Take The First Step To Win Your Fantasy Football Draft – Download Draft Buddy

Fantasy Football Draft Buddy is ready for your 2023 fantasy football drafts. This is year number 23 of the “little” spreadsheet that could. Twenty-three years helping people draft their fantasy football teams and take the first big step to a championship season.

Draft Buddy creates custom cheat sheets for your fantasy football league from your league scoring and rules. Plus it tracks your draft on draft day. As the picks are input into Buddy, it marks those players off the cheat sheets and updates rosters. You stay organized and focused drafting a great fantasy team.

Draft Buddy is in Microsoft Excel, and requires a full desktop version of Excel to operate. It works on both Windows and Mac computers. The mobile versions of Excel, Google Sheets, and other spreadsheet programs are not compatible with all of the features in Draft Buddy. However, Microsoft Office (Excel) is available for a low monthly subscription that you can cancel anytime.

Create Custom Fantasy Football Cheat Sheets

Custom cheat sheets are important so you are tailoring your fantasy football draft rankings to your league setup. There are not a lot of options you need to input to create custom cheat sheets for your league. Start with the rules, scoring, and action tabs.

1. rules Tab

On the rules tab input the number of teams, number of rounds of your draft, and the starters and backups for each position.

If your league is a super-flex, where you can start an additional QB, but also has other RB/WR/TE flex positions, then input 2 QB starters. Draft Buddy will push up the value of QB accordingly. Use the O-Flex setting for the remaining flex spots.

What if your league doesn’t have a set number of backup spots? This is a common question. Input the backups as you expect most teams to draft. Using decimals for backups allows more flexibility. If you expect half the teams in your league to draft three backup RB and three backup WR, and half two RB and four WR, set the backups to 2.5 RB and 3.5 WR.

If your league is a keeper league, then use the keeper settings. A keepers tab will appear after Draft Buddy generates the cheat sheets. Auction league? Adjust those settings, and Draft Buddy calculates auction values and preps for an auction draft.

2. scoring Tab

Over on the scoring tab, the default settings are common to many leagues – 1 fantasy point per 10 yards rushing or receiving, 4 fantasy points per passing touchdown, 6 points per rushing or receiving touchdown. However, adjust any of the cells highlighted in yellow as necessary. Do not change cells that are not highlighted, such as the distance scoring ranges.

There are some popular preset scoring options available using the drop-down at the top of the scoring tab.

5. action Tab

This is where the magic happens. Once you set your rules and scoring settings, go to the action tab and click Compile Cheatsheets. Draft Buddy resets all of the report tabs and generates cheat sheets for your fantasy football league.

As mentioned above, if your league is a keeper league, then a keepers tab appears. If your draft is an auction, then the draft report tab goes away, and an auction report tab appears. Plus the cheat sheets show dollar values in addition to projected fantasy points for each player.

Any time changes are made to rules, scoring, projections, or anything on the options tab, then Compile Cheatsheets is necessary to update the cheat sheets in Draft Buddy for those new settings.

There may be times you want to generate cheat sheets after you’ve input keepers or draft picks. In these cases make sure to change the two reset options on the action tab. If they are both set to “yes”, and Compile Cheatsheets is run, Draft Buddy resets completely.

The action tab is also important to update projections. Projections from FF Today are included in Draft Buddy and updated weekly, usually on Thursdays, until the start of the NFL season.

Track Your Fantasy Football Draft

Many people still love the old paper and pen approach for tracking their fantasy football draft. It works. If that is your preference, then you can print off the cheat sheets in Draft Buddy to take to your draft.

I use Draft Buddy to track my drafts so at any point I can easily see updated cheat sheets with players taken and available, plus examine rosters and Average Draft Position (ADP). I track both slow and live drafts.

After Draft Buddy creates your cheat sheets, it is ready to track your draft. Review the draft report tab (or auction report tab) to make sure the proper teams and rounds, and draft order, are set. Then start tracking by selecting a player. There are a few ways:

1. On any of the cheat sheets or position tabs in Draft Buddy, click on a player’s name, and click the Draft Player button. Buddy adds that player to the draft report tab for the current pick.
2. Optionally, sync your league if your draft is on MyFantasyLeague.com, Sleeper, Fantrax, or FFPC. See the sync tab for details.
3. On the draft report tab, for the current pick, select the position and select the player. A drop-down appears when you select each cell for position or player, or you can type them in.

As picks are input the cheat sheets update by marking off players. The rosters tab also updates. Don’t forget to click the “+” sign above your team on the rosters tab to show some hidden columns.

AMA (Ask Me Anything)

There are a lot of options in Draft Buddy, so if you are unsure of anything, ask away. You don’t need to be an Excel expert, but if you have Excel-related questions, ask those too. I’m also happy to answer fantasy football questions – keeper choices, draft strategy, dynasty leagues, and trade advice.

I originally built this tool to help me manage and stay organized in my 10-12 fantasy football leagues. It is amazing it’s been around for over 20 years helping tens of thousands of fantasy players do the same thing.

Thanks to all of you for the connections and support over the years. Let’s kickoff another successful season!