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The “Dark Days” are almost over. Training camps are opening up, and the noses of fantasy football players everywhere are starting to twitch with the familiar scent of a new season starting to permeate the air. Draft day is just around the corner, and owners everywhere are starting to work on strategies to help them crush their opposition this year.

With that in mind, here are some things…in no particular order… to keep in mind when you go into you draft. Some of them may seem simple, but you’d be surprised how often many of them get overlooked, to the detriment of the owner who ignores them.

First and foremost, there is no one “great draft strategy” anyone can give you that will guarantee a good team. There are far too many variables in fantasy football: the type of league (redraft, keeper, IDP, dynasty, etc.); size of the league; composition of the league, and starting roster composition.

One league I’m in, for example, starts two QBs every week, so they tend to fly off the board earlier than they would in a typical league that starts one. The same is frequently true for leagues with a large number of teams. Once the QB run starts, it’s time to grab one or be left with the Brady Quinns of the world.

Flexibility and adaptability are also keys to having a good draft. Sure, it’s a great idea to have an idea of players to acquire. But don’t get so wedded to that idea that if someone else gets them, your whole draft strategy blows up.

This also comes into play in deciding when to draft a specific position. Maybe you want to get your RBs and WRs early, and leave the QB go till the middle rounds. But if the best QBs start coming off the board in the late 2nd or early 3rd rounds, is that strategy still the best?

Read more: A Psycho View Of Drafting

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”
– Wayne Gretzky

The Great One’s hockey advice is also sound advice for fantasy football owners.  In the same way that the NFL changes from year to year, winning strategies for fantasy football owners also change annually.  The key to a great squad lies in understanding those changing strategies, staying ahead of the curve, and not following the trends from the previous year.  Skate to where the puck is going to be… With that in mind, I give you 5 winning strategies for the 2010 season. 

• The big three quarterbacks: more valuable than ever.

For years, it’s been considered fantasy football lunacy to select a QB in the first round.  Not this year!  In my mind, the first five picks are easy: Ray Rice, Maurice Jones-Drew, Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson and Andre Johnson.  After that, every RB and WR comes with a question mark.  Can Gore and Turner stay on the field?  Can Stephen Jackson reach the endzone?  Will Fitzgerald’s numbers drop now that Warner is gone?  So many questions!

Enter the QB...

Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning – for most people (me included) those are the three, clear-cut, upper echelon QBs.  And depending on your view of the “Madden Curse” (it is REAL!) there may only be two upper echelon QBs this year.  But for the sake of this article, we will assume video game voodoo does not apply. 

Outside of the five players I named previously, these three QBs might be the safest and most productive picks.  Face it, if Rodgers, Brees and Manning are on the field, 20 or more points is basically a given.  Think about that for a moment…every week, you are starting with 20-30 points before your RBs and WRs have even been counted.  It’s hard to argue with that kind of consistency.

Read more: 5 Winning Fantasy Football Strategies for 2010

Bold Prediction #1:

Hakeem Nicks will be a top 10 WR in 2010.

Nicks got off to a slow start in 2009 because of injuries, but once on the field, he quickly started to show the qualities that made him a 1st round pick for the Giants in 2009. He ended the season tied for 1st in rookie receiving yards with 790, 3rd in average yards per catch for any receiver with more than 30 receptions, tied for 2nd in touchdowns, 2nd in both most 20+ yard receptions and 40+ yard receptions, and he led ALL receivers in average yards after catch per reception.

Look for Nicks to continue to build on a strong rookie season and become one of the top WRs in the game.

Bold Prediction #2:

Read more: Taz' Bold Predictions 2010

The tenth of August is a very special day for NFL players and fantasy football owners alike. Despite this day being as special as it is, precious little exists in the realm of fantasy football websites, or any other websites for that matter, regarding it. Even knowing the importance of August 10th and running a pointed search turns up only a few significant hits.

August 10th is 30 days before the first game of the 2010 regular season, and is the day that players under contract to their respective teams must report, or lose a year towards free agency. That's right - in essence, they get a year added on to their contracts if they fail to report by August 10th.

It's one of those little rules that rears its head thanks to the uncapped year, or "Final League Year," according to the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

So what does that mean? Well, essentially it means that there won't be any long-term holdouts. Players vying for a new contract MIGHT toy with the idea of sitting past then if they are supremely confident that a new contract will be completed before the start of the season, but even in those cases there is little worry of a protracted holdout, and hopefully their agents aren't stupid enough to let them try it.

Many fantasy football owners spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about holdouts, even rearranging their rankings accordingly in case a high-profile player sits out X number of games. In most years, that ends up being a bit silly as holdouts into the regular season are exceedingly rare. There is an increased likelihood of injury to a player who sits out until near the start of the regular season, but missed games due to holdouts alone, while not unheard of, almost never happen.

In the immortal words of the late, great Douglas Adams - Don't Panic. Simply put, everyone will report by August 10th, because nobody wants their gambit to backfire and cost them another full season before they can go after the big money in free agency. The only incentive for the players is to show up with plenty of time to get in shape before opening day.