Fantasy Football

This is my second year to play Fantasy Football. I had avoided playing for several years because the only leagues I knew of were pay leagues, which were a form of gambling, and because I thought it would take too much time, a resource of which I don't have an abundant supply. Last year I joined a free league at work and found that it didn't take that much time at all. Since MNF is on right now and the game is one-sided, I figured this is a good time to talk about how Fantasy Football works. It is important to note that the rules are different for every league. This is how our leagure works.

The Players

The rules for every league are different. It first starts with the draft, which is probably the most critical aspect of the season. If you don't draft well you typically won't do well. You draft for the following positions:

• 1 Quarterback
• 2 Running Backs
• 2 Receivers
• 1 Tight End
• 1 Running Back or Receiver
• 1 Kicker
• 1 Defense
• 6 Bench Positions - These can be any of the above.
  

Every team in the NFL has a bye week so it is important to draft backups for your key positions. Since you don't have enough bench positions to back up everyone, you will end up dropping and adding players through the year. Because players get injured, you often have to replace them. Its important to draft well because the players remaining, the free agents, are typically not as good, but there often are surprises. Sometimes these surprises are rookies. Sometimes they are backups for an injured player.

The Scoring

Scoring is relatively simple and is based on how each player on your team does in real life that week. Every player gets 6 points for touchdowns. Outside of that, here are the other scoring rules:

• A player gets 1 point for every 20 yards of passing.
  
• A player gets 1 point for every 10 yards of rushing.
  
• A plap gets 1 point for every 10 yards of receiving.
• A kicker gets 1 point for every extra points, and 3, 4, or 5 points for a field goal, depending on the distance.
• A defense gets 15 points at the start of the game. This is reduced based on how much the offense playing against them scores. A defense also gets 2 points for each sack, fumble recovery, or interception.
• A player loses 2 points for throwing an interception.
• A player loses 2 points for fumbling.
  

The Time Investment

The biggest time investment is the draft, which lasts a little over an hour, if I remember correctly. We do it online at Yahoo! Everyone has 90 seconds to make a draft pick and there are 15 rounds, as you would expect. Then every week, I had to spend about 30 minutes--sometimes more but often less--making sure that I'm happy with my lineup of starters and making any trades.

Fantasy football used to take a lot of time because participants had to keep score themselves. Now the fantasy football providers such as Yahoo! or NFL.com, keep score online for you.

How I'm Doing

I haven't done so well the last couple of weeks. I'm now 3 - 4 and in fifth place out of 10 teams. My star player is Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints, who is right now leading the league in passing. Last week he scored me 39 points but most of my other players scored in the single digits. This week Drew Brees scored only 9 points. My leading receiver, Anquan Boldin of the Arizona Cardinals, has been out the last few weeks. I made a big mistake in dropping the Pittsburgh defense on their bye week instead of holding on to them. They were picked up by someone else pretty quickly. I won't make the mistake of letting go of a good defense again.

Last year, my first year, I started out 1-7 but managed to finish 2nd. You never know how its really going to go. You try to draft wisely, pick up promising free agents before someone else does, and hope that your players play consistently.

Why I Play

Here is why I play:

• Strategy - Despite the fact that players have bad games and you have no control over that, there is still a lot of strategy involved. You choose who to play based on how a player is playing and what team he is playing against. For example, I might play one running back one week and replace him with another running back from the bench because the defense the second player is playing against defends poorly against the run. I enjoy finding that new rookie who ends up doing well also.
  
• Fun - I happen to love football and am going to watch some NFL games anyway. Having players that are on your fantasy team playing adds another fun element to the game.
  
• Relationship - It gives me something besides work to talk about with those I work with.