Originally published 8/27/09
Updated 8/16/10
Snake drafts are simple, easy to understand and organized.
Auctions are not.
They are haphazard and chaotic, and that’s part of what makes them so much fun.
Want Chris Johnson? He’s yours…if you’re willing to pay. You’re not beholden to a certain draft slot or to the whim of the guy picking in front of you. It’s your team and the decisions you make will completely shape your roster, for good or for bad.
Auctions come in all shapes and sizes, but for the past couple of seasons I’ve played in one where each team has a $400 salary cap and a roster of 20 players. It’s a slow online auction. Every day, each owner is responsible for nominating one player along with an opening bid, which can’t be seen by the other owners in the league. Bidding is open for 24 hours, unless the high bidder changes, in which case the clock is reset. At any particular time there might be 20 or 30 players up for bidding, but the slow format gives owners plenty of time to consider their options.
I generally budget 85-90% of my total cap for my starters. This way, I have already accounted for some extra funds to acquire some cheap backups in the later part of the auction. This might seem like a lot to spend on your starters, but these are the guys that are playing week in and week out, so it’s smart to put the vast majority of your resources to that end.
Last year, I ended up with Tony Romo ($14, very smart), Adrian Peterson ($111, smart), Brian Westbrook ($71, dumb), Larry Fitzgerald ($84, smart), Brandon Marshall ($21, very smart), Steve Smith 2.0 ($11, very smart), Owen Daniels ($10, smart until he went down) and Marshawn Lynch ($30, very dumb), with Jason Elam ($2) and the Eagles ($3) rounding out my starting lineup. My backups weren’t great, but I snagged Tim Hightower for $8 and Eli Manning for $6. I also had the Jets for $3.
Hightower stepped in for Westbrook when he went down, and this team cruised until I lost Daniels to a knee injury. I spent the next three weeks trying to replace him, trading away some depth and burning all of my bidding bucks in the process. I ended up taking third place after losing in the semis.
When approaching an auction there are two prevailing strategies to consider when bidding on players:
