Fantasy Football Strategy: Do’s and Don’ts for Managers in 2024

The following is an excerpt from the latest edition of Yahoo’s fantasy football newsletter, Get to the Points! If you like what you see, You can subscribe here for free.

In case you need a refresher on the principles of in-season roster management — the stuff we all originally learned as big freshmen at Fantasy U — let’s go over a few dos and don’ts:

🩼 USE all available IR slots. Just as you wouldn’t leave a bench position unfilled, you shouldn’t leave an IR spot empty. Take the best IR-eligible player you can find from the free agent pool. For some of you, that’s TJ Hockenson. For others, it’s Kendre Miller or Keaton Mitchell. When freebies come your way, don’t pass them up.

❌ DON’T BURN those Thursday night flex spots. Ideally, you’ll want to keep your flexes open until Monday so that you have maximum flexibility to accommodate any injuries, unexpected absences, or weather-related concerns. This may not seem like a big deal on opening week, but it won’t be long before your team page is filled with little red Q’s, D’s, O’s, and IR’s.

📲 Make preemptive pick-ups while your match-up is in progress. Remember that if you’re using Yahoo’s league defaults, you can drop any player from your bench for Monday night, even after their game has started. Players on your active roster can’t be traded, of course, but reserves can be cut. This means, for example, that you could bench a reserve running back for Sunday’s games just to see if they break out — and if they don’t, you can drop them midgame in favor of a player involved in a later game. (Private league commissioners who hate this feature can disable it via “lock bench players.”)

🤔 Don’t think too much about early season matches. Generally, I’m just going to start my best players in the opening weeks, without any consideration of matchups. I realize we’re all pretty confident in our NFL opinions at this point since they haven’t been tested in real games yet, but it’s a reminder that the NFL is hilariously hard to predict. It’s a league we have to relearn every year. Don’t assume that last season’s stay-away matchups will be as challenging in 2024.