I’m continuing to work away at the 2012 fantasy football version of the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy. Once again, it will be available at FF Today, and our ETA is early June after the player projections are published.

That gives me another two weeks to get this thing buttoned up and ready for launch. It is a process just turning it over from one year to the next, because of the addition of new players, subtraction of old players who are out of the league and haven’t had any NFL stats in the past three years. Updating our supporting player database for all the vital information for the players. Compiling the stats from the past three years to include in the Compiler. Not to mention we have different versions for Excel 2007 and newer, and Excel prior to 2007 (2008 for Mac).

I always like to add something new as well. Last year, things were really new, because it marked the first time the Cheatsheet Compiler and Draft Buddy were in a single file. Sorry baseball fans, that didn’t happen for baseball this past season. For football though, it was great.

Unfortunately, we had to lose some features from the prior two-file system to help ensure the single file would work properly and not be overloaded with data and features that could compromise performance. I’d like to try to add back some of those features this year. One is the countdown timer, which a number of people missed last season. The issue with that went beyond the one-file, two-file change as it was yet another alternate version of Excel causing problems – 32-bit or 64-bit for Windows. The countdown timer didn’t work in 64-bit Excel. I’m still investigating how to fix that.

I’d also like to add some new stats this year, if possible. Tackles for loss is one that is becoming more popular for leagues that use individual defensive players. I won’t be able to do anything with respect to valuing the players, but at a minimum I think I’m going to change the “Exp” column on the DL, LB and DB tabs to more detail about each player’s position – defensive tackle or defensive end; cornerback or safety.

Overall there won’t be as much new stuff as the big change last year (don’t think I could dream up that big a change again), but there is still plenty to look forward to because fantasy football drafting season is almost here! If you want to review some of my early drafting calls, check out the mock draft I’m participating in as @FantasyThrowdwn.