FANTASY FOOTBALL BASICS.

[The Professor]

OK beginners, here's how this works: The computer will assign you a set of real-life football players that will make up your team. You will keep your team for the entire season. The players that you are assigned will come from all over the NFL — in other words, the guys on your team will come from a variety of different NFL teams. On a weekly basis, (meaning the Sunday games + Monday Night Football) your team will square off against someone else's and the person whose team accumulates the most points will win the game. The computer keeps track of the statistics, so you don't really need to do anything.

Each team has a roster of players. The idea of the game is that you will plug your best players into the different roster spots, and leave your weaker players in reserve. (This is where knowing a bit about football is helpful. The more experienced league members will give good, helpful, and sportsmanlike advice.)

In our league each team will have:
1 Quarterback: When your QB throws a touchdown, your team gets 6 points. You also get a point for every 25 yards he throws the ball. If your quarterback throws 3 touchdowns (6 X 3 = 18 pts.) and 275 total yards of passing (275 / 25 = 11 pts.), you would receive 29 total points for the QB position. (Which is a magnificent total!) Although the QB is the most important player in real football, they are not the most important in Fantasy.

2 Running Backs: Every time one of your Running Backs scores a real-life touchdown, your fantasy team gets 6 points! You also get 1 pt. for every 10 yards he carries the ball in a game. If your RB scores 2 touchdown (6 X 2 = 12 pts.) and runs for 160 yards (160 / 10 = 16 pts.), as well as catching passes for 40 yards (40 / 10 = 4 pts.) you would receive a whopping 32 points (12 + 16 + 4 = 32)!!! Because Running Backs typically score the most touchdowns in real football, they are the most valuable players on fantasy teams, and will do the lion's share of the scoring. Every team wants LaDanian Tomlinson, but only 1 will get him. He scores....often.

2 Wide Receivers: 6 pts. for a touchdown, 1 pt. for every 10 yards of receiving. They don't score quite as often as RBs, but they are the next most valuable guys on your team.

1 Tight End: Tight Ends are basically really large receivers. They score the same way as receivers, just not nearly as often. Not a super important position.

1 Kicker: Kickers get 3 points for a field goal and 1 point for a successful extra point after a touchdown. Kickers are fairly random, they all do about the same, and are not important parts of your team.

1 Defense: Each player will be assigned the defensive team of an NFL franchise, and will be awarded points based on how well that defense performs. So, you might get the San Diego Chargers' defense, or the Chicago Bears' defense. If the Bears shut out the team they are playing you will be happy! Nonetheless, defenses perform relatively similarly from one team to the next, so they aren't an important part of your team.

8 Bench Positions: The Bench positions are reserve players who you can put in in case one of your regular starters gets hurt or has the week off. All NFL teams have a free weekend at some point in the season. This is referred to as a "Bye Week." When your best running back is on his bye week, you need to insert your bench running back into the spot for that week, and hope he has a good day.

Trades: People talk about them a lot, but they actually don't happen that often. It's simple: If you want a player from another league member's team, you can offer them one of your players in a trade. If they think it's a fair offer, they might accept.

The Waiver Wire: There are a lot of NFL players, and they won't all be assigned to our teams. These 'leftover' players are available to be added to your team in case one of your assigned players gets severely injured, or just turns out to be a stinker. You can often find great players out there just waiting to be added to your team. This happens most often when a top Running Back or Quarterback gets knocked out for the year, and the second stringer takes their place. In many instances, that second stringer becomes a very valuable commodity and league members will rush to their computers to grab him. At any time you like, you can drop a player and add another from the "waiver wire." This may sound complicated if you have never played before, but it's really simple.






Here are some articles for the new folks that explain how this all works. It's very easy. You can ignore all of the information about drafts, as we are having an auto-pick draft.

http://www.squidoo.com/fantasyfootball101

http://football.about.com/od/fantasyfootball/a/fantasy101.htm

http://fantasy.sportingnews.com/nfl/help/strategy.html

http://www.examiner.com/x-566-Fantasy-Football-Examiner~y2008m8d11-...

http://www.fantasyfootball.com/pagebank/index.html?id=1813

[Microwaved]

Thanks Prof! This really helps me. It simplies all this to the basics. That link to the article you gave me originaly just confused me more. Now I get it.

Hopefully I won't lose too bad.

[Microwaved]

How do you find out when teams have bye weeks?

[Microwaved]

Whoa, that's a lot of teams off at the same time those weeks. Man this is going to take some strategery.

[The Professor]

I'm a big fan of the waiver wire. And since the computer is picking the teams, there will be inevitable bye week conflicts for everyone. The Computer WILL NOT consider the bye weeks when assigning players. I don't even worry about it until the time comes.

[The Professor]

This is a screen capture of my team page for my other league on Yahoo. This is almost exactly what our pages will look like. (We will have a few more bench guys) I have highlighted where you can see when your guys are on bye. I'm in really good bye-week shape for this team.

[The Professor]

As you can see -- if you can read the small text. Brett Favre is my starting QB, and John Kitna is my backup QB. Favre is on Bye Week 5, Kitna is week 4. So, I'll just switch them when week 5 rolls around.

As for my Running Backs, Joseph Addai is Week 4, and Thomas Jones is Week 5. My back ups are Edgerrin James (Week 7), Jonathan Stewart (Week 9), and Chris Johnson (Week 6). So no worries.

Here's one of the fun things about playing. There are two distinct possibilities if you look at my Running Backs. 1) Joseph Addai is a great player, but fragile. He could get knocked out, he missed a number of games last year. 2) Thomas Jones might stink, he plays for the Jets. So, it's entirely possible that I'll have to use my backups way more often than the bye-weeks -- they might become my regular starters. This doesn't bode very well for me, as Edgerrin James is way past his prime, and on a bad team, and the other two are rookies who have never played in an NFL game before. (Though I think at least one of them will turn out to be spectacular!)

[The Professor]

From Bill's post above: When your team is initially drafted, make sure that you have a legal team for each week, including the bye weeks. For example: If you draft five running backs, and four of them have the same bye week, come that week you will only be able to start one running back.

The issue is potentially more pressing with QBs, Kickers, and Defensive teams, as often one will only draft and keep two, max. Obviously, if their bye weeks are the same, you'll be SOL, or consigned to trying to pick up a replacement on the waiver wire.

Since we are starting three WRs per week, they also could be an issue.

Nothing will hurt a team's chances more than an incomplete lineup.

This is an interesting point of view. And it really brings up how strategy can come into play. I'm going to refer to my screen capture below. I've created a big problem for myself with my team: I do not have a backup player for my Tight End, Kicker, or Defense. (Under each players name, you can see which NFL team they are with, and what position they play. I have 3 RBs, 2 WRs, and a QB.) By not having a backup at those less-important positions, I can carry more players on my roster at the important positions. When the bye weeks come around, I have two options. In week 10 my Tight End, Todd Heap from Baltimore is on bye, #1) I can just leave that roster spot empty and go without that week, or #2) I can drop a player from my bench and replace him with a TE from the waiver wire whose team is playing in week 10. I'm almost certain to do the latter, as I'll probably need as many points as I can possibly get, and more importantly by week 10 I'll have no problem dropping one of my current bench players. (Injured, a bum, whatever.)

OK, now here's an advanced point. Read on at your own peril. Notice that all of the positions I don't have a backup for (TE, K, Def.) have different bye weeks. This means I only need to use one roster spot to get a backup for those spots. In week 4, I'll drop a bench player to get an extra defense, as soon as week 4 is over I'll drop that defense and use the spot to get a kicker for week 8, and after that I'll cut the new kicker and get a TE for week 10. That's strategy!

[Dianne]

So basically, as long as I cover my main point earning positions with back ups, I'll be ok? I can use the waiver wire to fill in the lesser positions on bye weeks?

You know, I wasn't too worried about the draft until I started reading all the posts here...Now I am getting a little scared that I am going to get my assed kicked. ;-)

[The Professor]

It can be a bit tricky at times, but if you keep one of your bench spots open as a spot to acquire players to cover your bye weeks, it can really work out. Don't worry about the draft -- the computer will make sure you get a couple back-up RBs and WRs.

The thing about an auto draft is that it's very difficult (and confusing) to control who you will get. If you aren't extremely confident in your ability to set the player rankings yourself, you should just leave it alone...

The funny thing is that I play in a few very serious leagues, and one of them is auto-picked because no one can ever agree on a time for a live draft, and the guys who labor at their pre-draft rankings usually end up screwing themselves over. The computer will always assign you the next best player available, so it normally picks pretty good teams.

Don't worry about getting beat -- if I notice anything amiss with anyone's team, I'll be sure to point it out to them!

[pterosaur]

Damn you, Prof. This is a lot more work requiring a lot more knowledge than you led me to believe. The time estimate you gave me of 5-10 minutes a week didn't take into account that I have absolutely no clue what the hell I'm doing.

Are you sure you don't want to switch this to a fantasy hockey league instead? There's still time...

[The Professor]

nah, you'll be OK. This is just the place to expound, it doesn't take much time at all. You'll just get a message that says: hey dude, switch your QB for this week; or your RB just got a broken leg, go drop him and add this guy to your team. 5 minutes a week, usually on Thursdays or Fridays...that's all. (That is until you become obsessed. Hey, it can happen)

[pterosaur]

I already have too many obsessions as it is. But there's no sense worrying about it now. I'll figure it all out once it gets going.