The tier system

When you're cramming for your football draft, here's a little tip I like to use.

You may have heard of the tier system. The idea's pretty simple: first, put together a rough ranking of players by position. Let's say your QB rankings look like this:

1. Peyton Manning
2. Carson Palmer
3. Tom Brady
4. Drew Brees
5. Marc Bulger
6. Donovan McNabb
7. Matt Hasselbeck
8. Vince Young
9. Philip Rivers
10. Tony Romo

OK, decent start, but your work's not done. A list is all well and good, but it doesn't really help your strategy when you're drafting against other people and trying to fill multiple positions. How do you know when to pull the trigger for a quarterback?

The next step is to break up your list into tiers of comparable players. Looking back at your QB list, let's say you think Palmer has a chance to be just as elite as Peyton this year. Then, you think Brady, Brees and Bulger might finish with similar stats, but then there's a drop-off to McNabb because of injury concerns. Your list might then look something like this:

1. Peyton Manning
2. Carson Palmer

3. Tom Brady
4. Drew Brees
5. Marc Bulger

6. Donovan McNabb
7. Matt Hasselbeck

8. Vince Young

9. Philip Rivers
10. Tony Romo

Now you're ready to draft. If somebody takes Brady in the second round, you don't have to automatically panic, because you see Brees and Bulger are still on the board. You can afford to fill another position, wait another round and then hopefully grab a QB who you think will give you similar stats as Brady.

By the same token, maybe you've waited a little longer to get a QB, and among your top 10, only Young, Rivers and Romo are still available. You're picking next, and according to your tiers there's a considerable drop in potential from Young to the next tier. Now you know the time is right to grab Young.

It's a pretty simple system, but it's helped me make some tough decisions, so give it a try.