Alright, so I decided to dive into the world of fantasy football rankings for 2024. It’s that time of year again, and I wanted to get a head start on building my draft strategy. I figured, why not document the whole messy process? Maybe it’ll help someone else out, or at the very least, give me a good laugh later when I look back at my terrible predictions.
Getting Started: Finding Some Rankings
First things first, I needed some actual rankings to work with. So I grabbed a few different options.
I fired up my browser and just started searching for “2024 fantasy football rankings.” No secret weapon here, just good old-fashioned searching. There were a bunch that came up.
The Spreadsheet Struggle
Next up, it was time to get organized. I’m a big spreadsheet guy, so I opened up a new one and started copying and pasting. I made columns for player name, position, team, and then a few columns for the different rankings from each source.
Honestly, this part took a while. It’s a lot of manual data entry, and it’s easy to make mistakes. I probably messed up a few names and had to go back and fix them. But hey, that’s part of the process, right? It’s like that first messy draft of an essay – gotta get it all down on paper (or in this case, in cells) before you can start refining it.
Making Sense of It All
Once I had all the data in one place, I started playing around with it. I used formulas to calculate the average rank for each player across all the sources. I also added some conditional formatting to highlight players who had a big difference in rankings between the different sites. Those are the guys you really need to do some extra research on, because the “experts” clearly don’t agree.
Here’s a little tip I learned: Don’t just blindly follow the average rankings. Look for those discrepancies! That’s where you can find some real value in your draft. Maybe one site is super high on a player because they know something the others don’t, or maybe they’re just plain wrong. Either way, it’s worth digging into.
My Own Rankings (The Fun Part!)
Now that I had all of this data, that dosn’t mean I have to trust them. I started to make my own rankings.
This is where the real fun begins. I started tweaking the rankings based on my own gut feelings and research. I watched some highlight reels, read some articles, and thought about things like injury history, offensive schemes, and potential breakout players. My notes are a scatter-brained mess of half-formed thoughts, player stats, and a whole lot of caffeine, but they get the job done.
The Never-Ending Process
Honestly, this is a process that never really ends. I’ll probably keep tinkering with these rankings right up until my draft. New information will come out, players will get injured, and my opinions will change. But that’s what makes fantasy football so addictive, right? It’s a constant puzzle, and you’re always trying to find the missing piece.
So, that’s where I’m at right now. A spreadsheet full of numbers, a head full of football, and a whole lot of hope for a successful fantasy season. Wish me luck – I’ll need it!