Fantasy Football War Room Recap: First Round Strategy and Keeper Decisions

Where else can you find a four-hour fantasy football chat on the net? Nowhere. SB Nation's Fantasy team is hosting a fantasy football chat from 6-10 p.m. ET every day between now and the start of the season. Day 3 of the Fantasy Football War Room in in the books, and we covered plenty of topics to help you win your league this year. Some of the more common questions in Wednesday night's War Room was who to pick after the trio of Arian Foster, Ray Rice and LeSean McCoy are off the table in the first round. In addition, many of you were looking for keeper league advice, and we were here to get you ready for your fantasy drafts in the next few weeks.

Keeper League Advice

One of the questions came from a fellow Kansas City Chiefs fan who asked:

Keeper league

"I am in a 10 person fantasy league where we can keep 4 offensive players. It’s a point per completion for qbs and point per reception for wide receivers. The rest of the points are default. My players are Phillip Rivers, jamaal Charles, Adrian Peterson, Dwayne Bowe, Brandon Marshall, Jon Baldwin, Vernon Davis, Julio Jones, and Marshawn Lynch. I currently have Rivers, Bowe, Charles, and Peterson as my keepers. Which 4 should I keep out of this bunch?"

Being a Chiefs fan, I had a good feeling this reader was a Chiefs fan as well. But, there is a lesson for everyone to learn from this question. Don't let your loyalty to your favorite team blind you into keeping one of them instead of a higher ranked/better player. I advised our loyal reader to keep Rivers, Marshall, Jones and one of Jamaal Charles or Adrian Peterson. I like Dwayne Bowe, but I think Falcons WR Julio Jones is set for a breakout season in 2012.

After The Big Three

There has been a lot of talk about the lack of a serious home run threat at the top of the board in fantasy. There is no Ladanian Tomlinson-type of player that virtually guarantees a playoff spot on his own. At the same time, in most drafts, Arian Foster, Ray Rice and LeSean McCoy are virtual locks to be the first three picks in some order. The question becomes, who do you take next.

This has become a frequent question over the first three days of the War Room. At this point, it would seem like your best options include Calvin Johnson, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Chris Johnson are your primary options. In a PPR league, Johnson is the choice. In a league with extra points for passing touchdowns, Rodgers, Brady or Brees are the choice, with Rodgers leading the way for now. In a standard league, Megatron and Rodgers would seem to be the best choice, where you could flip a coin and be fine with either.

Chris Johnson remains a question mark with upside. He has trended down since his 2,000 yard rushing season, but is still only 26. Is he due for a resurgence, or is he going to go the way of the Larry Johnson's of the world? If you are optimistic, he could be the best sleeper option at No. 4. If you're pessimistic, you aren't touching him with a ten foot pole.

Next War Room: Thursday 6-10 p.m. ET

The Fantasy War Room sponsored by Sprint will be back on Thursday evening to help get you prepared for your 2012 fantasy football drafts. No question is too riduculous, so make sure you stop over on Thursday for another evening filled with fantasy football goodness. If you are new to SB Nation, you will need to register to post your comment or question, but it doesn't take long at all.

To register, you have two options at SB Nation.com/Fantasy:

1. On the top right side of the page, you will see Log In and Sign Up. Click Sign Up.

2. Inside the War Room post, if you scroll to the bottom of the page, you should see an option that says "Something to say? Choose one of these options to log in." Here you can create an SB Nation account.

If you can't make it during the War Room hours, you can hit us up for fantasy advice on Twitter at @SBNationFantasy.