You already subscribe to The Athletic, which tells me all I need to know about you. You like sports, you hate garbage, and you are smart. One thing I like to share with smart fantasy fans who have already invested in something I’m a part of is my list of great free fantasy draft tools.
I’ve been building my list of the best free fantasy tools for years, adding to them – and deleting the ones that lost their luster – every summer for the past seven years.
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First, let’s go over some of the awesome draft tools you already have access to on The Athletic. They’re free from the perspective that – hey, you don’t have to pay any more for these, you already have a subscription! But they’re not free to the public because, well, those are the people you want to beat! So we keep these close to our vests.
6 Great Fantasy Draft Tools From The Athletic
Here are some of my favorite tools you likely already checked out – but should keep close by during the draft season:
Fantasy Football Draft Kit (link)
Ummm, duh? The Athletic’s fantasy football staff won the FSTA’s Rookie of the Year award in our first year in 2018. This staff has somehow improved, adding to it the likes of Derek Van Riper, Chris Meaney and Gary Davenport!
Audio Fantasy Football Draft Kit (link)
Why read when you can have Nando Di Fino and Derek Van Riper read some of our fantasy draft pieces to you? Just when you thought your workplace sucked, now you can listen to these articles throughout the day and prep for your drafts!
Jake Ciely’s Frequently Updated Award-Winning Fantasy Rankings & Projections (link)
This cat wins awards for his rankings and accuracy, which makes me think – he knows stuff I don’t. I can admit that. Hi, my name is David Gonos, and I’m a Jake-aholic.
The Athletic’s Sleepers and Busts (link)
Ciely hosts a roundtable discussion of some of the group’s favorite sleepers and busts for the upcoming season.
151 Great Fantasy Team Names (link)
With 63 comments and counting!
12 Great Fantasy Football Draft Tools To Use in 2019
OK, now that we’ve pitched our own stuff, let’s share some great fantasy draft tools from around the worldwide web.
Mock Draft Simulator From FantasyPros
Without a doubt, this is one of my all-time favorite fantasy draft tools, as you can take part in the best thing about fantasy football every single day – the draft! And you don’t need 11 other people to do it! You can configure the settings in a minute, including scoring, league size and where you want to pick, and you can knock out a mock draft against 11 computer brains who are drafting off rankings from a combined 100 or so fantasy experts. (That’s just like how things will go down in your own home league drafts!)
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It’s the most powerful tool out there, no doubt, and the free version (which works on your phone, too) helps you test different drafting strategies and figure out what works best from where you are picking. You can knock out an entire draft in 15 minutes, and if you don’t like a pick, you can revert it to see what happens if you took someone else.
Sleeper App
This is an app that’s pimping their fantasy leagues, but what I like most about it are the player update notifications sent to your phone. They do a great job of sending a few interesting updates a day, not just breaking news, but interesting quotes by team beat writers, etc. Also, on game day, they do awesome in-game updates on who’s rocking it.
NFL Player Headlines From Rotoworld
You already know about Rotoworld, but I wanted to get this on here to save myself from 42 comments about how I’m dumb for not having them. I’m dumb for sooo many reasons other than that.
I like to open this page on one of my Chrome tabs during the work day, and every now and then I’ll take a peek to see what’s going down. It’s an auto-refresh page, so you’re always in the know. This is different from their player updates page, as this headlines page makes sure the really important news isn’t buried by offensive linemen injuries and cornerback signings.
FantasyPros’ Bye Week Cheat Sheet
This is a very simple tool that ranks players at each position by their bye weeks, helping you quickly see which weeks you might have struggles. Obviously, the later in the season, the less likely you’ll be dealing with the same roster issues as you would in the early parts of the season, but this is still a nice tool to check in on during you draft. You don’t want to accidentally draft three running backs with the same Week 4 bye, or else you’ll definitely be starting a backup or waiver pickup.
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Pick-By-Pick Series by CBS Sports
Jamey Eisenberg and Dave Richard have been doing this series every summer for the past few seasons, where they write an entire article based on drafting at one of the 12 draft spots in a PPR league and then again in a non-PPR league. It’s an insightful look into what you should be looking for and what’s likely available for you.
NFC Average Draft Position
The National Fantasy Championships is where you go to compete with the very best, so that’s where we want to go to see the Average Draft Position of the very best fantasy football competitors. They don’t mess around, as there’s a lot of money at stake in these leagues, with players competing for thousands of dollars. You can adjust it by which dates with which you want it to pull the ADP.
Average Draft Position Comparisons at FantasyPros
They show an average ADP (which is like a picture of a picture!) using the ADPs from draft services like CBS, NFL.com, ESPN, MyFantasyLeague and Yahoo. Use this tool to see which sites are too high or low on certain players, compared to other sites, in order to find bargains. And stay tuned for my series of articles on the major positions:
- Quarterbacks
- Running Backs
- Wide Receivers
- Tight Ends
I’ll add links to these spots (above) as the articles are posted!
Fantasy Football Calculator’s Scenario Calculator
You probably know about FFC from their great Average Draft Positions and mock drafts, but this free draft tool is pretty cool, too. Enter your draft format, like PPR or half-PPR, and how many teams are in your league, with which specific draft pick you are considering taking a player. Then hit “Calculate,” to see the odds that player will still be around when you pick there.
For instance, I was wondering, in a standard 12-team league, what are the odds Eagles rookie RB Miles Sanders will be available with the sixth pick in Round 8? (Answer: Just a 24.7% chance! I better pick him in Round 7, where he has a 76.2% chance of still being there!)
Rate My Team From FootballGuys
This free draft tool is more for after your draft. You already picked your players, your roster is set – and now you want to know how your team looks! Rather than posting an annoying message on Reddit or Twitter, how about quickly loading up your roster and league settings on this app, then get the rundown from the FootballGuys. They’ll give you a snapshot of your team’s projections and player outlooks, but more importantly, they analyze your strengths and weaknesses, project your playoff potential, and they offer up suggestions on moves you should make and players to possibly pick up.
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TheHuddle’s 2019 Offensive Line Rankings
For several years now, David Dorey has been doing his offensive line rankings article, which has really been helpful from a fantasy football perspective. You can find other o-line rankings, like on Pro Football Focus, but this write-up is for fantasy football owners only. He breaks each unit down with yards per carry, yards before first contact, negative runs, sacks allowed, and quarterback hits. Like Dorey says, “The linemen are at least partially responsible for the success of every play.”
CheatsheetWarroom Customizable Cheatsheets
If you’d like to be a little more serious about your fantasy football this season, and you prefer to use your own rankings for your draft, as opposed to one created by a fantasy writer, this is for you! Use their simple customizable player rankings tool to move players up and down with ease, and create your own cheatsheet! You can even click the tags to mark your favorite busts, sleepers or injury risks! You do have to register (for free) to print it out (sample), though.
Fantasy Football Podcasts
There’s no doubt you are already familiar with the free world of podcasts, but have you taken advantage of them from a fantasy football perspective?
Obviously, we’re a little partial, but we love Jake Ciely’s “Sports Uncieled,” and we already pointed out how you can listen to our fantasy football draft kit.
Some famous podcasts you likely already know about – (search them on your phones):
- The Athletic’s Fantasy Podcasts, including “Sports Uncieled”
- CBS’ Fantasy Football Today, with Jamey Eisenberg and Dave Richard
- ESPN’s Fantasy Focus, with Matthew Berry
Here are some you might not be familiar with, but are outstanding:
- Fantasy Footballers
- Rotowire
- ProFootballFocus
- FootballGuys’ The Audible
And here are about 60 more free fantasy podcasts, with topics ranging from college fantasy football, daily fantasy sports and dynasty fantasy leagues!
Like I mentioned, I’ve been building my list of the best free fantasy draft tools for close to a decade now, and the dirty dozen or so above are my favorites. Let us know what you think of these draft tools in the comments below!
(Top photo: Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
