After all your preparation, the draft is finally over.

That one ass in your league mocked every pick you made. Hoping – pick-by-pick – to convince you that your team sucks.

Just ignore him.

‘That guy’ exists in just about every league.

Don’t worry.

Their main goal is to demoralize you enough so that you think you need to make a trade. Once they’ve got you on the ropes, they’ll swoop in to pick apart all the good players on your roster for themselves.

Do not let this happen to you.

I’ve seen ‘that guy’ left out of the playoffs on more than one occasion. Aside from being a prick, these guys probably do not know what they are talking about, and always have their own agenda.

Too often Fantasy owners give up on their team too early. Or, barring a ‘bad draft,’ even before the season begins.

It’s important to wait a few weeks before making any irrational changes to your team. Make sure you know exactly what you have before you make any impatient decisions.

Any team, and I mean any team, can be drastically improved by paying close attention to the waiver wire. Obviously, it’s too early to know which undrafted players you need to pick up, so just stay patient.

In a few weeks, if your team is still underachieving, then it may be time to make some moves. Until then, stay put.

Now that I’ve hopefully convinced you to stick with what you’ve got, how do you pick which guys are worthy of a week one start?

Choosing the lineup for the opening week is a tough decision for any Fantasy owner to make.

Just like any other week, I use a simple formula when it comes to factoring in a week’s matchup for my players.

As a general rule of thumb, I base about 75 percent of my decision on player ability, and 25 percent on a player’s opponent.

Going off this formula, it’s important to realize you should always play your stars, regardless of the opponent. Since these players perform on such a consistent basis, it’s far more likely your player will have a good game than that they will be slowed down by a stingy defense.

If you are having trouble figuring out who your ‘stars’ are, it’s probably a safe bet that anyone you nabbed in the first two rounds of the draft will fall into that category (and possibly some 3rd or 4th rounders).

Unless they are injured (less than 85% health), all of your star players should start this week.

Filling out the rest of your lineup is when it gets tricky. The problem for the opening week is that it’s pretty hard to weigh 75 percent of your decision on a player’s ability when it’s still pretty unclear what the ability of each

player is.

To deal with this, I have always started the players who I thought were the safest bet to open the season. I know it’s tempting for Fantasy owners to start a 12th round sleeper pick who they ‘know’ is going to dominate this year – but don’t do that. You’ll be much happier getting a solid amount of points.

If you are unsure which players are the safest bets, I would suggest looking at a player’s performance throughout last season. Did they have a couple of standout games that were surround by mediocrity for the rest? Or, did they avoid having any huge games, but consistently tally 10 points a week for their owners?

If it’s the former, then you should probably hold off on starting these guys until they prove to you they can do it on a consistent basis. If it’s the latter, then you know you need to start that player this week.

You may not have enough depth to start all ‘safe-bets’ this week, so I’ve compiled a list of questionable players who I am most likely to start. I am going to refer to these players as ‘wild cards’ until they can prove they are ‘safe-bets.’