Try as we might, things don't always play our way in fantasy football. Four weeks in, some of us are 0-4, or perhaps 1-3 and staring up in the standings at multiple 4-0 teams, and that hopeless feeling has started taking over. As a quick note of encouragement, don't give up! Teams rally from 0-4 and into the playoffs every single year, and besides, upstanding competitors give full effort from start to finish.
However, if what you desire is recapturing that preseason excitement of a new fantasy football season, there's a perfect pick-me-up: This is a great week to start up a brand-new Knockout league! While many Knockout leagues kicked the season off in Week 1 with 18 teams, a Knockout league can start in any week. The one caveat is that you must fully complete your draft before the kickoff of the week's Thursday game in order for your season to begin during that specific week, so plan accordingly.
Week 5 is a great starting point because you'll require only 14 teams, a smaller managerial pool, to begin, and NFL teams are only now starting their bye weeks. With four teams having already been bumped in full-season Knockout formats, you're potentially nearly 30% of the way there by recruiting those already eliminated from other Knockouts. I'm among that group, as in one of my two in-house Knockout leagues, I've already been ousted.
In addition to my preseason top strategies to win in Knockout leagues, here are some updated strategies to consider when formulating your draft (and early-season) strategy. The talent pool is richer. A 14-team draft is considerably shallower than an 18-team draft, and while full-season Knockout drafters scrape the bottom of the barrel when filling out their four bench slots, Week 5 drafters can squeeze at least a little more utility from them. The bye weeks begin in Week 5. Byes are the bane of a Knockout manager's existence, as a four-bench format effectively prohibits stacking your bye weeks and makes it difficult to keep non-elite talent rostered through the bye. In Week 5, the effects of this ring loudest, as 196 rostered players still significantly deplete the player pool.
Source: ESPN NFL · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing