The NFL season would seem incomplete nowadays without the presence of
Fantasy Football. When you play fantasy football, you have become the
owner and coach of a football team. It is hard to remember what a NFL
game was like without every play having fantasy football implications.
As the owner, you can assemble a team of stars and role players,
attempting to find the right balance of players to accumulate stats to
score well in your league. As the team's coach, you attempt to pick the
right starting lineup for that week's games, making sure that your best
players aren't sitting on the bench and you are not starting any player
that is Out due to an injury or Bye week.
For anyone interested in starting a league, all you need are a few
basic guidelines to get started. The beauty of fantasy football is that
there really isn't any set set up that you are required follow. It's
your fantasy league, so design it any way you want. Of course, you are
limited to the creativity of the website that you have chosen.
Your league may prefer to play in a free, generic league. You will have
many websites to choose from for that. On the other hand, you may want
to full-service website with many flexible configuration options and
dedicated customer service personnel. If that describes your league,
you will want to look at Maximum Fantasy Sports. Ultimately, to enhance
your NFL viewing experience, participating in a fantasy football league
at MFS, or elsewhere, will allow you to do that. Okay, now let's take
it step by step and get you started. Bear in mind, this article would
look like War and Peace if we covered every single nuance of fantasy
football, so we are going to focus on the highlights.
Gather Friends to Fill out a League Assemble a league of football
owners who are willing to participate through the end of your fantasy
season. It makes it more enjoyable if they are willing to wheel and
deal, wager a little money and talk a bit of smack. There is no set
number of teams per league, but 12 teams seem to be the standard. You
can certainly form leagues that are bigger and smaller than that, but
make sure that you have an even-number of teams if you are playing in a
head-to-head league as no one wants to take a week off. If you are
playing in a Total Points league with no direct matchups, an odd number
of teams is acceptable.
Decide who's Running the Show
Elect a commissioner. The commissioner should be somebody who every
team owner respects, or at least trusts. The commissioner, who most
likely also owns a team in the league, is responsible for the league
constitution, bylaws, configuration and all final decisions. The
commissioner also collects and distributes the league contributions and
maintains the peace. A good website will grant the commissioner a set
of tools that allow him/her with the power to control what functions
the owners are allowed to perform (managing their roster, posting
messages), to manage another owner's roster, rerun stats and many other
controlling functions.
Configuring the League
Setting the scoring system and rules for your league are very
important. There are many variations to the game and scoring systems
for fantasy football are as different as the NFL and Arena Football
Leagues. Make sure all rules and settings are set in stone before the
draft is held. This article could go one for many, many pages just
discussing the variety of different scoring configuration options
available in fantasy football. Let's take a peek at the most basic
settings. Ultimately, it all comes down to how scoring is set up.
Though many early leagues focused simply on touchdowns, most leagues
nowadays award points for touchdowns and yardag. Four points are
commonly awarded to any player who throws a touchdown pass and six
points for rushing or receiving touchdowns. One point is commonly
awarded for every 25 passing yards and every 10 rushing or receiving
yards. It is tempting to go with the feast-or-famine approach and draft
a QB and his main WR. Often, this is a bad idea, unless, of course, you
have Tom Brady and Randy Moss on your fantasy team. Some leagues also
give bonus points for longer TDs, such as, two points for TDs between
50 and 81 yards and three points for TDs over 81 yards. The size of
rosters also varies from league to league. Most leagues have a fixed
number of starting positions and a fixed number of bench players,
usually adding up to 15-17 players. The starting positions (slots)
usually feature one QB, two RBs, three WRs, one TE, one K and one D.
Variations include using Special Teams or individual defensive players
instead of a single defense. Also, "swing" positions are becoming more
prevalent. These are also known as "flex" positions. This slot allows
for more than one position. The swing positions often used are a
combination of WR/TE or RB/WR, though there are a handful of others. In
the end, the accumulated points of one team's starters are matched up
against the points of another team's starters and the end result is
either a victory or a loss.
Occasionally, a tie will sneak its way into the picture. A good website
will give you the option of breaking ties during the regular season.
Tie-breakers are mandatory should they occur during the playoffs. Set
the Schedule
The website should generate the league schedule after the draft is
complete using the divisional structure the commissioner has
established. League schedules are generally set up so teams in the same
division play each other more often than other divisions. Ultimately,
it is ideal to have a balanced schedule.Before the draft, the playoff
schedule needs to be determined. This will vary depending on how many
teams are in your league and how many teams the commissioner chooses to
make the playoffs. The championship game needs to be scheduled between
two teams no later than week 17 of the NFL season. One common choice is
to finish the fantasy football regular season in week 13 or 14 and
allow 6 teams to make the playoffs. This will grant the top 2 teams a
playoff Bye, thus awarding them for their performance in the regular
season. No one likes to dominate the regular season and then lose out
in the first week of the playoffs.
Drafting your Players
Rosters are filled out by running a player draft. The draft order is
randomized by the commissioner or the website. Unlike the NFL draft,
fantasy football drafts are normally run serpentine style. For
instance, in a 12-team league, the draft order would be 1 through 12,
with the 12th team having the first pick of the second round and going
back up in reverse order. In that scenario, the first team to pick
wouldn't select again until the 24th pick, but would then start the
third round with the 25th selection, should they not fall asleep during
the lull. Should this happen, the draft control will make the selection
for the snoozing owner.
Drafts can be held online or offline. If held online, drafts are
normally held real-time so each owner can make their choices based on
how the draft is evolving. This can be a bit time-consuming, so another
option is to run an automated draft. An increasingly popular draft
method is having a fixed budget and bidding on players to fill out a
roster.
Maintaining your Roster
Throughout the season, you will need to change players out in an effort
to manage injuries, Bye weeks or address weak areas by trading from
areas of strength. Teams can trade and pick up free agents until the
end of the season, unless there are deadlines established for these
actions. Trades tend to have some sort of approval process in place to
assure the league that trades are considered fair. The approval process
generally falls on the shoulders of the commissioner to make a decision
or upon the owners in the league to submit a vote (majority rules).
When it comes to free agents, it is common for leagues to apply a
waiver system. True free agents can be acquired without application of
any rules. Players attempted to be acquired that are in waiver status
have to flow through waiver processing to determine which team will be
awarded the player. There are a number of waiver processing rules.
The most common is a rolling priority list. This is initially
established in the reverse order of the draft order and then gets
adjusted as teams acquire players in waiver status. The team with the
lowest waiver priority number is awarded the player desired when waiver
processing occurs. When that processing happens, the team's waiver
priority is then set to the highest number and all teams between have
their number adjusted down by one. Other waiver processing options
allow teams to bid on free agents, award a player on waivers to the
team with the worst record among acquiring teams or have made the least
numbers of transactions.
Making your Push to the Championship
It is very difficult to make the playoffs, let alone the Championship
game, in a fantasy football league without devoting a lot of time to
the game, making wise draft and transaction choices and having your
players stay healthy. You have no control over the latter, so your team
must be equipped to handle devastating injuries, should they occur.
- The common draft rule is to back up your studs. If you have LaDainian
Tomlinson, grab his backup in the draft as well. If you have Peyton
Manning, grab his backup in the draft. It is a tough choice as Peyton
does not get hurt, but, should it happen, would you feel more
comfortable with his backup in your lineup, an untested rookie or the
Jets QB? - Another common sense rule is to not draft injury-prone
players or running backs over 30 too early. It is hard to justify the
reward over the risk. Drafting Deuce McAlister in the 4th round last
year in many leagues was a season killer when Adrian Peterson was still
available. Out of all the positions, rookies make the biggest impact in
the running back category.
- The most important rule is to know your league settings. Be aware of
the scoring system, waiver processing rules and all deadlines. You
cannot build a balanced team unless you know how to balance the scoring
across the starting positions on your team. Once you have that
accomplished, you want to review your team at the midpoint of your
season and evaluate what it will look like in the playoff weeks. If you
have some players that you feel may be looking at getting some rest, it
is best to trade them before the trade deadline to ensure that your
roster is as strong as possible during the playoffs. It is difficult to
gauge how much a player will play in weeks 13-17 far in advance, but it
is a big risk to go into the playoff battle with players who may sit
after one half. One alternative to that is to utilize a fantasy
football feature offered by one site; Maximum Fantasy Sports. This
feature is In-Game player changes. This feature can be used all season
or have it turned on at a certain point in the season, such as, the
first week of playoffs. Configuration of this feature allows an owner
to swap in different, unplayed players at their respective positions.
So, if Joseph Addai is scheduled to play the first half of Indy's week
15 game and you have Kenton Keith on your bench, you could swap out
Addai for the second half and swap in Keith to maximize performance at
your running back slot.
End of the Season Reflection. I hope you spend your off-season gloating
about your team's dominance. No matter how your season ends, you want
to review what went wrong and what went right during your season so you
can improve the following year. Also, take notes on little used players
that showed a lot of promise as the season went on. In the off-season,
pay attention to free agency and the NFL draft. Note which teams
improved in skill areas that may result in new starters that you can
draft in later rounds in your upcoming fantasy football draft. Though
the NFL season ends in February, fantasy football is a year-round
fixation.
Bill Parsons is the owner of MaximumFantasySports.com and is a rabid
fantasy sports participant. He began creating his own football and
baseball fantasy leagues at the ripe old age of seven and tracking
stats and standings on paper. Join maximum fantasy sports today by
visiting www.maximumfantasysports.com. Membership is FREE!
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