Mike Clay's Playbook, Part 3: How to manage your team postdraft - ESPN

OK, so your fantasy football draft is in the rearview mirror. Your team looks great. There's no way you're losing this title. Your work here is done, right? Wrong.

I'm in a lot of leagues — most of them against industry experts — but I'm also in a few long-running, casual leagues with college friends, family and neighbors. In both situations, there are extremely active managers and there are extremely lax managers. Some (like me) are rarely content and always tinkering with trade offers and waivers in order to get one step closer to a title. Others attack waivers only when needed (injuries, bye weeks) and are the strongest bet to commit the most heinous act of all — ignoring trade proposals! (We'll talk more about that later.)

As you might imagine, the active managers win at a much higher rate than the casual ones. Now, is it possible to simply hit on nearly every draft pick and compete for a league title? Of course. In a high-variance game like fantasy football, it happens.

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In fact, that reminds me of the infamous 2007 season in my long-running 16-team, family and friends dynasty league. With zero fantasy football acumen and only Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots and Miami Hurricanes fandom at his disposal — the perfect storm, as it would turn out — my brother Matthew, then 13, drafted Patriots Tom Brady, Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Stephen Gostkowski, as well as Adrian Peterson and Kellen Winslow II. So, yeah, that's the top-scoring QB, WR and K, as well as the WR11 (Welker) and top-five finishers at RB and TE.

Matt never (or, at least, very rarely) checked on his team and still started