Waffling. The Urban dictionary defines it as “unable to make up one’s mind…” Man, oh, man does that strike a chord. Let me tell you about what just happened in one of my drafts. Hopefully you can learn from my mistake.

I play in several leagues. Most of them are keeper leagues that force you to make decisions before the draft. You select 7-10 players you want to keep. You enter the draft with a keen sense of your strengths and weaknesses and target the needs. Great fun. I love the keeper concept as it seems a little closer to real life managing, and even more like general managing.

Anyway, keeping all my teams straight is sometimes a challenge, especially during this busy drafting stage. After spending weeks studying which players to keep, decisions are made. You hit upon a strategy. You sleep on it. Heck, you end up sleeping on it for weeks and months. You’ve had all winter to mull things over. The decisions have grown on you as you considered how things will play out. And finally you become…comfortable with your decisions. You’re at peace. You have a strategy.

Then one morning you get an email. “Let’s trade.” Oh boy. Here it goes. All of a sudden you see new possibilities and before you know it the “grass is always greener” game gets played. Each new trade offer opens new fresh ways of looking at things and for some reason new seems better. Pretty soon your team is a shadow of what it was. The team you thought about all winter is no more. Planning is out the window.

Then suddenly part way through your draft it hits you – the dreaded waffles. “What the heck have I done? I’m no better off than I was. In fact, things are worse. Why didn’t I stick with my original plan? Why didn’t I think things through? I shouldn’t have made that trade. I should have spent more time thinking about the trades rather than just accepting them.” Can you spell waffle?

It’s a killer. It spoils the fun of the draft when you constantly second guess yourself. And it’s a horrible way to start the season. You looked forward to something for so long and now you’re disappointed. It’s a shame to let indecision cloud every move. Don’t do it. Don’t succumb to playing the “what-if” game. Either your off-season strategy was sound or it wasn’t. If it wasn’t, then fine. Go ahead and make trades. But if you had a good team and your plan was sound, stick with it.

It’s one thing to draft someone not as good as you had hoped. It’s quite another to draft that guy and blame the last minute trade you made. Those things gnaw at you and ruin your fun. My advice is develop a strategy based on what you have to work with. Just about any strategy can work. You can keep expensive guys, cheap guys, load up on one or two positions or spread the keepers all around the field…it doesn’t matter. Each strategy can produce a strong team. Trade only when the new piece fits seamlessly into your plan. Don’t throw everything away just because of that new shiny trade offer.

Waffles are meant to be enjoyed smothered with lots of syrup. Why else are those holes there? Don’t let this fun time of the season and all your hard work get shot full of holes because you aren’t satisfied with your decisions. You made a plan, now follow it through.

Here that, Owl? Yes. I need to look past the mistakes and enjoy the rest of the draft.