your own.

Don’t trust any 1 fantasy football expert? We combine rankings from 100+ experts into Expert Consensus Rankings. Our 2025 Draft Overall rankings are updated daily.

Average Draft Position

We all have players we want to draft, but reaching too far ahead of ADP could put you behind the eight ball, ultimately weakening your roster. The best approach would be creating a balance between rankings and ADP, which are usually listed next to the player’s name.

This allows you to still “get your guys” without forfeiting the value available earlier in the draft. Everyone has player takes, but shying too far away from consensus often yields negative results.

The best way to stay up-to-date on where players are being drafted is to use our Real-Time ADP tool. Unlike traditional ADP, Real-Time ADP quickly detects changes in a player’s average draft position. Instead of showing you where players were drafted yesterday, Real-Time ADP shows you where they’re being drafted now.

Read the Room

No matter how prepared you are coming into the draft, you must be aware of your surroundings with the ability to read the room. Every draft is different, and as great as it would be to strictly draft off of rankings and ADP, that usually isn’t the case, especially in home leagues.

You want to keep your eye on which players and/or positions are being selected well ahead of their ADP to help determine your decisions throughout the draft. The further you go, the more important it becomes to have a better understanding of the other teams around you and which positions may start coming off the board.