Cheat Sheet War Room was born from the frustration associated with the classic manner of creating fantasy football cheat sheets for my
fantasy drafts. The purpose of this website is to make the process of developing fantasy football cheat sheets simple, intuitive,
and above all else fun. The days of clumsily copying and pasting players in a spreadsheet using outdated information (or frantically copying
NFL player rankings off of some random website) are over. You can now drag & drop players to create your custom football player rankings in a
fraction of the time, using a wealth of supplemental information, for free. Preparing your football draft picks will be a snap with our informative,
interactive cheat sheet creation tools.
I’m a firm believer in having a well-prepared, comprehensive fantasy cheat sheet for each fantasy football draft that I attend. In years past I
would create my cheat sheets in a very ad hoc manner: choose a fantasy position, copy players and their statistics to a spreadsheet, create formulas
to calculate how the player’s statistics translates into fantasy points under my league’s configuration, sort all of my players by total fantasy point output,
manually type bye weeks into the spreadsheet, add a column for any notes that I want to add, manually enter new rookies, etc.. All of this data was
absolutely critical, but I took my cheat sheets a step further to include supplemental rankings, fantasy busts, and fantasy sleepers.
Supplemental rankings are player rankings from other sources (magazines, websites, etc) and I placed these right next to my own ranking for each player.
This provided a means to double-check my own rankings against other, well-respected rankings and ensure I did not overvalue or undervalue a particular player.
Fantasy sleepers and fantasy busts are self-explanatory, and I normally used color-coding to highlight players of either category.
If you think this manner of creating fantasy cheat sheets was an arduous task you’d be right (remember it had to be repeated for each fantasy position), but for me
this was part of the fun of preparing for the fantasy season. Also, this work helped to set the stage for the most exciting part of creating cheat sheets:
configuring my player rankings.
The classic manner of ranking players consisted of copying & pasting players around the spreadsheet until I was satisfied with ordering. While fun, this a pain
because moving a player meant that I had to first cut the current player out of the row being copied to so that the new player would fit, but in order to
move that player I first had to move another player to make room for him, etc.. (This normally lead to a spreadsheet with large sections of empty rows used
to temporarily hold players while I copied others into different positions).
Once I was satisfied with my rankings I would print out each of my spreadsheets
(one for each fantasy position) and use scissors to cut out the important columns (normally the columns with the players’ names, teams, and bye weeks). Then, I’d take each
of those cutouts and tape them to another piece of paper which would represent my ‘draft board’; in this way I’d have a single document to reference during the
draft which would have all of my required information. Finally I’d reserve a small area of my draft board for entering my draft picks during each round.
Shown below is part of a spreadsheet-based cheat sheet for the quarterback position from 2007.
While my classic manner of creating cheat sheets worked well and definitely gave me an advantage come draft day, it certainly had its drawbacks.
First and foremost, these sheets took forever to create. I enjoyed researching all of the information, but the time needed to enter the data into
the spreadsheet was extensive. I spent much more time importing data than I did manipulating my player rankings, which after all is the most important
(and fun) part.
Also, the information in my spreadsheet was static and very difficult to update. If I created my cheat sheet at the beginning of the
preseason, what is to say that some players haven’t switched teams by the time that my draft arrives? What if some of the supplemental rankings that
I referenced in my cheat sheet had changed drastically since I manually added that information to my spreadsheet? So not only did I have to initially enter
all of that data in my cheat sheet, I also had to regularly check that data for inconsistencies and update it accordingly.
Another problem was switching
between applications as I worked on my positional sheets. I used my web browser to do my research, then had switch to my spreadsheet to edit my data; it
was a back and forth process that got was tedious and very time-consuming.
Now the good news: Our cheat sheet creation tools provide the same features that I integrated into my own spreadsheet-based cheat
sheets, and more; however, the grunt work has already been done for you. Out of the box your dynamic spreadsheet contains players, teams, bye weeks, supplemental
rankings from 3 different sources, the ability to mark a player with a tag (sleeper, bust, or injured), relevant statistics, calculated fantasy point output,
and an editable note area. If the supplemental rankings change, a player changes teams, or any other part of your cheat sheet becomes invalid,
the application will automatically update your sheet for you. The only task left up to you is the fun part: manipulating your football player rankings using simple,
drag and drop functionality.
After you are satisfied with your player rankings at each fantasy position, you can generate a printable fantasy football cheat sheet that will integrate
your own player rankings (along with other configurable information) needed for your fantasy football draft. There are several formats available, including
one that integrates a roster area right into the sheet itself.
As you may have noticed, Cheat Sheet War Room currently only supports fantasy football. However, as the application evolves I will begin to integrate other
fantasy sports. In addition to providing support for multiple fantasy sports, I want to also develop a community where fantasy enthusiasts can debate their
player rankings and any other topics related to fantasy sports. New and regular content is also on the forefront and will help to drive the community.
The ultimate goal is to make Cheat Sheet War Room a one-stop-shop for all of your draft preparation and documentation tasks, with fantasy cheat sheet creation
tools as the featured offering.