Guide to Fantasy Football for Newbies
Fantasy sports has become a phenomenon. Fantasy football has grown to be the most popular of fantasy sports. Millions and millions of football fans are playing fantasy football, with more joining every year. If you are a football fan who wants to add more excitement and be more interactive with your N.F.L. football viewing, here is a step by step instruction guide to the curious fan who is contemplating taking on this endeavor and wants to know what fantasy football is all about.
In very basic terms, fantasy football is a game where you draft a team of actual N.F.L. players. Every fantasy football league is different, but usually you will draft anywhere from 12 to 16 players. This will give you a starting lineup and reserves that are placed on your “bench”. Each week you create a starting lineup and then you are matched up head to head against another team owner and their starting lineup. Each team accumulates points based on the performance of your individual players in your starting lineup. Again, each league is different but most starting lineups consist of :
* Quarterback
* 2 or 3 running backs
* 2 or 3 wide receivers
* a tight end, a kicker
* team defense / special teams
There are points awarded to your team for each individual player’s accomplishments. Quarterbacks score points by touchdown passes and passing yards. Running backs, wide receivers and tight ends score points by touchdowns scored and yards gained by rushing or receiving or passing. Kickers score points by kicking field goals and extra points. Team defenses / special teams score points by sacks, interceptions, forced fumbles and touchdowns scored. Also be aware that in most leagues, points are deducted if your player throws an interceptions fumbles or misses field goals or extra points. At the end of each head to head matchup, the team that scored the most points wins and then moves on to their next matchup.
Most seasons consist of 14 league games and then you have playoffs for the 4 teams with the best overall records for week 15 and a championship game for week 16. Most leagues end during week 16 because in week 17 many N.F.L. teams who have clinched playoff spots rest their best players, which would severely affect your fantasy team’s starting lineup.
To play fantasy football, you must have access to a computer because all fantasy leagues are created and managed through various websites. There are many websites that offer you the chance to join a fantasy football league. For first time players, many of these leagues are free and there are league choices out there that will primarily be made up of other first time players. A few of these websites are:
* yahoo.com
* nfl.com
* cbssportsline.com
* tsn.com
* foxsports.com
Some of these websites also offer leagues that will charge you a fee to join as an individual (usually between $20.00 and $40.00). However, these leagues offer the opportunity to win cash prizes.
Another option is to gather friends together who are also interested in playing and create your own league. If you decide to do this, there is a league fee (usually between $120.00 and $150.00) and most of the websites mentioned above also offer this option to manage your league. You can divide this amount between all of the team owners (which would amount to $12.00 to $15.00 per team owner) or you can also choose the option to charge a higher fee per per team owner and use the excess money after paying the website fee to offer cash prizes to either the league champion or split it up amongst all playoff teams. It is a lot more fun to play fantasy football if you are playing for a cash prize.
I have found that yahoo.com is one of the most reasonable and is very easy to use when creating your own league. Most leagues have either 10 or 12 teams. One player will need to be the commissioner of the league and he basically sets up the league by paying the league fee to the website, holds any extra money and awards it to the team owners at the end of the season and enters all of the team owners, their team names and their individual players selected in the draft on the website by following the easy to follow instructions.
Once you have your team owners in place, the next and most fun part of the process is the draft. If playing on a free website, most drafts are done on-line and instructions are provided to you by the website when you sign up. If you create a league among friends, the best and most fun way to handle your draft is a live draft. In this scenario, all of the league players get together to do your draft live and have a draft party. No matter what type of draft you’re involved with, you need to be prepared if you want to draft a competitive team. My suggestion is to purchase a fantasy football magazine (there are many different ones available). These magazines rank players at every position for every team and also includes rankings and expert insight of the top 200 or 300 players no matter what position they play.
Once you’re ready to start your draft the most fair way to determine the order of selecting players is just to pick numbers out of a hat. Each team owner must select a team name (it’s more fun if you be as creative as possible). Each team then picks their players in the first round in order of how the numbers were picked and when you get to the end of the first round, the draft usually “snakes’ around for the second round. This means whoever picks last in the first round will then pick first in the second round going back down to the team owner who picked first, who will then pick first again in the third round and so on. Each round follows in this manner until all of your individual players are picked. When picking, you will probably want to pick 1 or 2 running backs with your first 2 picks as running backs are usually the highest scoring and most coveted players in the draft, but you need to decide what players you want to pick in what order on your own. You want to try to pick “bench players” as backups to your starting players and also need to look at each individual player’s bye weeks when picking your players as to not pick too many players with the same bye week as that will leave you limited with what players to put in your starting lineup during that week.
Once the draft is over, every individual N.F.L. player that is not selected goes into either the “free agent pool” or “waiver wire” depending on the way your league is set up. Either way, these players are available to pick up and place on your team during the season if you want to replace any of your drafted players that either are not performing up to your expectations or players that may get injured and are not playing due to that injury. a “free agent pool” means that all undrafted players are available to any team on a first come, first served basis. A “waiver wire” means that any selected undrafted player gets put on hold for 1 to 3 days giving other team owners the opportunity to also select this player and then after the hold period, this player is placed on the team with the worst record of the teams who claimed him. in most leagues, you can also propose trades to other team owners or accept trades from other team owners to try to improve your team, but usually the trade must be approved by the league commissioner or by team owners voting for or protesting against the trade to make sure it is a fair trade and not the case of one losing team giving away good players to his friend who is competing for a playoff spot. Each week you have the opportunity to change your starting lineup depending on matchups and players that may not be playing due to bye weeks or injuries.
You will find that one of the effects of fantasy football is as a football fan, you find yourself rooting or cursing individual players (yours or your opponents) rather than rooting for N.F.L. teams and playing fantasy football puts an entirely different spin on how you watch and enjoy N.F.L. football games and makes it an exciting interactive experience.
These are the basics of playing fantasy football and for true football fans, you will find that once you start playing, you will get hooked. Good luck to all that choose to join this experience. You will not regret it.
The "Big Dogs" Guide Fantasy Football for newbies:
Fantasy sports has become a phenomenon. Fantasy football has grown to be the most popular of fantasy sports. Millions and millions of football fans are playing fantasy football, with more joining every year. If you are a football fan who wants to add more excitement and be more interactive with your N.F.L. football viewing, here is a step by step instruction guide to the curious fan who is contemplating taking on this endeavor and wants to know what fantasy football is all about.
In very basic terms, fantasy football is a game where you draft a team of actual N.F.L. players. Every fantasy football league is different, but usually you will draft anywhere from 12 to 16 players. This will give you a starting lineup and reserves that are placed on your "bench". Each week you create a starting lineup and then you are matched up head to head against another team owner and their starting lineup. Each team accumulates points based on the performance of your individual players in your starting lineup. Again, each league is different but most starting lineups consist of a Quarterback, 2 or 3 running backs, 2 or 3 wide receivers, a tight end, a kicker and a team defense / special teams. There are points awarded to your team for each individual player's accomplishments. Quarterbacks score points by touchdown passes and passing yards. Running backs, wide receivers and tight ends score points by touchdowns scored and yards gained by rushing or receiving or passing. Kickers score points by kicking field goals and extra points. Team defenses / special teams score points by sacks, interceptions, forced fumbles and touchdowns scored. Also be aware that in most leagues, points are deducted if your player throws an interceptions fumbles or misses field goals or extra points. At the end of each head to head matchup, the team that scored the most points wins and then moves on to their next matchup. Most seasons consist of 14 league games and then you have playoffs for the 4 teams with the best overall records for week 15 and a championship game for week 16. Most leagues end during week 16 because in week 17 many N.F.L. teams who have clinched playoff spots rest their best players, which would severely affect your fantasy team's starting lineup.
To play fantasy football, you must have access to a computer because all fantasy leagues are created and managed through various websites. There are many websites that offer you the chance to join a fantasy football league. For first time players, many of these leagues are free and there are league choices out there that will primarily be made up of other first time players. A few of these websites are yahoo.com, nfl.com, cbssportsline.com, tsn.com, foxsports.com and many others. Some of these websites also offer leagues that will charge you a fee to join as an individual (usually between $20.00 and $40.00). However, these leagues offer the opportunity to win cash prizes. Another option is to gather friends together who are also interested in playing and create your own league. If you decide to do this, there is a league fee (usually between $120.00 and $150.00) and most of the websites mentioned above also offer this option to manage your league. You can divide this amount between all of the team owners (which would amount to $12.00 to $15.00 per team owner) or you can also choose the option to charge a higher fee per per team owner and use the excess money after paying the website fee to offer cash prizes to either the league champion or split it up amongst all playoff teams. It is a lot more fun to play fantasy football if you are playing for a cash prize. I have found that yahoo.com is one of the most reasonable and is very easy to use when creating your own league. Most leagues have either 10 or 12 teams. One player will need to be the commissioner of the league and he basically sets up the league by paying the league fee to the website, holds any extra money and awards it to the team owners at the end of the season and enters all of the team owners, their team names and their individual players selected in the draft on the website by following the easy to follow instructions.
Once you have your team owners in place, the next and most fun part of the process is the draft. If playing on a free website, most drafts are done on-line and instructions are provided to you by the website when you sign up. If you create a league among friends, the best and most fun way to handle your draft is a live draft. In this scenario, all of the league players get together to do your draft live and have a draft party. No matter what type of draft you're involved with, you need to be prepared if you want to draft a competitive team. My suggestion is to purchase a fantasy football magazine (there are many different ones available). These magazines rank players at every position for every team and also includes rankings and expert insight of the top 200 or 300 players no matter what position they play.
Once you're ready to start your draft the most fair way to determine the order of selecting players is just to pick numbers out of a hat. Each team owner must select a team name (it's more fun if you be as creative as possible). Each team then picks their players in the first round in order of how the numbers were picked and when you get to the end of the first round, the draft usually "snakes' around for the second round. This means whoever picks last in the first round will then pick first in the second round going back down to the team owner who picked first, who will then pick first again in the third round and so on. Each round follows in this manner until all of your individual players are picked. When picking, you will probably want to pick 1 or 2 running backs with your first 2 picks as running backs are usually the highest scoring and most coveted players in the draft, but you need to decide what players you want to pick in what order on your own. You want to try to pick "bench players" as backups to your starting players and also need to look at each individual player's bye weeks when picking your players as to not pick too many players with the same bye week as that will leave you limited with what players to put in your starting lineup during that week.
Once the draft is over, every individual N.F.L. player that is not selected goes into either the "free agent pool" or "waiver wire" depending on the way your league is set up. Either way, these players are available to pick up and place on your team during the season if you want to replace any of your drafted players that either are not performing up to your expectations or players that may get injured and are not playing due to that injury. a "free agent pool" means that all undrafted players are available to any team on a first come, first served basis. A "waiver wire" means that any selected undrafted player gets put on hold for 1 to 3 days giving other team owners the opportunity to also select this player and then after the hold period, this player is placed on the team with the worst record of the teams who claimed him. in most leagues, you can also propose trades to other team owners or accept trades from other team owners to try to improve your team, but usually the trade must be approved by the league commissioner or by team owners voting for or protesting against the trade to make sure it is a fair trade and not the case of one losing team giving away good players to his friend who is competing for a playoff spot. Each week you have the opportunity to change your starting lineup depending on matchups and players that may not be playing due to bye weeks or injuries.
You will find that one of the effects of fantasy football is as a football fan, you find yourself rooting or cursing individual players (yours or your opponents) rather than rooting for N.F.L. teams and playing fantasy football puts an entirely different spin on how you watch and enjoy N.F.L. football games and makes it an exciting interactive experience.
These are the basics of playing fantasy football and for true football fans, you will find that once you start playing, you will get hooked. Good luck to all that choose to join this experience. You will not regret it.
Written by the "Big Dog" Barry Simon on 7/7/07
