Full Impact Primer

As a veteran fantasy football owner, I've had my share of success, and my share of draft day bloopers. I actually took David Boston before Randy Moss in one of my leagues in 2002. Moss was still in Minnesota but coming off a slightly disappointing season and Boston had the look of a rising star in the Arizona desert. Maybe even the real-life version of Jerry Maguire's Rod Tidwell.

Whoops! Fortunately that year my team went onto success despite the presence of a David who would never slay Goliath, let alone the Seahawks, 49ers, or Rams. Drafting Priest Holmes helped save me and I tied for the best record in the league and made it all the way to the title game before falling. Despite that run of prosperity, I was still upset I blew that pick. Even veteran owners can make moves they are not proud of.

And no matter how confident you are as an owner, it's always good to get multiple opinions and many different forms of research. I'm a mix of traditional and new school philosophies. I still enjoy reading magazines, but in the end the Internet is king. And when it comes to Internet resources, 4for4 offers a vast array of information designed to help your team take home the title.

Some of you that are here are new to the site, and some of you are veteran owners who haven't had a chance to check out every part of the site. But whatever your experience level, you can get lots of guidance.

FULL IMPACT - Custom Draft Analysis and In-Season Help too!
One of the most compelling areas is our Full Impact projections zone. This part of the site offers an incredible array of resources. It's located on 4for4's front page, and you can look for it under the heading of 'Customized Tools.'

You'll see a link that says Start by Entering Your Rules.

This is a vital step that only takes about five minutes. Once you get the rules of your leagues entered in, 4for4 will customize the strategy you need to have a successful draft day. Plus, if you aren't familiar with your league's rules or just need a refresher course, it can be an eye-opener. Additionally, if you are in more than one league, you can load up rules for multiple leagues.

Once you enter your league's rules, and save them, you can click on the link of the left side of the screen that says 'Back to Full Impact Hub.' Once there, you can start using a wide variety of features.

NOTE: the remaining links in this article require you to have your rules entered in Full Impact. The exception is the "What Rankings Should I Use" link at the end.

Scrolling down the screen will take you to the next highlighted section entitled Custom Auction League Cheat Sheets. Not every league is using an auction format, but if you are, there are good introductory notes that help you take advantage of this feature and then you can scroll down to the area that says 'Next Steps.' From there, using your league rules as a guide, you can enter in the number of teams you have in a league and how many players you want to take at the four vital offensive positions (QB, RB, WR, and TE). Then hit submit and in a flash you have cheat sheets for all of those positions ranked by the order of the players and the Maximum you should spend on them. It's no secret that LT is the number one running back, but it's great to have a sheet that says what your max bid should be when you make your way to your league's auction.

If you journey back to the Full Impact Hub, the next two features offer the ability to rank the Top 225 both in keeper leagues and non-keeper leagues. The links can be found under the headings:

Customized Top-225 Keeper Rankings and Customized Top-225 Non-Keeper (Re-Draft).

The Keeper Rankings definitely help you get an edge on your competition as they enable you to pick a current year weight for your team. Are you building for the future, or trying to steal a few pages out of George Allen's win now philosophy when he coached the Washington Redskins?

If you want to be the Over the Hill Gang like the Redskins were, you can find out who the most productive veterans are going to be so you can acquire them in drafts, through free agency, or even through trades as George often did.

If you are looking to do what Jimmy Johnson did in Dallas (and Johnson's philosophy is even mentioned in this section) you can find out who the best long-term values are and consequently use that as a model to build your team in the draft or by trades (sorry owners, you can't trade Herschel Walker like Jimmy did).

Within an instant, you'll have all the tools needed to take down the other owners in your keeper league.

The re-draft keeper ranking also enables you to weigh your team's needs, as you can build upon the custom rules you entered earlier and input what you want your core roster to look like at various positions (for example some owners might want 4 RBs, and some want 5 or 6). Another quick click, and you've got a customized cheat sheet you're competitors won't have!

Next up as we journey down the Full Impact page is an option for the draft simulator. The headline reads Sharpen Your Draft Skills with SIMULATOR. Let's just simply say the simulator is phenomenal! It's a mock draft tool that enables you to pick a team using your league's rules while competing against fictitious computer franchises. You can set 4 different methods for how the computer squads make their moves, and educate yourself on the possible ideas floating around in the heads of your rivals. There's nothing quite like going through the experience of a mock draft to prepare for the real thing!

You've gotten experience in obtaining cheat sheets earlier that list the overall rankings by position and the ages of players. Now you can take that a step further with our next feature, entitled Create Customized Cheat Sheets with Projected Stats. All you have to do is click on that and you have a ready-made cheat sheet that features a glimpse into the future. You can change this for different leagues if needed, but either way you don't have a sheet with only the player's name. You have a gold mine of great stats. This covers all of the main offensive positions and includes kickers and defensive teams.

If you want to shorten your cheat sheets up and just have a basic guide, it's advisable to use the next feature on the Full Impact Hub, where youCreate a Customized 1-Page Printer Friendly Cheat Sheet with Your Point Scores. If you want it simple, this is perfect.

The feature you will see next as you scroll south down the Full Impact Hub is called Custom Keeper League Cheat Sheets by Position. Your rules and you balance current vs. future needs. This is an exciting brand new tool at 4for4 and you can build off the earlier Customized Top-225 Keeper Rankings feature because this allows you to chart the main four offensive positions in terms of future value.

Two more features are a part of the Full Impact Hub, and one of them isLet WAC help you evaluate a Preseason Trade. Even the great NFL head coaches can't win without good assistant coaches, and the WAC is a 'Weekly Assistant Coach.' During the season, the WAC helps you determine if your squad is a favorite or an underdog. But in the pre-season, it can help you judge a trade to determine if you are getting a steal or getting hosed. It's a great piece of advice.

Finally, you can Track player performance with your rules. See how they did last year. The NFL is a changing world, with players often ending up in different situations or with different teams. But many players don't change teams, and you can certainly use the previous season as a guide to the future. All right there again with just one click!

The bottom line is that there are so many great resources available to owners at 4for4.com. You can't go wrong at any area of the site. However, I believe it is the customized tools that differentiate this site from so many others out there. Hopefully, this article has helped educate you on a lot of unique features found here at 4for4.com and you can use them to be the top dog of your league.

For more, see What Rankings Should I Use.