Continuing with Fantasy Football 101, I usually skim through a couple magazines to get a general feel for where others rank various players and what the main themes are going into the season.
I want to know this as I prepare because my competitors will be influenced and make decisions based on these same rankings and themes.
An example would be Miami RB Ronnie Brown. The two mags I will use, Sports Illustrated and ESPN rank him as the 7th and 8th best RB, respectively. This tells me I have little chance of getting him with a 1st round pick much lower than 10.
It also says he could go considerably higher with a some good pre-season performances and the subsequent hype.
I then will look at the RBs ranked a few slots higher as one of them will slip as a result of Brown rising.
I'll repeat this process with the other positions. Carson Palmer is ranked 3rd and 5th. Larry Fitzgerald is 2nd and 3rd. And so on.
With some points of comparison, I begin to build a mental ranking of each position.