Every August, fantasy football owners dream of building the perfect team. The dream begins in the early stages of the summer as many start preparing for their league's draft by reading through several magazines on how to assemble a championship roster. From reading last season's stats to this season's projections, you are theoretically taking one step closer to capturing first place. However, this is not an easy task as every team strives for the same ultimate goal every year. Now, I'll discuss a few of my philosophies on how to piece together a championship caliber roster.

The journey always begins with the draft. A few days prior to your league's draft, you should create a study guide by ranking players from every position. Making player evaluations is key, so don't overlook it and try to wing your draft. It almost never works... Notice if anyone is hurt or suspended and list down bye weeks, so you can evenly distribute your players' bye weeks. One thing you don't want is having the unfortunate distinction of having several players on a bye the same week. Trust me... I've seen teams do this before where they have multiple players on a bye in the same week. What I'm emphasizing here is to trust your player evaluation!

Being well-prepared is critical, so if your draft starts at 8 p.m. I strongly recommend entering your draft lobby around 30 minutes before. This will give you plenty of time to view where you'll be picking in each round and evaluate player rankings while comparing them with your cheat sheet.

I never go into my fantasy football draft with a clear-cut strategy. I always use a plan and approach type of method and it works every year. It's important to alway have a backup plan. Never put all your eggs in one basket because you can't always get the player you want. Most leagues give you 60-90 seconds to select a player, so you need to have multiple players in mind at all times.

Now, I'll dive into how you should draft your players by round. Always pick the best available player regardless of the position. I like to call this as a "player first, position second" mentality. For many years running backs dominated fantasy football, but the NFL has transformed into a passing league, which has skyrocketed the value of the wide receiver position. However, positions don't matter in the first few rounds of the draft. This year, I had the third overall pick and selected Pittsburgh Steelers wide-out Antonio Brown. Some people may say that grabbing a running back would be the better option, but Brown is a top-flight receiver who scored the most fantasy points in the NFL last year. My plan for the first two rounds was to hold off on a running back and draft two receivers. I was one pick away from getting Odell Beckham Jr. in the second round, but I immediately picked up Calvin Johnson, who is a fantasy machine. Even though I bypassed on running backs in the first two rounds, I drafted Lamar Miller in the third and scored with a great one-two punch at receiver. The most shocking moment of my league's draft may have been me picking Arian Foster in the ninth round. Everyone fell asleep on Foster because of he was injured, so he was ranked lower than usual. The one questionable move I'm still kicking myself for is drafting Peyton Manning in the fifth round, but everyone always has a slip up or two, so don't freak out over one pick.

I can't stress enough how you should NOT reach for any player. With the exception of one or two kickers and defenses, I feel that it is necessary to wait until the final three-to-four rounds to address your kicker and team defense. While many other teams in my league were reaching for kickers and defenses, I bolstered the back end of my roster by selecting sleepers with high upside, like Martavis Bryant and Devonta Freeman.

Its not the end of the world if you don't have the best draft, but having a good draft increases your odds of winning. By following these techniques, you won't find yourself on the waiver wire every week struggling to find the right group of players. Through seven weeks, I currently sit in first place in my league after receiving an A+ for my draft. Here's a look at my roster: