I first created the Fantasy Football Draft Buddy over 20 years ago. Not only did it have a different name back then (anyone? see comments), but it included a unique feature that is a double-edged-sword. You can import fantasy football projections from other sources to create your cheatsheets.
Make Them Your Cheatsheets
The good about this feature is you get total control over the data that helps create your cheatsheets. I always felt it is important to stress Draft Buddy is a fantasy tool to help you make decisions about your team. It isn’t a, “here–do this,” tool. It is a support tool to help stay organized and up to date and to make better decisions – your Buddy! This feature aligns with that goal.
Import up to three sets of projections from whatever source(s) you trust. Certainly, there are many more premium subscription-based fantasy football services now than there were 20 years ago. If you use one of those, then maybe they have projections you want to use to create custom cheatsheets.
You can even edit the fantasy football projections after they are in Draft Buddy, if you want to adjust things for your own feelings about certain players. And, if you import multiple sets of projections, combine them using any weighted average you choose.
Problems Importing Projections
The difficulty with this feature is getting the projections into Draft Buddy. Since the projections come from many different possible sources, they are in a wide range of formats. For example compare CBS, ESPN, and FF Today projections.
Thankfully, FF Today’s fantasy football projections are included in Draft Buddy. But, there is no magic button to get CBS or ESPN or hundreds of other website projections into Draft Buddy.
And it isn’t as simple as copying and pasting into Excel. How do we line them up with the players and data already in Draft Buddy? How do we get the projections under the right column headings for touches, yards, and touchdowns?
Projection Pal To The Rescue
I created Projection Pal, which is a separate Excel file, to help import and make sure to line the projections up with the right players and in the right columns. Find Pal on the Draft Buddy download page. Using Pal, and with a little patience, then you can import projections. You’ll probably learn more about Microsoft Excel, to boot.
Below is a new demo video importing CBS fantasy football projections into Draft Buddy using Projection Pal. This covers most scenarios people experience importing projections. Before watching the video, here are some key points to think about with this process:
- Player names should be full first and last names. They can be formatted last name, first name, like, “Barkley, Saquon”, but (while not impossible) hopefully not, “S. Barkley”
- It may be necessary to clean data to remove extra info that is the same cell as each player’s name, like their team abbreviation. Sometimes there are funny characters that look like spaces but aren’t spaces, which a find-replace can often fix.
- If names are not formatted first name-last name then Projection Pal’s clean tabs may show errors prior to clicking the Copy to Draft Buddy button. Click the button, and see if Pal cleans the data for you.
- Many websites now offer their projections as comma-separated values (CSV) file download, which makes things much easier. If available, download, copy and paste it into Projection Pal. Split the data using Data > Text to Columns.
Importing Fantasy Football Projections Demo Video
Here is the video. If you have issues importing projections then post in the comments and we can help figure it out. For more Draft Buddy demo videos check my YouTube channel.
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