The weather can have a very significant impact in football games that can really be overlooked in particular when you are drafting your fantasy football teams.  We have all seen the panic when deciding who to start when we have high winds, heavy snow or heavy rain.

Teams are expected to play in just about anything.  We won’t see them playing when a hurricane approaches or a foot of snow is expected but in almost everything else the games must go on. 

If you are not thinking about the weather when you are drafting you are really asking for trouble.  We always look at it when deciding who to start each week but you could save yourself some headaches if you prepare for it.  You can’t avoid having to make some weather decisions but you can limit your exposure.  Why deal with it unless you have to?

In a perfect world, you would be drafting players that only play in domes or warm weather cities.  In an ideal world, you would draft QB’s, WR’s & K’s that have good weather and RB’s & DST that play in colder climates.  This would be a perfect scenario.  

Players in domes naturally have no exposure to outside elements so they are perfect.  It is the East Coast and Midwest players where you have to be careful.  We know the weather in Buffalo, Chicago, Minnesota and New England can be brutal when we hit November and December.

If you are choosing between Drew Brees or Aaron Rodgers that you value the same, it makes perfect sense to take Brees.  It's obvious which has more possible weather to deal with it.  If you like Julio Jones or Odell Beckham, Julio Jones is the clear choice.  I almost always will go in the direction of a good weather player and will also lock in a good weather kicker.  There is no reason to deal with the headache of guys who deal with inclement weather if you could avoid it.

I just mentioned the situations that you are going to be looking for, you can also use the bad weather to your advantage.  The same cold weather cities that you may try to avoid in one instance are the ones to exploit when it comes to the running game.  As we get the colder weather, we also tend to see more wind as well which makes the running game a bigger focal point for many offenses.

The goal here is to limit the exposure your team has to cold (and potentially inclement) weather late in the season. Early on weather isn’t a big factor in fantasy football but as the seasons change and winter arrives it becomes paramount. The structure of fantasy football also puts an emphasis on weather. Think about how many great fantasy teams you’ve drafted and seen drafted that have not won a championship. As we all know, all it takes is one bad week during the playoffs and even a stacked team will fall. 

There are few fantasy football players that think this far ahead or plan for such occurrences. You can’t set your team up in a way that one bad storm on a Sunday afternoon will ruin your chance at a title. This is why these kind of strategies are the difference between those that win their league once in a decade and those that compete for the title each and every season.