Preparing for fantasy happenstance

I was on the train on my way home from some time spent in Boston to see my sister's new home, and was pleasantly surprised to find a close friend on the train a few rows ahead of me. What a small world. I love random happenstance like that...and there's always a taste of this sort of happy circumstance with fantasy drafts. You can go into drafts as prepared as can be, but there's likely to be some moment where one of your favorite sleepers has landed in your lap at exactly the right value point. And on the flip side, you should be prepared for your fantasy nemesis to snag all your picks right before you...repeatedly. So I highly recommend you mock, mock, mock as your draft day approaches to see upside in players you might not have originally considered. A few mock sites to check out include: Fantasy Football Calculator, Mock Draft Central, or Yahoo. Any other favorites out there?

Some other sites to check out today:

• I say this every season, I think, but some of my favorite articles are those where writers from different sites collaborate and offer up differing opinions on players or strategies. Showdown: Donovan McNabb - Fantasy Football Advice brings together RapidDraft.com's Matt Schauf and Pro Football Focus's Mike Clay to talk about what McNabb will bring to the table this season.
• Along those same lines, check out FantasyPros.com's Our Featured Pros Reveal their Sleepers and Busts for thoughts from Yahoo's Andy Behrens, ProFootballWeekly's Michael Blunda, and NFL Soup's Kevin Roberts. 
• Need reasons to love Spiller, Finley, Bradshaw, or Gaffney, then scope out Roto Arcade's First Down: JerMichael Finley poised to vie for top fantasy tight end.
• The Bruno Boys have their free 2010 Fantasy Football Draft Guide available - includes rankings, player profiles, cheat sheets, etc. Good stuff. I'll be writing for the Bruno Boys again a bit this year so of course I might be a bit biased, but you'll find plenty of good material in there.
• Keeping in mind that the preseason doesn't usually amount to much, I'm still intrigued with the FFGeekBlog's recent post that lists the NFL leaders through week 2 (of the preseason) - interesting mix of names on the list.
• And on a similar note, The Hazean's Notable Preseason Performances: Week 2 has a nice recap of a few big games from a handful of players this weekend. Or read NFL.com's game-by-game look at the second week of the preseason.
• Some of you might remember Advanced NFL Stats's first toe-dip into the fantasy world with Koko's rankings (essentially the most basic picks that even a monkey could make, though in reality it's more complicated than that and you can read up on it here). If you're wondering how Koko did last year, see Koko's 2009 Fantasy Report Card. As Brian points out, the clutch thing here might be comparing Koko's rankings (here are his 2010 QBs rankings) with you other favorite sites' rankings. If there's someone whose ranking varies widely from Koko, it's worth figuring out why.
• If you're in an auction league, particularly if you're a newbie to the auction world, you might find FantasyFanPlay.com's Auction Draft Strategy and Values for, well, exactly that: strategy and rankings with values based on a $200 budget.