2021 FPL Draft Guide: Introduction & Overview

..and so it begins again.

Welcome back to the longest-running, oft-transformed, occasionally imitated Fantasy Premier League Draft pre-season guide and ranking cheat sheets. If you’re new, this is the home for everything I write on FPL. That means the Official FPL game, and Togga-style and scoring games like the one offered by Fantrax.

This is just one part of the FPL Draft Guide with the other part the shared document which includes my ranks (and occasionally the ranks of other FPL nerds, sorry experts) broken down by position and tiers, the Top 200 Cheat Sheet, handy excel sheets for tracking your draft, key stats and data from previous years in easily managed spreadsheets (look, I don’t think this should be here either but until platforms get their shit together, we gotta do it ourselves) and Mock Drafts for 8-, 10-, and 12-team leagues. This is a very analog approach in a notably digital age, but as the kids say “I’m old” (I know a lot of very old children, notably @FantasyYIRMA).

This was originally slated to begin on July 12, but I’ve moved up the start by a month to allow for more time between posts while still ensuring everything you need for a successful draft is published before the two biggest draft weekends on the summer calendar. This year I’ve added a full sheet on OFPL stats, a separate OFPL top 200 and our first ever Draft Dynasty ranks. The Mikes - P and Gotti - have contributed their dynasty top 20 at every position (well, except GK), and I’ve gone a full 40 in the outfield plus lined up the 12 best shot-stoppers.

This year there will be articles covering:

• The release of the Too Early Top 200 (which is coming out in three days on Monday June 21)

• Four articles covering the release of the Position Ranks, by position

• OFPL articles covering the difference in roster construction, position scarcity and the application of the Draft Guide to identifying players with big Bonus Point potential

• Three articles, one each covering the three promoted sides in depth

• Article covering late round picks: flyers/lottery ticket players, setting a queue for maximum draft day value

• Articles as needed covering transfer and injury news

• Statistics used and misused in the name of “science”

• An updated Top 200 and updated Position Ranks at the end of July

• Mock drafts and write-ups conducted with a rotating cast of the best fantasy PL players around. Last season we had over years of FPL coverage represented in the 12-team Mock Draft (and I was barely half that…)

Once we’re through the Guide I will, again, return this newsletter to weekly posts plus a weekly open thread where the community discusses any questions you may have. Last year we launched on July 27 and published 115 articles, including the Open Threads, across the next nine months, so use that as a barometer for if you think you’re getting good value here.

This article is going out to everyone on the mailing list so if you are already a subscriber you can ignore the signup links. If you haven’t yet subscribed for this year, please do take advantage of this as the on-site price for new subscribers is higher. I truly appreciate everyone’s support at any level and want to ensure you get access at a fair price.

As always, if you choose to pay off site via Venmo or PayPal you can. This season the Guide will still be delivered to you through Substack. So essentially you can send $ direct and you’ll get access to the full stack and archives but without subscribing or being subject to Substack autorenewal. Fair? Fair. [DM me for info: @FantasyGaffer.] But I will NOT be sending out the Guide as a standalone document this year; with my apologies, the amount of work managing individual emails is very high and unfortunately I no longer have time to do that. One benefit of using Substack to manage content distribution is that more time is being devoted to writing!

Annual Subscribers or those who maintain monthly subscriptions after the summer will have access to the mid-season rank updates. Last season these were done just before the Busy Festive Season portion of the calendar kicked off and included a mini-series of four position-based articles discussing the players who rose/fell the most in the ranks plus any new entries and the ranks all publishing in the same week. Mid-season Binge Mode.

I will be ‘republishing’ a couple of articles from last year this summer. I recognize not every one has time to dig through the archives so I’ve pulled out a couple of the most relevant posts and updated them for 2021. Because I f*cking love getting compliments, big thanks to those of you who DM’d me this spring to talk about the titles you won! Happy to have played a small part.

-JW