A Beginner’s Guide to Fantasy Football
Fantasy Football has grown from a niche game played by a small number of fans to a billion dollar industry with millions of followers and the support of all the major sports news and entertainment companies. Although fantasy football has become mainstream, there are many people who are still sitting on the sidelines wanting to join in on the fun, but not sure how to play or where to start. The point of this article is to provide a beginner’s guide on how to play fantasy football for those on the fence.
What is Fantasy Football?
Fantasy Football is a game that is played in conjunction with live NFL games. If a player on your fantasy team scores a touchdown or gains yards in a real life game, you receive points for your fantasy team. The game enhances the overall appeal of watching NFL games because each game becomes more exciting if your fantasy player is playing. Also, many leagues play for money or prizes, which adds another element of excitement.
Fantasy owners play with a fixed number of players each week in a head-to-head contest against another owner, with the winning team getting the most points that week. At the end of the regular season, the top four or six teams participate in a tiebreaker to determine the winner. A typical team includes a quarterback, two or three wide receivers, two running backs, a tight end, a kicker, and a defensive / special team.
How to join a league
The exponential growth of fantasy football over the past decade has resulted in the creation of hundreds of free fantasy football websites, including ESPN, Yahoo, NFL, CBS, and Fox Sports. Most of the larger sites like Yahoo and ESPN offer completely free leagues, including premium features like live drafts and real-time stat tracking. Although all websites require you to create a profile that requires certain personal information, most allow you to reject email requests that limit the possibility of spam.
When you sign up for a league, you have the option to create a private league with friends or you can join an existing public league. Leagues typically range from 8 to 14 teams, and most websites use a standard 10-team format.
Tip drafts
There are two common types of erasers used by most fancy sites: the snake eraser and the auction format. With a meandering draft, owners take turns choosing concession players, with the first owner getting the first overall pick in the first round and the last pick in the second round. This format is by far the most common type of draft; however, it tends to reward those lucky enough to get a high draft pick. To combat this problem, some leagues choose to go for the auction format, which gives each owner the same amount of draft money to use with players. Any player can be recruited as long as the owner is willing to spend the money, however the limited budget prohibits any team from accumulating top players. Although auction drafts are fun, they are challenging and I don’t recommend them for beginners.
When drafting, the most important rule of thumb is to use your first picks on marquee players who provide consistent points. These players must be proven stars who will form the foundation of your team. Intermediate rounds are where an owner can pick support players, including second- and third-string running backs and wide receivers to complement their selected star picks in the early rounds. The final rounds of the draft should be used to fill in the gaps in your roster, or to use picks on potential value or sleeping picks. Sleepers are unknown players who have little risk as bench players, but who can turn out to be cleats.
Waiver Wire / Free Agents
Players who are not selected are placed in the free agent transfer / resignation pool. Free agents can be picked up year-round by any owner; however, the owner is required to remove another player from his team to free up space on the roster. If a player is eliminated, they go through “waivers” for a few days, per league rules. The best player in waiver priority gets the first claim on that player. The exemption priority is generally set in the reverse order of the draft, with the last player given the first exemption priority rank. When an owner uses their exemption selection on a player, they are then moved to the bottom of the exemption list for future selections. Waiver priority can become crucial if a star player goes down and creates a lucrative player available on cable.
Commerce
One of the most entertaining aspects of fantasy football is trading players and negotiating deals with other owners. Depending on how you write, you may have a surplus of players in a position that will give you the advantage to make a trade to strengthen your team by improving on a weak point. Also, choosing available players on the waiver when their value is low and then trading them when they become valuable is another great way to upgrade your team.
Many new fantasy owners are afraid to trade because they are concerned about getting out of the bad side of the deal. The truth is that most deals are unbalanced due to injury or bad luck; however, this should not prevent a person from making an exchange. It’s fun to roll the dice in an exchange in hopes of reaching the top, and it’s a great way to strengthen your team by harnessing depth to improve areas of weakness.