Fantasy Football For Dummies. Martin A. Schulman

Depending on the size of your league and the playoff format, most fantasy postseasons begin somewhere between Weeks 15 or 16, and conclude a week before the end of the NFL regular season in Week 17. Smaller leagues may feature only two playoff teams and one playoff game. Larger leagues may have six or more playoff teams, which can mean playoff games that cover three weeks.

      Your league’s championship

      Getting to the finals and winning your fantasy league is what fantasy football is all about. After all, only first place gets the prize and the bragging rights. Watching your NFL players while tracking your fantasy football championship game online is an adrenaline rush you can’t duplicate in other fantasy sports. You’ll be cheering, screaming, and biting your nails! And if you win, don’t gloat too much, because your league will be gunning for you next season.

Are You Ready to Play?

      Fantasy football can be a fun and rewarding venture. Are you interested in getting in touch with your fantasy persona? If so, jump on in. The water is amazing! Keep the following in mind based on your fantasy needs:

       If you’re a beginner looking to join a league, start in Chapter 3 on league types. If you are looking for Daily Fantasy Football leagues, check out Chapters 13 & 16.

       If you’ve been invited to play in a league for the first time, start in Part 1. Some of the lingo may be new to you, but knowing your league setup will be useful when pre-ranking, drafting, and managing your team. Then read Chapters 2 and 4 before diving into Parts 2 and 3.

       If you’ve played fantasy football before, you may want to start with Part 2. Knowing what to look for when ranking players and not just following some expert cheat sheets blindly is what will take your game to the next level. Part 3 reviews some draft strategies that you may have heard of but haven’t fully embraced.

      HOW FANTASY FOOTBALL BEGAN

      In 1962, Bill “Wink” Winkenbach, a limited partner in the Oakland Raiders, and a group of die-hard local football businessmen founded GOPPPL: The Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League. Wink and his buddies hammered out the rules for drafting players from all the teams, and on draft day in 1963, fantasy football was born. For more info on the history of the game, check out www.fspnet.com/wink.pdf.

      Fantasy football has been going strong ever since, but it really took off with the growth of the Internet in the mid-1990s. Online league providers make playing easy for beginners and experts alike by compiling all the scoring results each week during the football season. The web also offers tons of fantasy expert sites filled with handy advice and stats to help every coach research the players and make smart choices when drafting and managing teams.

Chapter 2

      Just Score, Baby: The Name of the Fantasy Game

      IN THIS CHAPTER

      

Realizing the impact of scoring in fantasy football

      

Getting offensive for the bulk of your scoring

      

Examining defense’s role in the scoring picture

      

Picking a scoring format that suits your style

      In real sports, the team that scores the most points wins — the same goes for fantasy football. There are baskets in basketball, runs in baseball, and goals in hockey, but scoring in fantasy football entails more than just getting the ball into the end zone and between the uprights. Many statistics show the value and ability of players beyond their actual points scored, and those stats translate into fantasy points for your team.

      This chapter explains how scoring works in fantasy football and how it differs from the NFL. Note: The default settings I refer to in this chapter and in this book are the default settings on Yahoo!’s Fantasy Football Platform, but other leagues use different scoring modifiers that may even affect your draft strategy. Check with your league and acquaint yourself with its scoring default settings before you do anything.

Scoring 101: Only the Basics

      Winning in traditional fantasy football (not Daily Fantasy, which will be covered in Part 4) leagues is no different than winning in the NFL: Two teams play each other in season-long formats, and the team that scores the most points wins. However, the big difference is how points are scored. To give you a broad overview of scoring and to touch on something you probably already know if you’re a football fan, in the NFL, scoring breaks down as follows:

       Touchdowns: 6 points

       Field goals: 3 points

       Safeties: 2 points

       Two-point conversions: 2 points

       Extra points: 1 point

      

In fantasy, however, a team scores points based on each player’s performance and personal stats, in addition to the standard NFL point system and not on the NFL teams’ win-loss records. The star offensive players who can run, catch, and pass for big yards and not just score are the elite players in the fantasy world. In essence, fantasy rewards a player for playing a good game even if he doesn’t score lots of touchdowns. Scoring touchdowns isn’t easy in the NFL, and just because an offensive player can’t reach the end zone doesn’t mean he’s having a bad game.

      Fantasy football also awards points to kickers who kick field goals and extra points and to team defenses that can score fantasy points by limiting points allowed and creating turnovers, in addition to scoring TDs and safeties. (Check out the “Shooting for Shutouts: Scoring with Defense” section later in this chapter for more info.) Basically, anything from fumble recoveries to receptions to field goal distance can add up for your fantasy team.

      Every league provider has a default setting for the stats that will convert to fantasy scoring, but any NFL stat can translate into fantasy points — only your league commissioner can make the decision to change any defaults.

To know your league’s scoring default, make sure you check out your league’s scoring system when preparing for your season. The scoring rules of your league may affect your draft