Although it has been around for much longer than most people realize, and continues to gain popularity year after year, there are still a number of people who are wondering, what is this “fantasy football” everyone is talking about? I would like to take a moment to explain how fantasy football works, and why it has become so popular.
Starting with the basics.
I have heard that not everyone agrees as to the origin of Fantasy Football. The more common theory, is that in the early 1960’s, Bill Winkenbach, then a part owner of the Oakland Raiders, was in New York with the team on an east coast road trip. While in New York, he gathered some of his buddies to a Manhattan motel, and together they created the first known Fantasy Football league. Back then, they would have to search through different newspapers to get all the players statistics, and information they needed, to run their league. It was quite a chore. They would have to hand write out everything. Nowadays, we obviously use computers to do all the work for us!
Fantasy Football continues to gain momentum in popularity every year, with more and more people catching the bug to immerse themselves fully within the community. From young people just getting into football, to older people who just haven’t given it a chance yet, millions of people are learning how much fun it can be to participate in Fantasy Football.
There have become a number of different formats leagues use for roster construction. One basic, and typical format, is to have 1 quarterback, 2 wide receivers, 2 running backs, 1 tight end, 1 flex player (which typically is your choice of a wide receiver, running back, or tight end), 1 kicker, and 1 team defense. This would be your starting line up. You would also have a number of players, usually about 5, on the side, known as your bench, to substitute in as needed. Players in your starting lineup might be on bye that week, out due to injury. Or maybe you just think a player on your bench will preform better that week, then a player in your starting lineup. Then you would substitute in a bench player.
You draft, or pick, these players, one at a time, when it is your turn, in your particular league. It is determined ahead of time, the order in which each participant will be picking a player. Participants are know as “owners”. If a league consists of 10 owners, the order of the draft would go 1-10, then 10 back to 1, and continue to snake in that order until all your team roster spots have been filled.
The players you have in your lineup get points for how they performed in their game. Most commonly, players will get points for yardage and touchdowns. Kickers would get points for putting the pigskin through the uprights, and team defenses would get points for turn overs, sacks, touchdowns, and amount of points allowed.
How to get involved.
There are numerous sites that offer free fantasy football leagues. ESPN, NFL, and Yahoo all offer free leagues to join. You can join a random league, in which you don’t even know any of the other owners, or you can join a league consisting of friends and family. In this case, you would need someone to take charge, who would be known as the “commissioner”. The commissioner would set up a draft time, allocate how many points will be awarded in each category, for each position, and basically run the league. The commissioner generally is also an owner in that league, and will be drafting their own team within that league.
Drafting a solid team.
In order to start your season off right, you want to make sure you have a good solid draft. There will always be many opinions on drafting strategies out there. Those strategies may very well change from year to year. The NFL tends to constantly evolve with it’s trends of offensive play. This can make the value of certain positions also change, from year to year. With that being said, some rules will always apply.
First of all, make sure you know your leagues scoring system. This can be vital information when drafting your players. For example, some leagues give points to players for each reception. Some do not. If your league does, wide receivers, running backs, and tight ends who get a high volume of target passes, become more valuable. Also, make sure you understand your leagues format for your starting lineup. If your league uses the same format as I listed above, wide receivers and running backs are generally the first players picked, simply because you might use up to 3 of them in your lineup. If you happen to play in a league that uses 2 quarterbacks in the starting lineup, You more than likely would pick a quarterback first. You will also need to know a little about the team that the player you are selecting, plays for, and what their style of play most likely will be. Do they like to run the ball more or pass more? How good are the players around them? Will other players on their team take away their touches? Do they have a good offensive line, to do the blocking for them? Some teams use one running back for the majority of their run game. Some teams use what they call a “committee” of running backs, which means they use 3 or 4, continually substituting them in and out of the game. Know which teams are which. These are all things you may take under consideration before drafting a player.
Don’t get too stuck on making sure you are drafting one position. In the early rounds of the draft, try to select the player available with the highest potential upside, regardless of their position. You can focus on position needs in the later rounds.
Lastly, I highly recommend participating in a mock draft. Whatever site you are using to run your league, they will offer mock drafts, where you draft a fake team, for practice. You can learn a lot from these mock drafts, like what rounds players are typically picked in. Maybe in your mock draft, you pick a player in the second round, that you could have easily waited until the 5th or 6th round. The site will let you know the average round that player is being drafted, in all the other mock drafts being conducted. You’ll want to take note of that, for your real draft. This way you can aim for a player that might have higher point potential in the second round of your real draft, and wait for later rounds to pick the player you originally wanted in the second round.
Staying on Top of it.
A football season is a marathon, not a sprint. Regardless of how well, or how poorly, you feel like you did with your draft, you will want to continuously look to make improvements throughout the duration of the season. Diligence is key, if you want to have a successful season. There are 2 ways to improve your roster. The waiver wire, and trades. The waiver wire consists of players not on any rosters within your league. You can look to the waiver wire to add players who may improve your roster. There are multiple outlets online you can use to get advise of players on waiver wire that would be smart to pick up. You can only have a certain amount of players on your roster, so you may need to drop a player on your current roster in order to make room for a new player your looking to acquire. You can also propose a trade to other fantasy owners in your league, in which they would have to agree to the terms of the proposed trade.
You need to make sure you take a look at your team each week, and look for tweaks you may need to make. Football includes a high volume of injuries, so you’ll need to check on the health status of each player on your roster. A player on your bench might be out performing a player in your starting lineup, so you may want to make that substitution. There will be weeks in which players on your roster will be on a bye week, so you would need to make sure those players are not in your starting lineup.
Any Site you may choose to participate in Fantasy Football makes all of this a simple process. It is very easy to join a league or start your own, and it’s free! It can be a great way to stay connected with friends and family as you battle head to head, with your drafted “fantasy” team, in your league.
If you have any additional questions about Fantasy Football, and how to get started, please feel free to let me know in the comments below. Best of luck in your next upcoming season!