Building a perfect fantasy football team takes time. Research for both the draft and the waivers will need to happen earlier rather than later. To have a great team, you will need an understanding of all the NFL teams and their rosters.

Throughout the season there will be injures, there will be replacements and there will be other unforeseen circumstances that can hinder a fantasy football team. The way to still have a perfect fantasy football team at the end of the year is to prepare for the worst throughout the season.

The first step to building a perfect fantasy football team is the research before the draft. You will need to know the rules your league has set for the season because this can affect how you will draft. You will need to know about the rosters in the NFL, who are the starters and the important backups.

Looking at mock drafts is also a great resource to have. Mock drafts are fake drafts that provide a look at how a draft can and should go. Mock drafts can provide insight when a player has fallen and would now be considered of great value.

The last thing you should do before the draft is find out what pick you will be drafting from. This will allow you to create your own mock drafts and see what your team could possibly look like.

The next step in building a great fantasy team is the draft. During your draft, you want to begin by drafting the best player available. If you draft a running back first, you will more than likely be getting a surefire stud, later in the draft you will be wanting to draft that players backup, known as a handcuff. This will protect you in case your stud suffers an injury.

If you draft a wide receiver first you will be sitting in good shape also. There isn’t as great of a need to draft your wide receiver’s backup, because a wide receiver’s backup is different compared to the running backs because there are many more wide receivers than running backs in the NFL.

After the first two rounds where you are drafting best available, you should be trying to fill out your roster with players that you think will improve upon their average draft position (ADP) in the following year. This means that when you draft a running back at pick in the 42 spot, you should hope that in the next year he is getting drafted ahead of pick 42.  Once your team is drafted, you will hopefully need to make as few changes as possible throughout the season.

The final step to building the perfect fantasy team, transactions. You will want to scour the free agent list in hopes of finding a hidden gem. Every year there seems to be at least one player that goes undrafted in most leagues which ends up being one of the best players at their position.

Last year’s hidden gem was Jordan Howard of the Chicago Bears. He was a rookie that wasn’t being drafted in most leagues and ended up finishing as a top 10 running back and finished the year second in rushing. You want to be the person finding this gem because he can end up winning you your league.

Picking up free agents isn’t the only part of transactions, you also might want to find a trade that can benefit your team. If your team is very deep at running back, but weak at wide receiver, you should try to find another team in your league with the opposite problem and try to work out a deal to bolster your receiving corps.

By following these steps, building a perfect fantasy football team will be easily. There are still countless circumstances that can end your season which you will have no control over, most notably injuries. The draft will not win you your league. You will need to update and maintain your team throughout the year to have the perfect fantasy football team.

Cole Johnson is a contributing writer