You've looked over the players at each position. You've made your own statistical projections. Now you're ready for the next step: preparing for your own "perfect draft".

David Dodds' article on "The Perfect Draft" presents an excellent draft strategy based on Footballguys.com projections for this year. But unless you're relying solely on Joe and David's projections for your own draft, Dodds' strategy may or may not be the best for you. You need to pursue the same thought process in developing strategy, but using your own statistical projections. After all, it's your draft, not David's.

Many fantasy drafters rely on value-based drafting (VBD) to determine the best pick at each round. One of the most common misperceptions about VBD is that it is a tool for draft strategy. It is not. VBD is a way to compare projections across positions to determine relative value versus a "baseline" player. It is useful when looking at players available at a single pick. But when you are preparing your drafting strategy, you shouldn't be looking at one pick at a time. You want to look at your whole team. You don't care how well a single player compares to an alternative, "baseline" player. You care about how your whole team compares to all possible alternative teams.

Perfect Draft Rule #1: Base your draft strategy around creating the best team, top to bottom.

The key, then, is not to maximize value at a given pick, but to maximize value across your whole draft. VBD may tell you that Andre Johnson has the best "value" at your fifth round pick, but it doesn't tell you that a player you have ranked almost as high may be available two rounds later. In that case, you may want to pick a RB or a QB who may be gone by round seven, and wait until then to pick your alternative WR. This is what is known as "dynamic" value drafting- not comparing Andre Johnson to a baseline player, but comparing him to a player you could get at WR later in the draft if you go another direction.

But how do you know who will be available later in the draft? Thanks to the Web, we now have a way to answer that question.

Perfect Draft Rule #2: Compare your projected rankings with players' Average Draft Positions (ADPs) to find the best value picks at each position.

Footballguys.com gives you an estimate of each player's ADP with some of their projections, as do a few other sites like AntSports and Xpertleagues, and ESPN. These estimates are based on hundreds, sometimes thousands of actual drafts, so it should give you a sense of where each player tends to get drafted.

The essence of the "perfect draft" is to avoid drafting players at one round when you can get a player of similar quality much later. Therefore, the players you should be targeting are the ones that rank much higher on your projections than on ADP. These are the value picks that make up a successful draft.

For example, you may decide that you like Matt Hasselbeck and Trent Green and rank both about the same based on your projections. But, if Hasselbeck has an ADP of pick 44 and Green has and ADP of 61, you probably don't want Hasselbeck on your team. The value pick is Trent Green. Passing on Hasselbeck during your draft allows you to draft quality players at other positions while planning to take a QB of similar quality a round or two later.

Once you isolate the value picks you are going to target, it is time to think about strategy.

Perfect Draft Rule #3: Plan your strategy based on acquiring as many value picks as possible for each roster spot.

For example, you may rank players like Andre Davis and Deion Branch to be as good as a top-20 receiver, but ADP lists him as being drafted in the 11th or 12th round on average. If so, consider waiting to drafting your backup WRs until round 10. (Don't wait too long -- ADP is an average, after all, so there is a 50-50 chance that your targeted players will be picked in your league before their ADP.) If you get the same quality receiver at round 10 that other drafters will take in rounds 5 or 6, you already have one leg up on the competition. That is not to say that you should avoid drafting WR at all until round 10, of course, but it means that once twenty receivers are off the board, you can focus on other positions for a while.

Perfect Draft Rule #4: Beware of shortages of quality players at a particular position.

Your projections may indicate only twenty RBs that you would like as starting RBs on your team. If you're in a twelve-team league that requires two starting RBs, you want to plan on taking your second RB as early as possible, unless you are absolutely sure that one of your top-20 RBs will be available in round 3 or 4. If, however, you find that your next tier of RBs, such as Thomas Jones or Duce Staley, are projected to score nearly as well, then you have less to worry about.

Perfect Draft Rule #5: When in doubt, especially at the beginning of the draft, do the math

Suppose, for round 2, you are debating between taking your top remaining RB, Michael Bennett, and the best available WR, Hines Ward. Let's assume that you have decided that, because of a shortage of good RBs, you will want to take your second RB no later than round 3, but do you take Bennett now or wait and take a RB next round?

Simply take a look at who will probably be available at round three. If the best available RB in round 3 is projected to score 25 points less than Bennett, but the best available WR is projected to score 30 points less, then take Ward. If instead you think that you can get a WR in round 3 that wills core only 20 points less than Ward, skip him and take Bennett.

This may sound obvious, but too many sharks go through all the effort to develop projections, but don't take the next step and use them to plan ahead.

You can do the same thing looking at nonconsecutive rounds. Suppose that you've decided that Randy McMichael is a value pick at TE, and that according to ADP, you expect to be able to draft him in round 9. But you also really like Tony Gonzalez, who you project to score 60 fantasy points more than McMichael, but who may not last past your third round pick. If you estimate that the difference between a 3rd round WR and a 9th round WR is less than 60 points (as is the difference between QBs and RBs available in those two rounds), you should plan on taking Gonzo there.

In fact, given an estimate of QB, RB, and WR scoring in the ninth round, you can place Gonzo on your draft board at the exact position where he is worth taking: just below all players that you project to score more than 60 points ahead of their ninth round counterparts.

As you see, you do not need a generic baseline as you would use with ordinary VBD. Instead, your "baseline" is the player that you would be drafting at the round where you foresee a value pick for TE.

Similarly, in the first example above, you can use possible round 3 picks at RB and WR as your "baseline" (or "dynamic baseline", as other writers refer to it) in ranking players available in the second round. The higher the difference between a potential round 2 player and a likely round 3 player at that position, they higher they should rank on your draft board.

Perfect Draft Rule #6: No matter how much time you spend in preparing your draft strategy, don't be so wedded to it that you miss out on opportunities.

No draft ever unfolds exactly as you expect. You may plan to wait on taking a QB until round 5 or 6. But if a player you expected to be gone by your fourth pick is still there, don't be rigid. A "perfect" draft strategy is a flexible one that allows you to take advantage of opportunities that fall into your lap on draft day.

In cases like this, if you have the time, do a quick calculation and see if you lose too many points at another position to justify taking him. If he represents real upgrade over your targeted QBs, don't be afraid to take him.

Similarly, if a player you were targeting gets taken earlier than you expect, take the time while your opponents are drafting to think about a backup plan. (See Part II for more on preparing backup plans ahead of time.)

A strategy is a guide to your draft, not a rulebook. Always keep sight of your goal: drafting the best team possible. By making your own projections and using ADP to target the best value picks, you too can have the perfect draft.