Fantasy Football 101
If you are a seasoned fantasy football veteran, you already know the basics of fantasy football. This article will give you a couple of tips that even players who have been in the game longer than Brett Favre can still use. FFToolbox.com has everything (yes I am a company man) from strategy articles, to weekly rankings, to predictions, to the excellent weekly podcast (available on Itunes) hosted by Ben Standig featuring the best experts in the industry; FFToolbox has everything fantasy owners need to keep up with the constantly changing fantasy football landscape.
Can fantasy football get any bigger than it has over the past couple seasons? If this is your first fantasy football experience, here are the basics to get you going. Fantasy football is basically this: you join a league with other owners, draft a group of NFL players to fulfill certain position requirements, and then each week during the NFL regular season you face off against another person in a head-to-head matchup. Your team earns points based on your players' performance in the real NFL games. If you outscore your opponent, you win; it is that simple. Fantasy football is extremely addicting, you've been warned newbie.
If you want to manage your fantasy team to the top of the fantasy football mountain it is a long arduous climb, but with these tips you will be well on your way to a fantasy championship.
Pre Draft: Strategy and rankings
Make sure you do your homework! If you don't print out rankings or read up on players, I guarantee you will not have a competitive fantasy team. There are no bad fantasy owners except the ones who don't take the time to try. Take time to evaluate players and select your targets before your league's draft. The best way to ensure that you draft the best possible fantasy team is to come up with your own rankings and a strategy ahead of time. It is okay to stray from the strategy from time to time during the draft, but at least try to stick to your original plan. No matter how many "expert" opinions you may hear or read, the bottom line is that it is your team, we can't make the picks for you. Its all up to you, so my suggestion is to value the players as you see fit in your rankings. The experts aren't always right, trust me.
Draft: Know your league rules
NFL coaching legend Bill Parcells once said, "They want you to cook the dinner, at least they ought to let you shop for some of the groceries." Your fantasy draft is where you get to shop for your very own groceries and build a championship caliber fantasy squad.
The most important day of the entire fantasy season is the draft. Make sure before the draft that you know your league rules and scoring rules. Why is this important? Well, how many players and at what positions does your league start every week? Is your league a point-per-reception league? How many points are touchdown passes worth, 4 or 6? Does you league count return yardage? How players are valued can vary greatly based on your league's unique scoring rules. Not knowing them ahead of time can set you back.
Draft: Strategy
We talked about having a strategy earlier, here is what I mean. Depending on where you are picking in the first round, who will you target? An elite RB, a WR or a QB? With the seven elite quarterbacks (Rodgers, Vick, Brady, Rivers, Brees Manning, and Romo) then a considerable drop off, do you want to target one of them in the early rounds? With a select class of elite fantasy wide receivers, how many do you want to make sure you draft? With so much depth at the tight end position, do you want to draft an elite one, or wait till the later rounds? All of these are important questions that you must take into account when drafting.
Draft: Take chances in the late rounds
Taking chances and risks in the early rounds is a recipe for disaster, taking them in the late rounds is a recipe for success. If you draft veterans in the late rounds, you aren't doing yourself any favors, because they have virtually no upside. Taking chances on rookies and young players with upside in the late rounds is the way to go. There are no bad upside picks in the late rounds because if they don't pan out you can just cut them, no big loss. If one of your lottery ticket picks turns into a breakout fantasy performer then it was worth the risk late in your draft. Don't be afraid to take chances late in your draft, you never know who will turn into the next Chris Johnson or Arian Foster.
Preseason: What to watch and what not to
The key things to watch for in training camp and the preseason are injuries, holdouts and who is stepping into a larger role in their team's offense. Teams are very often vague about players' injuries in the preseason, so monitor a player's progress when recovering from an early injury.
When it comes to holdouts like Tennessee Titans star running back Chris Johnson this preseason, they must be monitored closely. If a player's holdout extends into the season, it will have a tremendous effect on the fantasy value of the talent surrounding them. For example, if Johnson holds out, his backup Javon Ringer becomes the starter and has fantasy value until Johnson returns.
Fantasy owners should not read too much into preseason stats. Often times, the huge performances we see in the preseason are coming against second string defenses and players who will not make their team's rosters. The guys to watch are players like Denver running back Willis McGahee or San Diego running back Mike Tolbert -- examples of players who are stepping into larger roles in their teams offenses.
