A Very Basic Introduction
When the characters on TV’s Cheers started a football pool, the
sports-impaired Diane Chambers bested the former professional athlete
Sam Malone by basing her decisions on ridiculous criteria. Diane didn’t
worry about quarterbacks or defensive schemes or the field conditions;
she looked at team mascots. When Sam lost by taking
Miami
over Chicago, Diane wanted to know how he could imagine a Dolphin
beating a Bear.
Reasoning such as Diane’s may drive genuine football experts nuts, but
the fact is that fantasy football has room for everyone from novices
like Diane to such experts as coaches, sports analysts, and former
players. The ball that the game of football is played with has a funny
shape because it is supposed to take unpredictable bounces, and if
you’ve ever tried to predict the outcome of a week’s worth of NFL games,
then you know firsthand how difficult it is to foresee the way games
will develop. Count yourself lucky if you learned this lesson without
getting your wallet involved.
Fantasy football enables people to attempt to predict the unpredictable
by pitting artificially constructed teams against each other. It is an
analytical game that breaks the sport of football down by position
rather than by team. For example, my fantasy football team might
consist of the quarterback from the Denver Broncos, a running back from
the Pittsburgh Steelers, a receiver from the Buffalo Bills, a tight end
from the New York Giants, a kicker from the Atlanta Falcons, and the
defensive squad of the Green Bay Packers.
To figure out my score, I would have to look at the individual
performances of my players on a given week. In some leagues my players
will only earn fantasy points for the NFL points they score; in others
they can earn points for yardage, interceptions, and fumble recoveries.
These differences will be discussed later in greater detail, but the
important point for now is that my players do not have to win their NFL
games in order for me to win my fantasy match-up. Even if the players
on my team end up losing the games that they are involved in (say my
Denver quarterback loses on Sunday afternoon to the Oakland Raiders), my
fantasy football team can still triumph over its opponent. What matters
in fantasy football is your ability to predict solid performances from
individual players rather than particular franchises.
Those who saw Barry Sanders play for the Detroit Lions know that hugely
talented players can end up on struggling teams, but fantasy football
enables participants to rely on a player like Sanders without having to
bet on a team like the Lions. It is entirely possible (even common) for
fantasy football championships to go to teams without a single
representative from the NFL franchise that ends up winning the Super
Bowl.
The stakes of fantasy football vary from one league to another.
Sometimes the participants compete for a cash purse, but many folks
compete in fee-free leagues around the country simply for bragging
rights. Still others participate in fantasy football leagues (which we
will call FFLs from now on) because it heightens their interest in a
sport that they might otherwise find a little boring. And countless FFL
participants are involved in their leagues simply as a form of social
bonding. The only football game they’ll watch this year may very well
be the Super Bowl, but they participate in FFLs because their league
gives them something to talk to their coworkers about on Monday
mornings.
Not surprisingly, fantasy football attracts men and women, young and
old, jocks (like Sam) and intellectuals (like Diane). Football is
exciting because anything can happen; and in fantasy football, anyone
can win—including you.
What’s more, participation in FFLs can be effortless. Many FFL
participants do the bare minimum required in their leagues, which is
quite often nothing at all. Ordinarily, leagues require participants to
pay an entry fee, draft their players at a sort of preseason party,
settle on a name for their team, and submit a lineup each week. But
since most leagues are run on software that is readily available over
the Internet, many first-time FFL participants allow the computer to
draft their players for them and to submit their rosters throughout the
season. In such cases, the only thing the players may actually do is
name their team—and there’s probably a computer program out there
somewhere that will handle that too.
Now, if you’re thinking that letting the computer take complete charge
of your team doesn’t sound like any fun, you’re right. Even though most
FFLs do not require much from their participants, those who are
interested in getting the most out of their fantasy football experience
will often find themselves putting a little bit of thought into their
teams. It’s really quite easy to win a few games by allowing the
computer to draft your players and to choose your lineup each week. But
players who want to win their FFL Super Bowls will almost certainly want
to run their own show—at least some of the time. Think about it: If
you let the computer do everything, how much fun will you have bragging
about your victories?
Only you can decide whether you’re playing to win or just for fun, but
whatever your motives may be, the information provided in this
introduction will acquaint you with the fundamentals of fantasy football
and direct you to the tools you need to realize your goals as an FFL
participant.
Finding a League
The first question that you will face as an FFL participant is obvious:
“Which league should I join?” If your motivation for playing fantasy
football is simply to engage in something that seems to preoccupy
everyone else in your office, then you will probably want to join your
office league, in which case you will simply have to abide by the rules
outlined by that league’s “commissioner” (the person in charge of
enforcing the rules, ensuring fair play, and collecting the entry
fees—if there are any).
Chances are you’re reading this guide because you’ve already been
invited to join an established FFL. Such invitations are common, since
most leagues require a set number of players (usually 8 to 12) in order
to maintain a certain kind of playoff structure. The invitation to join
a fantasy football league probably doesn’t have anything to do with
whether the people around you think of you as a sports-savvy kind of a
person.
Let’s say that Bob, the guy who used to work in the desk next to yours,
got a promotion that took him to
Nebraska.
The commissioner of your office’s FFL asks you to take over for Bob
simply because you’re handy and the league needs an eighth team. Don’t
let it go to your head. And by the same token, don’t let it get you
down if the people in the only FFL you know of turn you down when you
ask to join. It isn’t realistic for a ten-team FFL to reorganize itself
just to make room for an eleventh player. You’re best bet for getting
into an established league is to wait for one of the existing players to
drop out, but that could take years, so you might as well get some
fantasy football experience elsewhere in the meantime.
Whatever you do, don’t declare yourself commissioner of your own league
if you have never played fantasy football before. It will be a
never-ending headache for you and the other participants, and there’s no
reason to do it, since there is a much more attractive alternative. The
easiest and best way to introduce yourself to fantasy football is to
join one of the fee-free leagues on the Internet. The leagues available
through Yahoo fantasy sports and other web locations are extremely
user-friendly, fairly customizable, and do not require you to pay
anything or bet against anyone.
If you visit any of the league-hosting sites in the weeks just before
the football season gets underway, you will almost certainly find a
league being formed that you can join. If you’re ambitious, you might
consider joining more than one league in order to get a feel for how
things vary from one league to another.
The best thing about leagues hosted on the Internet is that the scores
are almost always kept automatically. There are still a few leagues
whose commissioners insist on going through the box scores of every
single game every week, awarding points to running backs for yardage
gained and deducting points for fumbles lost. But most leagues are
computerized, which is why it is probably best for you to use a computer
in acquainting yourself with fantasy football. If you don’t have a
computer at home or at work, you will probably want to use the computers
at your local library, as non-computerized fantasy football leagues are
quickly becoming a thing of the past (to the infinite relief of those
commissioners who used to stay up all night on Wednesday evenings
calculating player scores by hand).
To Bet Or Not to Bet
The next question you will probably want to ask yourself is whether you
want to put some money on your ability to evaluate the talent of NFL
players. If you don’t feel the need to start betting right away, then
you’re all set with the fee-free leagues online. But if you are in a
gambling mood, you will need to be a little more persistent.
The ideal way to use the league-hosting services available over the
Internet is to form a league online for people you know in real life.
That way you don’t end up with some twelve-year-old headcase who storms
off into cyberspace the first time his team loses, never to be heard
from again. Find someone with at least one year of fantasy football
experience to be your commissioner, and have all participants give the
commissioner their entry fees (which often run between 25 and 50
dollars, but can come to a great deal more in extremely competitive
leagues) before the season begins. It probably isn’t a good idea to get
into a betting league of strangers that you encounter online. The last
thing you want to do is send off a check to that twelve-year-old
headcase who decides in late November that he’s tired of fantasy
football and blows the league fees on a new video game.
If you have been invited to join a local fee-charging league, there are
some fundamental questions that you will want to have answered before
ponying up your entry fee. Find out how the league handles financial
matters. Is it a winner-take-all scenario, or do runners up also finish
in the money? Leagues that charge entry fees
ordinarily award a purse of at least several hundred dollars to the winner.
Often the person who finishes second gets a sizable purse as well (a
third or a half of what the winner takes), and it’s common for all the
participants who make the playoffs to have their entry fees returned to
them.
Another consideration is whether the entry fee will be the only money
that you have to pay. Many leagues charge nominal transaction fees (one
or two dollars) each time a participant adjusts his roster (by putting
an injured player on injured reserve or trading for someone new, etc.).
Fantasy football is a favorite hobby of tightwad gamblers because it’s
possible to get an entire season’s worth of thrills out of a single bet,
but bear in mind that the transaction fees can add up. If you think
it’s unfair to be charged a dollar to replace a player who broke his
leg, you should probably steer clear of leagues with transaction fees.
Most commissioners manage their FFLs out of the goodness of their hearts
without taking a dime for their trouble. If they subscribe to a
statistical service (such as All-star Stats Football Service) to provide
information on player performances, they may deduct the cost of the
subscription from the league fees. Such practices are common and
perfectly legitimate. But beware the commissioner who awards himself a
cut of the league fees as compensation for the administrative work that
he does. Before fantasy football was computerized, such behavior was
understandable, but most leagues these days can be managed without
draining much of the commissioners’ time and energy.
Of course, all FFLs are unique, and your commissioner probably has a
good reason for handling the league finances in a particular way. The
important thing is for you to feel comfortable asking for an explanation
and for your commissioner to be willing to provide it. If questions
about money make your commissioner nervous and defensive, it’s probably
time to go looking for another league. All you really need to remember
is that if you want to play fantasy football, there is a league out
there somewhere that will be happy to have you.
How The Game Is Played
Fantasy football isn’t just a way of making predictions; it’s a game.
But since all leagues play the game in different ways, there is no
single explanation of how fantasy football works. If you’ve ever tried
to learn how to play an unfamiliar game (from chess to bridge to
basketball), you know that no amount of explanation really takes the
place of experience. The easiest way to learn how to play a game is by
playing it; things start to make sense for you as you go along. Fantasy
football is no exception. Scoring systems vary from one league to the
next, and it would be absurd for FFL novices to try to learn everything
about the ways in which scores are calculated before getting started.
You probably scored your first touchdown on the playground before you
even knew what a safety was, and you can very easily win a fantasy
football championship without performing a statistical analysis of the
way in which your league’s scoring method differs from that of the
average league.
Even so, you will want to get a fundamental grasp of the way that your
league keeps score right away. If you don’t know what your league
values, you will probably make some pretty boneheaded decisions about
which players to acquire. And there are some simple ways of telling
which sorts of players are right for your league.
Start by finding out whether your FFL is a scoring-only league or a
performance league. As the name suggests, scoring-only leagues are
about traditional NFL scores. In the simplest scoring-only leagues,
players are awarded fantasy points for the actual points they score.
Whenever the Dallas running back scores a touchdown (worth six points in
the NFL), he earns six points for his fantasy owner. When the Miami
kicker connects on a field goal (worth three points in the NFL), he
earns three points for his fantasy owner.
This method is simple, but it can be brutal. If a receiver catches a
ball on his own 20-yard line and carries it 79 yards to his opponents’
one-yard line, only to be tackled before reaching the end zone, his
fantasy owner earns nothing in a scoring-only league. The running back
who then trots in for a one-yard touchdown gets a whopping 6 points.
Many FFLers find this arrangement unsuitable, so they have moved in
another direction, devising scoring systems that reward player
performance in addition to scores.
In performance leagues, all sorts of things can be taken into account.
Players can earn fantasy points that have no equivalent in the NFL, such
as points for yardage or receptions or first downs or tackles or
whatever strikes the people in the FFL as a valuable service to the
team. There are also often deductions for interceptions or fumbles lost
or missed field goals or passes dropped. If you are in a performance
league, you may not really understand your scoring system until a few
weeks into the season, but you should definitely find out whether you
are in a performance league or a scoring-only league, as players who
thrive in performance leagues may not be worth much in scoring-only
leagues.
Most FFL newcomers rely on preseason publications (from sources such as
Fantasy Football Index) for player rankings. Generally speaking, the
flexibility of websites makes them more useful than publications for
sorting players according to specific scoring systems. Here at FFExperts.com, we
have a tool that will enable to rank players based on the specific
parameters of your league’s scoring system. But whether you get your
information online or in print, be sure that the ranking system you
consult for your draft is appropriate for the sort of league that you
are in.
Some Fundamental Rules
Apart from determining what sort of league you are in, you will
definitely want to have a very firm grasp on which kinds of players are
capable of scoring in your league. Virtually all FFLs award points to
quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, and kickers, but then the
variations kick in. Some leagues require the use of tight ends; others
simply allow participants to use tight ends instead of receivers at
their own discretion. Most leagues use team defenses, such as the
entire defensive squad of the Chicago Bears, but some allow FFLers to
draft individual defensive players who earn points for tackles, sacks,
forced turnovers, and, of course, defensive scores. If you are new to
fantasy football, it’s probably best for you to steer clear of leagues
that involve the drafting of individual defensive players or offensive
linemen, as the scoring methods for such players can give headaches to
seasoned fantasy football enthusiasts.
There are lots of other variations in the rules of fantasy football, but
they probably don’t need to concern you before the season gets
underway. Some FFLs are modeled on the NFL and feature head-to-head
competition. Teams play against each other over the course of a season
and compile win-and-loss records. The teams with the best records move
on to single-elimination playoffs like the playoffs in the NFL. In
other leagues, there is no win-loss record. Teams earn points
throughout the season. The points are totaled at the end of the year,
and the FFLer whose team generated the most points is declared the
winner. Your commissioner is the person most qualified to explain
exactly how your league works—and will in all likelihood present you
with a written copy of the league rules before the season begins.
You will come to appreciate the finer points of FFL scoring as you make
it through the season, but once you know what sort of league you’re in
(scoring-only or performance) and which positions you need to fill on
your roster, you’re ready to acquire your players, which is where the
excitement really begins.
Making the Team
Draft day—there’s nothing like it. Football junkies around the country
tune into ESPN on draft day to see which players their favorite teams
will take in the early rounds. Nothing haunts a franchise as much as a
series of poor choices on draft day. And the same goes for FFL
participants, which is why even veteran FFLers get butterflies in their
stomachs when the day to build their teams comes around.
Although there are such complicated beasts as dynasty and keeper
leagues, it is probably a mistake for the novice FFLer to become
involved in them. While you are learning the ropes of fantasy football,
it is probably for the best that you join a league in which you build a
team from scratch. The two primary ways of doing so are through an
auction or a draft. Auctions are becoming more popular, and tools such
as the Cheat Sheets at FFExperts.com will give readers a sense of what their maximum
bids for players should be.
However, the finesse that it takes to handle an auction well is best
learned through experience, and the experience of an auction is almost
invariably overwhelming for those who have never participated in a
traditional serpentine draft. Since this guide is targeted to
beginners, the traditional draft is what we focus on here.
Fantasy football drafts can be handled either in person or online.
There’s no doubt that the in-person drafts are more fun. Usually these
drafts are scheduled a week or two before the football season begins,
and the league participants meet at some mutually convenient place (such
as a sports bar) to have a few beers and maybe some buffalo wings as
they determine their league’s destiny for the upcoming season. The
commissioner may bring a laptop computer or a spiral notebook, but
official records will be kept. People will make fun of each other’s
draft selections, smack talking will be engaged in, and a good time will
usually be had by all.
However, since it can be difficult for the eight or more people in a
fantasy league to set aside an entire evening during which they will all
be available, more and more fantasy drafts are being conducted
online—sometimes involving people who should really be working instead.
An electronic draft can be an informal affair that drags out over the
summer months (an email message that bounces back and forth between
participants who add their selections to the list before forwarding the
message to the person with the next pick) or can be handled in a single
morning through an internet league-hosting service, depending upon how
much time the league wants to allow for a draft.
Most leagues randomly
assign draft picks
(via a computer program or dice or some other method)
to participants before the draft begins. If you are in such a
league, you will know in advance that you have the third pick in the
first round and the eighth pick in the second round, for example.
Most leagues rely on a serpentine draft, a draft order that reverses
from first to last between odd and even numbered rounds. Whoever picks
first in the first round will pick last in the second round. If you
have the number one pick in a ten-team league, you’re next pick will
probably be number 20.
If you are a newcomer to fantasy football, you probably won’t have much
say about how your draft is conducted, but you will get to make some
very important decisions concerning your team. If your FFL is like most
leagues, you will start eight players each week from a roster of sixteen
or so players. Your starters will include one quarterback, two running
backs, two wide receivers, one tight end, one kicker and one team
defense. The traditional sixteen-player roster allows you to have
backups for all eight starters. Backups are very important because of
injury and the fact that all NFL teams take one week off in the course
of a season. Your objective during the draft is simple. You have to
get the best players available for the positions you need to fill.
Drafting Mistakes and the Tools for Correcting Them
FFL newcomers tend to make some fairly predictable mistakes in their
first draft, often overvaluing certain positions (such as quarterback)
as well as players from the local team. A first-time FFLer from
Wisconsin, for example, might take Brett Favre (Green Bay’s
quarterback) with his/her first pick in the draft. Favre has won a Super
Bowl and is clearly an accomplished QB, but because of the nature of
fantasy football, there are dozens of players who should be drafted
before him.
You
have to think not only about how much a player will be worth to your
team, but how much value the competition will place on him. It
doesn’t matter how many points Favre will generate; no one in your draft is going to take him in
the early rounds. Even if your crystal ball tells you that Favre will
be the MVP of the league this year, you can afford to pick him up in the
later rounds; he’ll be available.
In 2001, the father of Chris Weinke (a backup quarterback for the
Carolina Panthers) received some notoriety because he didn’t draft his
own son in his fantasy football league, opting to go with Minnesota
quarterback Daunte Culpepper instead. Weinke’s father was right.
Culpepper is a hot commodity who will be snapped up fairly early in most
drafts. The Weinkes of the NFL are always available later.
But how is the FFL novice supposed to know which players will be most
valued by the competition? Easy. Every year before the NFL season
begins, dozens of publications are churned out that rank players by
position; you have probably seen such lists in your own favorite
newspaper. You can find lists of the top 25 quarterbacks, the top 100
receivers, the top 50 running backs, etc. Many websites (such as ours)
do the same thing. Some guides are better than others, but you will
need one (even a poor one) in order to get through your first FFL
draft. If nothing else, the guides provide you with the names of
players by position, something that you may find yourself needing after
the top 10 NFL tight ends have been taken and you still need one for
your team. Maybe you think of yourself as a football expert, but can
you honestly name 11 tight ends off the top of your head?
Some draft situations are more cutthroat than others. In some cases,
FFL participants will warn each other about foolish mistakes. In other
cases, the league will suppress a collective giggle and continue with
the draft. A player can retire in August after being listed as
draft worthy in a magazine printed in July (think back to Ricky Williams
prior to the 2004 season), but if you haven’t followed the news, you
might try to draft him all the same.
Players who generate as much ink as Williams did are unlikely to be
drafted accidentally (even by novices), but such accidents often happen
with the marginal players who usually go in the final rounds of the
draft. Maybe their contracts haven’t been resolved; maybe they
sustained a preseason injury that hasn’t received much attention from
the
press. Whatever the reason, these draft accidents are bound to happen
to FFLers who rely on information gathered in May and June and printed in July
for a season that begins in September.
For this reason, many FFLers have begun subscribing to online fantasy
football services that provide up-to-the-minute reports on the NFL. Be
aware, however, that these online services can cost even more to
subscribe to than the entry fee for the average FFL. Since the
preseason publications go for six to eight dollars, they are still much
more popular, despite their limitations.
No matter how many magazines or online services you subscribe to, you
will still have to make up your own mind about who your first draft
choice should be. The choice can be extremely unnerving if you have the
very first pick in the draft. No one wants to make a mistake in this
situation, and all FFL novices want to know what sort of player they
should take in the first round.
The Ultimate Drafting Strategy Is Research
You might expect a guide like this to tell you which kind of player to
draft in the first round. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to
that question. Many experts are sold on the importance of getting
running backs early. But the real answer, which nobody likes, is that
it depends. Since different leagues evaluate player performances in
different ways, you will need to look at the data from past seasons in
your FFL to find out whether the stars of that league tend to emerge
from a particular position (such as quarterback, running back, or wide
receiver).
If you don’t feel like doing the research to answer that question,
conventional wisdom dictates that you take the highest-rated running
back you can. Running backs are generally more valuable than
quarterbacks not because they produce more points, but because they are
harder to come by. Most NFL teams have only one star quarterback and
one star running back, but most FFLs require players to start two
running backs and only one quarterback, so the fact that elite running
backs are in such short supply drives up their value. Importantly,
however, the NFL made a concerted effort starting in 2004 to enforce
rules that benefit the passing game. Since we saw an immediate and
dramatic increase in passing productivity in 2004, it is safe to say
that receivers are more valuable now than they were in the years when
running backs developed such a devoted following in FF circles.
If you are willing to do your research, then you may be surprised by
which sort of player makes the most sense as an early pick. The best
choice isn’t necessarily the player who will generate the most points,
but the player with the greatest separation between himself and the next
best player at his position. This strategy, known as value-based
drafting or relative-value drafting, is endorsed by many FFL experts
with multiple championships to their credit. According to this
strategy, it may make more sense to draft a wide receiver in the first
round than a quarterback or a running back even though quarterbacks and
running backs tend to generate more points. The justification for such
a choice requires more number-crunching than most people will have
patience for, but it is an effective strategy.
Each draft has its own dynamic, and it is impossible to say in advance
what that dynamic will be. Even if you know that the best choice in the
first round is a particular wide receiver, you might not need to use
your first-round pick on him, since so many fantasy football veterans
are convinced that they should choose running backs (or possibly
quarterbacks) in the early rounds. The only way to find out about the
drafting tendencies of your competitors is to look at what they have
done in years past. Most commissioners will be happy to share this
information with you if you request it, but don’t be surprised if your
commissioner hasn’t held on to the draft records of past seasons.
Put simply, research is the only way to make the absolute best choice in
your draft, but it is always time-consuming and often impossible to
research an unfamiliar FFL thoroughly. And no one with any experience
in FFLs will argue that research is essential, since all FFLers have
participated in leagues with people who simply picked up a fantasy
football magazine at the local convenience store on their way to the
draft and drafted the highest-ranking player available whenever their
selection came up and went on to win a fantasy Super Bowl.
Whether you do a lot of research or none at all, be sure to show up at
your draft with something to write on. It’s harder to keep up with the
sixteen players on your team than you think. Each time you make a pick,
jot down the name of your choice, his position, and which week he will
have off (information that should be readily available in your guide).
If your league uses transaction fees and you want to avoid them, be sure
that your backup quarterback will be playing the week that your starter
is off.
But don’t become too obsessed about scheduling your players around the
weeks that their teams have off (known as ‘bye weeks’ in the NFL), as
injuries and trades will very likely wreak havoc on all of your delicate
schemes. Also, be sure to find out whether your league requires you to
draft backups for all starters or whether you have flexibility. Instead
of drafting four receivers and four running backs, you might want to
draft just three receivers and five running backs (or vice versa)
depending on the level of player talent available when it comes time for
you to select your backups.
One last mistake that far too many rookie FFLers make is to assume that
the players they draft as starters will be their starters all the way
through the season and that their backups will serve strictly as
benchwarmers. Nothing is certain in the NFL. Running back
Larry Johnson was probably drafted as a backup by most FFLers in 2005, but he
definitely finished the season as a starter in all leagues. Choose
your backups not simply because they happen to be playing on the weeks
when your starters are off, but because you see true potential for them
to emerge as starters in their own right. Never forget that Tom Brady (QB
for the Patriots) and Kurt Warner (formerly of the Rams) both started
out as backup QBs in the seasons in which they first went on to become
Super Bowl MVPs.
Submitting Your Weekly Lineup & Dealing with Injury
Once you have finished the draft, you’re ready to understand the key
distinction between your roster (the players on your team) and your
lineup (the players who will start on a given Sunday). The traditional
FFL only allows you to start half of your players, but which half is up
to you. In certain leagues, FFLers submit their lineups after the games
are played. If they have two quarterbacks on their team, they select
the one who scored more points in Week One as the starter for Week One
and the one who scored more in Week 2 as the starter for Week Two. Such
an approach takes a lot of the anxiety out of fantasy football, but it
doesn’t leave FFLers much to do once the draft is complete.
By contrast, most FFLs require their participants to submit their
starting lineup before each week’s first kick-off. In these leagues,
players have to determine which of their QBs is likely to be more
productive on a particular Sunday. Ordinarily, your starters will be
the players you took earliest in the draft. Let’s say that you got
through your draft session by following the directions in the fantasy
football magazine that you picked up at 7-11. It told you to draft the
touted quarterback Biff Splendid in the first round, so you did. You
saw that Splendid would have a bye in Week 7, so you used a mid-draft
pick on Deuce Stringer, a QB whose team will be playing in Week 7.
A lot of FFL participants subscribe to the theory that you should always
start the players taken earliest in the draft (players routinely
referred to as ‘studs’). According to this logic, Splendid is rated
higher than Stringer by all of the fantasy football publications because
he is a superior athlete on a superior offense with greater potential to
generate points week in and week out. But it may be a mistake for you
to assume that Biff Splendid is always a better choice than Deuce
Stringer just because Splendid was the MVP of the NFL last year and has
career stats that dwarf those of Stringer.
Each week, Splendid and Stringer will face different teams. Although no
one doubts that Splendid is a much better QB than Stringer, there will
probably be a couple of weeks in the season when Stringer will face a
weak defense on the same day that Splendid is squaring off against one
of the best defenses in the league. You will have to think not only
about Splendid’s talent, but the quality of the opposition that he will
be facing. Consequently, you can face a number of tough decisions in
the course of a season. Of course, you can keep things extremely simple
for yourself by starting Splendid whenever he is healthy and his team in
playing. But if you do not look into the factors that go into each game
and try to make an informed prediction on the basis of those factors,
you will be missing out on a great deal of what’s fun and challenging
about fantasy football.
Choosing between players that are healthy and productive is fun. A
less enjoyable problem that you will probably have to face in the course
of your season is the difficulty of replacing a player on your roster
because of injury.
Injuries can be very tricky. Sometimes players go down for a week
or two; sometimes an injury forces them to miss the remainder of the
season. What is most frustrating, of course, is when players and
their agents and coaches insist that the players will return “next
week”—only to say the same thing again and again all the way to the end
of the season. This happens more frequently than you might
expect—and often with top-flight players. Try to
remember that football is war, and coaches have no interest in revealing
information concerning their vulnerabilities to their opponents. Even
when you hear something from the coach’s own lips, that doesn’t make it
true.
When a player is injured, you will often know within 48 hours how long
the injury is expected to keep the player on the bench. But sometimes
you will receive misinformation, and that can make it difficult for
FFLers to know what to do, particularly when it comes to injured stars.
It is fairly common for leagues that award purses to charge their
participants transaction fees when they want to make changes to their
rosters. These fees are often nominal (one or two dollars, perhaps),
but they can quickly add up, especially for fidgety participants who
simply cannot leave their rosters alone.
