Fantasy Football 101

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Before you continue reading on, the realm of fantasy football requires the following: ex-tensive amounts of free time, nerdy-looking glasses, a high-powered calculator, all three "Lord of the Rings" movies (extended versions), an aversion to the sun, video tapes of every Super Bowl, and a PhD in mathematics, statistics, or economics, preferably from are putable University.

Okay, we're joking. Among the general public, fantasy sports tend to carry a certain geeky or cultish reputation. Trust us, it does. Every editor at Fanball has stories of the odd (or dis-dainful) looks they receive from people who don't understand or like the concept of fantasy football.

However, we have also had many experiences in which we explain the basics of fantasy football to these cynics, and the response is something along the lines of, "Oh, I thought it was much more complex than that." It's not. Put away your 12-sided die and slide rule, and let's introduce you to this growing activity.

What is fantasy football and why do people participate in it? First off, people who play in fantasy leagues usually begin with a general fondness and understanding of the sport. In the case of football, if you like watching an occasional NFL game and comprehend the fact that one team is trying to get the ball into the end zone (or kick the ball through the up-rights), you have enough knowledge to play fantasy football.

That's just the "football" side, though. The "fantasy" angle is the fun add-on. Think of it as drinking Bass instead of Miller Lite, eating a home-grilled hamburger versus the fast-food version, or watching a movie in a theater with a Dolby Digital Surround EX system instead of on a 15-inch Magnavox in your living room. The latter options will still get the job done, but the former choices enhance the experiences.

Fantasy football allows us non-billionaires to manage a team of real football players and augment the enjoyment of the NFL season. You select players for your squad, decide who to start and who to bench, and cheer on your boys every Sunday and Monday as you play against another team in your league.

What? Who? Where? How? Yes, we know you have a lot of questions after that vague overview. Let's start with a more detailed look at a typical fantasy football roster.

Rosters
Fantasy teams are made up of actual NFL players, and just as on a real team, these men fill certain position spots on your fantasy roster. A typical roster will look as follows:

• Quarterback
• Running Back
• Running Back
• Wide Receiver
• Wide Receiver
• Tight End
• Kicker
• Team Defense
• Bench (any position)
• Bench (any position)
• Bench (any position)
• Bench (any position)
• Bench (any position)

The first eight positions form your fantasy "starting lineup," and the five bench spots arereserve players that you can swap in each week if you so choose. The 12 individuals and one team defense need not have any real-life affiliation. In other words, your fantasy squadis not simply made up of 12 Dallas Cowboy players and the Cowboys' defense. Rather, you mix and match the best players to form the best possible fantasy squad. Thus, a fantasy team might look like this:

• QB: Peyton Manning, Colts
• RB: LaDainian Tomlinson, Chargers
• RB: Clinton Portis, Redskins
• WR: Marques Colston, Saints
• WR: Torry Holt, Rams
• TE: Tony Gonzalez, Chiefs
• K: Adam Vinatieri, Colts
• TD: Carolina Panthers
• BN: Donovan McNabb, Eagles (QB)
• BN: Jamal Lewis, Browns (RB)
• BN: Chester Taylor, Vikings (RB)
• BN: Hines Ward, Steelers (WR)
• BN: Reggie Wayne, Colts (WR)

In this sample case, you've chosen to "start" Manning instead of McNabb, Colston over Ward and Wayne, etc. However, for any given week of the NFL season, you can swap in your bench players for one of your starters. And unlike in real life, using a backup player over a starter won't actually hurt anyone's feelings.

You select these players for your team at the beginning of the season in one of two ways; a Draft or an Auction. We'll discuss that process in detail later on. First, though, let's discuss what it actually means to have these players on your team.

Scoring
Every time players like Packers' quarterback Brett Favre, Steelers' running back Willie Parker, and Patriots' wide receiver Randy Moss take the field, they generate stats—passing yards, rushing yards, receiving yards, and touchdowns. These numbers are often highlight-ed throughout NFL telecasts, and even casual football fans are used to seeing or hearing lines like "Favre has thrown for 235 yards and two touchdowns today."

In fantasy football, those stats translate into points. Okay, we admit, there's a little bit of math involved at this point in the discussion, but it's so easy that even a caveman could do it. All right, a smart caveman.

The most basic fantasy scoring systems only award points for touchdowns and are aptly labeled "touchdown-only" leagues. In those formats, every touchdown an NFL player throws, runs in, catches, returns, or otherwise scores translates into X-amount of points fora fantasy team. Touchdown-only formats often stick to six points for every touchdown, but that "X" amount varies by league.

Using the line above, if Favre throws for 235 yards and two touchdowns in a game, he would be worth 12 fantasy points (6 per score) in most touchdown-only leagues. If Parker visited the end zone once that Sunday, he'd score six points for a fantasy club. If Moss failed to find paydirt, then he'd net a big, fat zero.

Now, let's move on to a second, slightly more complex type of scoring system known as "performance" leagues. These formats account not only for touchdowns but also factor in yardage. In a typical performance system, fantasy owners might receive one point for every25 passing yards and one point for every 10 rushing or receiving yards.

We'll once again employ Favre, Parker and Moss for examples. We have Favre down for 235 yards and two scores, and let's add 63 rushing yards to Parker's one touchdown and 122 yards to Moss' scoreless day. Here's how a performance league scoring chart might look on that Sunday:

Favre: 235 passing yards (9 points) + 2 touchdowns (12 points) = 21 points
Parker: 63 rushing yards (6 points) + 1 touchdown (6 points) = 12 points
Moss: 122 receiving yards (12 points) + 0 touchdowns (0 points) = 12 points

Since every 25 passing yards accounts for one point, Favre scores 9 in that category. He would have to reach 250 yards to tally a 10th point. Parker and Moss score an extra pointevery 10 yards and would need to hit 70 and 130 yards, respectively, before their totals would increase.

Like we said, performance leagues are a slight step up from touchdown-only leagues incomplexity, but you still don't need to be Stephen Hawking to turn the raw NFL stats into fantasy points.

An astute reader will chime in here and ask about kickers and team defense. As in the ac-tual NFL, fantasy kickers are their own species. In both touchdown-only and performanceleagues, kickers usually score one point for every extra point and three per made field goal.Many formats will also reward kickers for hitting longer shots (e.g. four points for everyfield goal of 50-plus yards), but in general, fantasy kickers tend to score in threes and ones,just like real life.

In touchdown-only formats, team defense fantasy scoring often only rewards points whena team returns a fumble or interception for a touchdown or registers a safety. Performance leagues usually add in fantasy scoring for stats like points allowed, sacks, interceptions,and fumbles. Basically, if the defense is creating havoc for the offense, it's scoring good points for your fantasy team.

That's a short overview of fantasy football scoring systems. As fantasy football has grown, so have the variety of scoring methods under the "performance league" umbrella, butin general, fantasy football stats will involve only a little bit of addition and multiplica-tion. The best part about it is that, no matter how simple or complex your league's scor-ing system is, internet-based computer programs such as Fanball Commissioner will doall the dirty work for you. The smart cave man we mentioned earlier doesn't even need to know mathematics; he or she just needs to know how to point and click a computer mouse.Regardless, we'll tackle some more complex scoring formats later, but let's get you moving towards the history of the game and forming or joining an actual league.

In today's Information Age, when one is but a click of the mouse or remote control away from highlights, box scores, and expert analysis, it's tough to imagine that fantasy sports have their origins in Ancient Greece.

The Greeks developed an antiquated form of fantasy sports to honor the Olympic Gamessometime in the eighth century B.C. The first recorded fantasy draft took place in 776 B.C., and featured Koroibos of Elis, a champion chariot racer and easily the best five-tool pen-tathlete of his time, as the No. 1 overall selection. The Romans adopted the practice shortly after Julius Caesar completed the conquest of Gaul in 50 B.C. During gladiatorial contests,the Roman elite chose fighters they thought could avoid being mauled by tigers and bearsand which would destroy their opponents. Points were awarded for gougings, beheadings,and maimings, but the fantasy aspect of the sport never quite caught on, likely becausemost of the first round draft picks were dead by week three of the games.

After a hiatus of about 1,500 years, fantasy sports sprung back to life in the 1970s, whenthe growing influence of technology and television gradually turned most Americans into couch potatoes. Nobody is sure who started the first fantasy football league, but it is gener-ally agreed upon that the 10 people involved had far too much time on their hands, likelydid not have girlfriends, and watched an unhealthy amount of football.

Not content to simply vegetate in front of the TV and watch NFL games each week, they de-sired to take their enjoyment of the game up a notch. They said to themselves, "Hey, wouldn't it be fun if, when my favorite quarterback throws for a touchdown, I also experience the joy of 'throwing' for a touchdown as well?" And thus, a phenomenon was born. Their rules were simple: Each member of the league would select a certain number of NFL players and ac-cumulate points based on the actual statistical performance of those players. If their selected quarterback threw a touchdown, their fantasy team scored six points, if their running back rushed for 100 yards, they accumulated points, and so forth. In a word: Brilliant!

The sport has faced, and overcome, critical obstacles over the past 30 years. The inepti-tude of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers nearly caused the cessation of all fantasy proceedings in 1976. In the 90s, the worthless careers of Rick Mirer, Heath Shuler, and Ki-Jana Carter shook the faith of fantasy footballers from East to West. Fantasy geeks have persevered however, even through the frightening career of Ryan Leaf between 1998 and 2001, a period now commonly known as the Dark Ages. Even the dumbing-down of audiences by television analysts like Joe Theismann and Dan Dierdorf has not held the fantasy commu-nity at bay.

Fantasy games did not truly hit it big, however, until the days of keeping track of statistics by hand (a complicated process that involved something called "mathematics.") ended withthe invention of the Internet by Al Gore in the early 90s. At one time just a sport played by number-crunchers and superfans, fantasy football has now gone mainstream and is played by nearly every football fan who has a television, a computer, and a competitive gene. Numerous companies offer corporate fantasy football leagues for their employees, sports media outlets and fantasy websites provide thousands of dollars in prizes for fantasy con-tests, and millions of die-hard fans find the time every weekend from September to Januaryto sit on the couch, eat greasy food, don their favorite NFL jersey, and cheer on (or curse) their fantasy players for 10 hours every Sunday.

Sounds like fun, huh? So, what are you waiting for?

To the casual observer, fantasy football and etiquette go together like Marv Albert and black fishnet panties, but the truth of the matter is that there are indeed guidelines to be fol-lowed to ensure maximum enjoyment for all parties involved.

Before you embark on your journey into the wonderful world of fantasy football, here are afew etiquette tips to help make that trip more pleasurable.

• Stay
activeIf you commit to playing in a league, you're obligated to actively participate—and thatincludes paying any necessary entry and/or transaction fees stipulated by your league. Howwould you feel if someone in your league didn't like their draft and decided to quit? You may start with a bad hand, but that doesn't mean you can't pick up a few cards along the way and turn it into a winner. You wouldn't walk away if you were holding all aces, would you? Same goes for a slow start. If you lose your first six games, don't stop setting a lineup or making roster moves. By mailing it in, you're giving a freebie to your opponent, whichtips your league's competitive balance. Again, put yourself in someone else's shoes: what if you're a game out of first and need your rival to lose—but their upcoming opponent hasn't set their lineup in five weeks and is starting three players out with injury? The old saying, "Quitters never win," certainly applies here. Moreover, quitters don't get invited back to play next year, either.

• Friendship is one thing, collusion another
A big part of the joy of fantasy football is the camaraderie and competition amongst friends. However, no matter how tight you are with another league member and no matter how close they are to a championship, under no circumstances should you join forces. This includes intentionally trading your best players to your buddy in exchange for a bunch ofstiffs, holding your studs out of the lineup, or dropping key players so your pal can pick them up. Collusion is the cardinal sin of fantasy football and will earn you a one-way ticketout of your league faster than Terrell Owens can renege on a contract.

• Follow the letter AND the spirit of the rules
Your league will have a commissioner and a set of rules to govern play. In many cases, these rules are relatively basic and might not specifically cover each and every situation ofan NFL season. Your commissioner, who is undoubtedly undercompensated for the service they're providing to your league, will do his or her best to make sure things run smoothly. It's up to you to follow the rules that are stated; further, if the written rules don't specifi- interpret the spirit of the rules. Are there corrupt commissioners? Certainly, but they're in the minority and usually winnowed out early in the process. Unless you're in a big-moneyleague (in which case a trustworthy and impartial commissioner is imperative), your fan-tasy football league is about fun. Nobody is out to screw you, so there's no need for you to try to screw the system.

• Trading
We've already touched on the collusion end of trading, but there are some other etiquette factors to be aware of. Don't ignore trade offers, even if they're awful; a counter-offer is usually the best way to get the ball rolling in the right direction, or a simple "thanks butno thanks" if you're not interested. When making offers, you don't have to provide every scrap of information—like the guy you're unloading is about to lose his starting job orwill be nursing a knee injury the rest of the season—but keep in mind that if you make onebad sale you'll be labeled as a peddler of damaged goods. And while there's no need to disclose all information, you do have an obligation to at least not flat-out lie. Speculation,as in "Moss could get traded," is fine, but direct deceit is not the direction you want to go.And once you've agreed on a trade, don't back out between the time you hang up with your trading partner and the time you inform your commissioner about the deal. All sales should be final. Again, if you're branded as a bad trading partner it's a tough scarlet letter to shed.

• Talk a good game
Trash talk is a major part of the game, especially since you can't literally take the field against your opponent. A little razzing is all in the spirit of the game, but some might not take it as well as others. While there's nothing more enjoyable than planting a burr under someone's saddle, keep in mind that the worm could easily turn and the shoe be on the other foot. Be creative, be competitive, but in the end remain civil. It's a game, after all.

• Have fun
And that brings us to our final point. Fantasy football is all about bringing more enjoyment to a great game. If you're having fun, you're probably playing it right. If you're not enjoy-ing yourself, get out. Try a new league, or a new sport, or maybe even a new hobby. Fan-tasy football is supposed to be fun, and there's no reason to play if it's not.

If you're more intrigued about starting up a fantasy football league than the sisterhood is by their traveling pants (or so we're told), let us help you out. After all, we feel there are very few things in life that provide as much enjoyment as a well organized, well-executed, and thoroughly fulfilling fantasy league. Even if you lack the genius of Alex Smith, the sense of humor of Will Ferrell, or the obsessive organizational skills of Howard Hughes, all you need to do is follow the guidelines below to get your league up and running.

Owners and Logistics
The first step is to assemble your curious, pigskin-loving masses yearning to breathe fan-tasy football. Before you send out the request for owners, think about how many teams you want and what type of personality you want your league to take on. What is more impor-tant, competitiveness, having fun, or a fine blend of the two? Also consider that the num-ber of teams will greatly affect the depth of your rosters. If your league consists mostly of beginners, it is wise to limit the number of teams until everyone is more comfortable with all the aspects of the league.

Once you have settled on owners, you can worry about breaking them into divisions and coming up with a schedule. If you are lost for division names, look to the Fantasy Schedules section near the back of Fantasy Football 101 for some inspiration on both how to divide into divisions, how to creatively name those divisions, and a default schedule for your league. The main thing to consider on schedules is whether you want to be playing during week 17 of the season, when many of the playoff teams will be resting their stud players in preparation for the postseason. As your fantasy football lead counsel, we strenuously object to playing fantasy football in week 17. However, if you are willing to accept that possibility, carry on, but don't say we didn't warn you.

Pick a Commissioner
Even the most organized league will need a commissioner to guide it through the season. The commissioner makes sure that the events leading up to and during the season run smoothly, assuming a solid set of rules is in place. The commissioner should be someone who can be objective and fair to all owners while addressing any needs to that come up be-fore or during the season. Consider a fine mix of Benito Mussolini, Chris Farley, and Marc Summers (minus Double Dare's one-ton human hamster wheel or the burrito surprise).

Scoring System
The biggest decision to be made is how your league will be scored. Will it be of the head-to-head or total points variety? Both league formats depend upon a prearranged point system, but there is a difference in how those point totals translate into winners and losers. Head-to-head is the most common form of fantasy football leagues. It parallels the NFL because you have one opponent each week, with the weekly point totals of your team and your opponent determining wins and losses. Total point leagues are decided by the points accumulated by players in your lineup each week, with the total points at the end of theseason determining the winner. This formatting decision will determine how people pre-pare for your league draft or auction.

Draft or Auction?
Fantasy leagues have two options for how players are dispersed and team rosters are built.A draft is often preferred by beginners and it does the job, but with every owner having their favorite players, why not offer them the chance to outbid other owners in an auction to get him on their roster? Then, when you are ready to take your league to the next level, you can consider keeper/dynasty leagues. These leagues reward owners for their shrewd drafting or bidding by allowing them to retain players from year to year. These are just a few of the many twists you can add to your league format and we encourage you to explore all of them.

Money Matters
Whether your league winners are rewarded by pride or money, finances will come into play. The entry and transaction fees can be pooled into prize money, and you'll need to determine how that is divvied up. You'll also need to allocate a portion of your league fees to pay for a commissioner/stat service. You already know where to find Fanball, so why not run your league using Fanball Commissioner? Your league owners will be giddier than Lance Bass at a San Francisco bathhouse when they see the personalized league and team pages that offer you an online draft room, customizing of your rules, live scoring updates, integrated content from the largest full-time staff of fantasy experts in the industry, and much more. If nothing else, using Fanball Commissioner will greatly reduce the possibility that your league commissioner is found jogging naked, babbling nonsense about Rex Grossman's completion percentage and Terrell Owens' dropped balls.

Transactions
Whether it's free agent pickups or weaseling your competition into trades, both require some thought as to how your league will handle them. If you use Fan-ball Commissioner, your headaches in facilitating these moves will be far less pronounced. For picking up free agents, you can allow players to select players off the free agent list or teams can bid for players. Trades are often one of the more enjoyable aspects of fantasy leagues post-draft/auction and you should encourage owners to not be scared of making them. When it comes down to it, a league without transactions isn't really a league.

A fantasy football league can provide a tremendous amount of enjoyment while causing family members to question your mental state when they find you screaming at the TV for the sixteenth straight Sunday. Consult some of the other articles in "Fantasy Football 101" about league types, drafts versus auction styles, and commissioner responsibilities, to name just a few. They will get into the proper detail to help you make further decisions on how to make the necessary decisions that will shape your league.

There are countless types of leagues that you may choose from. While your league may vary in terms of size and scoring, the most basic league type distributes players prior to the season, and at the end of the year, all players become free agents to be distributed again the following year. However, to promote long-term involvement by your league's participants, there are other types of leagues that you can build to keep owners invested not only for the current season, but for years down the line.

Keeper Leagues
A keeper league is one in which a player or players remain on an owner's roster for more than one season. There are several ways in which this can work; most simply, you might choose to allow each team to keep one player of its choosing for the next season. Depending on how you want to structure this, the owner could keep this player for many years to come, or you could choose to restrict the number of years for which an owner can keep that specific player.

Dynasty Leagues
Dynasty leagues are specific types of keeper leagues in which owners keep a player or players for an extended period of time, or even for the duration of their careers. Obviously, this type of league dramatically affects the way you view players on draft day, as longevity becomes a critical factor.

Salary Caps and Player Contracts
Leagues that employ salary caps are designed to force owners to consider the relative and comparative value of players. Most often, salary cap leagues distribute players with an auction instead of a draft, giving owners the ability to pay a player whatever value he or she believes is appropriate. Salary caps and player contracts are also often employed in keeper leagues in order to combat the rising value of players over time. For example, an owner might want to keep Peyton Manning for as many years as your league allows, but if he has to pay him a significant and increasing salary over time, he or she will have to consider the ramifications of that contract on the rest of his team.

Total Points Leagues
In Total Points leagues, owners do not play head-to-head weekly match-ups. Rather, their weekly point totals are continuously aggregated over the course of the season in a traditional rotisserie-style scoring system.

You can pick your friends. You can pick your nose. But you can't pick your friends' Commish's nose. Or something like that.

While it may seem like a frivolous step in the process, picking a Commissioner for your fantasy football league is serious business. A quality Commissioner requires ambition, initiative, work ethic, objectivity, enthusiasm, responsibility, leadership, knowledge, com-munication skills, and technical saavy. The fact that you've taken active steps to educate yourself in this Fantasy Football 101 tutorial inherently makes you a solid candidate.

The Commish's first and most important responsibility will be to set up your league—a task that includes selecting the appropriate software (Fanball Commissioner reigns su-preme, just ask us), establishing the scoring format and league rules, and identifying theappropriate time, venue, and method for distributing players.

Throughout the season, the Commish will also be responsible for administering transac-tions, overseeing trades, and settling league disputes (these tasks will require a significantdegree of objectivity, as the Commish has to avoid playing favorites and his own team may be directly impacted by such issues). Therefore, it is critical that you select a trustworthy individual who is committed to upholding the sanctity of the league itself above all else,including his own team's fortunes.

If there is still a degree of doubt as to who you should pick to run your league, the next stepis simple. Show all the candidates the list of responsibilities described above, ask them toreview this entire tutorial in detail, and provide a 250-word essay on their candidacy. We guarantee that will separate the pretenders from the contenders.

Who is that guy that everyone keeps calling "commish" and why is everyone sucking up tohim? Unless you happen to be watching a copy of the newly released DVD of the old tail on "The Shield," that's probably the commissioner of your fantasy football league.

The reason the other members of the league are being so nice to the commissioner is be-cause he/she is the master of your fantasy football universe. Much like NFL head-cheese Roger Goodell, a fantasy football commissioner typically serves as the chief decisionmaker for his individual league.

However, you should feel no obligation to suck up to your commissioner. Some of your rival owners might do it in hopes of getting in his good graces. Yet while some commis-sioners abuse their power to such a degree that even the Emperor from the Star Wars saga would blush, a good commissioner is more concerned with making sure the game takesplace on an even playing field for all owners.

Inevitably, every league has an owner, we'll call him John, who takes great pride in search-ing for loopholes in the rulebook that can be exploited to help his team win. Were it not for people like John, a commissioner probably wouldn't be called on more than once or twice each year. Yet because there are people like John out there, it's important that a commis-sioner is chosen to represent your league.

Ideally, a commissioner is someone who has nothing at stake in the league that he (no of-fense ladies, but we're sticking with he/his/him from here on out because we're alreadytired of writing his/her) governs. In other words, the ideal commissioner doesn't have a team entered in the league.

A commissioner who doesn't have a horse in the race is always a plus, but it's also unreal-istic to assume that you'll find someone who has nothing better to do than to rule over yourleague for little or no compensation. After all, listening to fantasy football owners bicker over rules violations and bad trades probably isn't what anyone would consider an ideal pastime.

Plus, the last thing you want is for an owner like John to govern the league, as he will befree to exploit all of those rules while answering to no one but himself. So if you can't find a non-owner to govern your league, the members should elect one owner to serve as the commissioner.

The commissioner's power can be as vast as league owners choose. His duties might include overturning lopsided trades, creating schedules and divisions, devising the scoringformat, determining how free agency claims are made, etc.

And just in case the other owners don't recognize John for the snake that he is and elect s generally a good idea to create a rule that prevents him from having too much power. Really, it can be as simple as affording each owner the right to challenge a ruling. In this case, each owner (or a panel of knowledgeable, veteran owners) is allowedvote on an issue, and if the majority votes against the commissioner, his ruling is over-turned.

Above all else (at least in our opinion), the commissioner should be responsible for makingsure the fridge is stocked with beer on draft night. He doesn't necessarily have to make the beer run or pay for it out of his own pocket, but he should at least delegate these tasks toother owners to ensure that the supply doesn't run dry before the last player is picked. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Welcome to what most fantasy football players consider as the best day of the season. It's a day when fantasy owners gather to consume large volumes of alcohol, talk trash, and select their fantasy teams for the coming season.

A fantasy draft follows the same basic rules of the NFL rookie draft that takes place every April. If you're joining a new league, the draft order will likely be determined by a randomsystem such as drawing numbers out of a hat or by allowing a computer system to dictatewhere each owner will select. If you're taking control of a preexisting team, your draftorder might be predetermined based on how the team you've inherited performed the yea rbefore.

There are a few differences between the NFL rookie draft and a fantasy draft. For starters, the NFL draft only involves rookie players, whereas fantasy owners select from the entire pool of NFL talent.

Another key difference is that most fantasy leagues use the serpentine system, which re-verses the draft order after each round throughout the duration of the process. For instance,if you hold the No. 10 pick in the first round, you'll hold the first overall pick in the secondround, the 10th overall pick in the third round, the first overall pick in the fourth round, etc.The purpose of the serpentine system is to help even out the process for owners who picklate in the first round.

DON'T OVEREMPHASIZE LAST YEAR'S STATS
Draft day arrives and you're on the clock with your first selection. You look over the stats from last season and decide to select the player who scored the most touchdowns. Stop!

Just because a player performed well last season doesn't mean he's a lock to produce simi-lar numbers this season. Any number of things can change during the offseason to help or hurt a player's standing. The player you've set your sights on might have been traded to a new team, as is the case with Thomas Jones this year. Or maybe you're focused on a quarterback such as Matt Hasselbeck who lost his best weapon during the offseason.

Perhaps the player's team used the rookie draft to select a player who might bump your guy out of the starting lineup (see Chester Taylor). There is also the possibility that your player is threatening to hold out if his team doesn't cave into his contract demands (hello Larry Johnson)? Or maybe your player's coaching staff was overhauled dramatically during the offseason, which might lead to the team rushing more than usual or visa-versa.

CHEAT SHEETS
Don't feel too overwhelmed by the various player scenarios detailed in the previous sec-ball fans to keep up on. If you happen to be one of those fans, great. If you just don't have the time or energy to keep tabs on such information, then let the experts do the work for you by checking out our various online cheat sheets.

Using a cheat sheet is the equivalent of allowing a staff of experts to do all of the prep work for you. We'll even rank each player based on their fantasy value. Just be sure to check the date on any cheat sheet you obtain to ensure that the rankings are based on themost current information available.

Even if you prefer to use your own knowledge, we suggest that you use a cheat sheet to help you follow along during the draft by simply crossing out a player's name as he is se-lected. Your fellow fantasy owners may eventually forgive you for shouting out the name of one player who's already been picked, but you'll make them angrier than Tony Siragusa showing up five minutes late for all you can eat clam night at the Old Country Buffet.

MAKING YOUR PICK
So you've either done your homework, purchased a cheat sheet, or both. You are officially on the clock and have to decide which player to select with your first overall pick. The de-cision should come down to choosing between the best quarterback, running back, or widereceiver available.

If you decide to use a cheat sheet, you could simply select the best players available earlyin the draft. As the draft unfolds, however, you'll need to pay close attention to make sure that you are spreading your talent throughout the various positions.

For instance, let's say you take a quarterback with your first pick. When it's time to make your second pick, your cheat sheet or personal rankings might show that the best avail-able player is a quarterback. Most leagues only allow owners to start one quarterback eachweek, so there's no point in selecting another signal caller until you have you've filled your starting running backs, wide receivers, and tight end.

DRAFT STRATEGY
Some fantasy owners insist on selecting a pair of rushers with their first two picks becausethey consider the running back position to be the most in important fantasy football. This is arguably the oldest, most common, and generally safest of all draft ploys.

If we've learned anything from New Kids on the Block domination of the Billboard charts back in the eighties, it's that popularity isn't always synonymous with talent. Likewise, while the two running back strategy is the most popular, it's not always the most successful.

Because the two-back approach became so popular, some owners elected to buck the sys-tem by taking the opposite approach to drafting. The basic strategy behind this approach is that while other owners are fighting over the running backs, you select the best players atother positions. Later, while the other owners are scrambling to pick up their quarterbacks and wide receivers, you'll have your pick of the sleeper running backs.

SLEEPERS AND ROOKIES
Most owners enter draft day with a list of sleepers they intend to target at some point dur-ing the draft. The fatal mistake some owners make is getting too attached to their sleepers and selecting them long before they need to. This is no different than the Vikings reaching for Tarvaris Jackson in the 2006 draft even though he probably would have been available two or even three rounds later.

Once again, cheat sheets are helpful because they should give you some indication of thetrue values of your fantasy sleepers. Yes, there is a chance that another owner will select one of your sleepers two rounds sooner than your cheat sheet predicted. But rest assuredthat this rival owner reached for that player, and you'll now have a chance to select a player who otherwise would not have been available.

If you follow college football or watch the NFL draft, chances are there are a few rookie players who have piqued your interest. That's great, but there are a few things that you need to remember about rookies. For starters, first-year quarterbacks and wide receiversrarely produce great numbers during the rookie seasons.

Running backs generally have more success than other rookies, but don't make the mistake of selecting first-year backs earlier than you should. For every LaDainian Tomlinson who thrives during his rookie year, there is a bust like William Green. In other words, selecting rookies earlier than they appear in cheat sheet rankings can be a risky proposition.

HAVE FUN
Draft day is usually the one time of year that all league members are gather in one place, somake the most of it. Remember, all records are equal on draft day, so don't be afraid to talk trash to your fellow owners no matter how much experience they have compared to you.Stock the fridge full of beer, order pizzas, and treat the draft like the memorable event that it should be.

I've touched on this topic before, both online at Fanball.com and in the pages of our printpublication Fantasy Football Weekly, but the idea deserves expanded communication.

What would you do if I told you that I've got a sure-fire way to finish the first three roundwith three elite players. In most drafts, it can be done. But you'll have to be brave. And you'll have to be George Costanza.

There are many classic episodes of "Seinfeld," but few resonate more than an episodecalled "The Opposite" in which Costanza tried to change his luck by doing the opposite ofhis usual decisions. By the end of the episode, he had found a girlfriend, moved out of hisparents' house, and gotten a job with the Yankees. Not bad.

Using Costanza as a model for any kind of decision-making is highly unwise. After all, we're talking about a guy that once said, "Yeah, I'm a great quitter. It's one of the few things I do well. I come from a long line of quitters. My father was a quitter; my grandfa-ther was a quitter. I was raised to give up."

But "do the opposite" has some validity in the world of fantasy football. After all, how many times have you left a draft thinking that a particular team was terrible, only to have itwin a championship. How many times have you left a draft convinced that your team wasgreat, only have your team display more holes than the studio audience of "The View"? Thought so. It might not hurt to upend your thinking.

Round	Typical Draft	Opposite Draft
One	Running back	Wide receiver
Two	Running back	Wide receiver
Three	Wide receiver	Quarterback
Four	Wide receiver	Running back
Five	Quarterback	Running back
Six	Wide receiver	Running back
Seven	Running back/Wide receiver	Running back
Eight+	Best available	Best available

Typical Draft
The Typical Draft should look very familiar to you. In fantasy circles, almost everyone drafts off an age-old adage: you've got to have running backs. So the Typical Draft starts -ry running backs and receivers are squared away, so many teams will fill the gap at quarter-back before building some depth at wide receiver and running back.

I'm not saying every team in every league shakes out exactly this way. But in my various duties I talk to thousands of fantasy footballers, and I'm absolutely certain that the Typical Draft—and minor variations thereof—are exceedingly common.

The Typical Draft gets you one elite runner, a quality runner, some decent wide receivers, an okay quarterback, and very little depth, especially at running back—the position thatsuffers the most injuries and has the least depth. It's not a terrible strategy—but it puts an emphasis on luck. If your runners stay healthy, you'll probably be competitive. If either of your two main guys goes down, you're probably in trouble.

Opposite Draft
The Opposite Draft goes like this: while everyone is busy taking running backs early, you'll take two of the best receivers. If your league is really running back heavy, you could come out of round two with the two best wide receivers. In round three, you'll likely findthat only a couple of quarterbacks have been taken. It's certainly possible you may find that a top-five quarterback has slipped to the third round. Now it's time to take a series of run-ning backs, figuring that one or two will stick.

The tricky part of the Opposite Draft is the necessity to unearth sleeper running backs.They're out there, but finding them will test your fantasy football insight, skill, and strat-egy. Here are some tactics for finding serviceable backs in the middle rounds:

• Try taking both parts of a running back combo platter (Julius Jones/Marion Barber; DeAngelo Williams/DeShaun Foster), and hope that one guy shakes out as the leader, or that injury sidelines one of them.
• Gamble on guys coming off bad years or on the decline (Warrick Dunn), while insulating the pick by taking his backup (Jerious Norwood) at the end of the draft.
• You can eschew yards, and just select potential goal-line backs like TJ Duckett
• Often, good backs on low-profile teams will slide. Look for guys like Cleveland's Jamal Lewis or Tampa Bay's Cadillac Williams to be available in the fourth round or fifth round.

How the Opposite Draft can dominate
Through three rounds, the Opposite Draft team can easily net your team three elite players.Comparatively, through three rounds, the Typical Draft team has just one elite player, the running back taken in the first round. Now, if you employ the Opposite Draft strategy and can get okay play from the running back position, your dominant quarterbacks and widereceivers should do enough to win many of your games. Even betterges as a stud, well, you'll steamroll your league.

Is the Opposite Draft right for
you?If you're a novice fantasy football player, you're probably not ready for the Opposite Draft. Stick to the Typical Draft because and leave the duty of finding running back sleepers to the veterans.

If you're a veteran, but you can't tolerate the notion of letting three rounds pass before get-ting your first running back, cling to your Kotex and stick to the Typical Draft. The rest of us will take it from here.

The inability to perform simple addition or cope with addition's tricky friend, subtraction, is one of only two reasonable excuses for fantasy football leagues not employing the auc-tion as their player-selection vehicle.

The other excuse is the inability to find a single date during the summer calendar in whichall league owners can gather in one place for a three-hour chunk of time. Of course, anyleague that faces such insurmountable scheduling bugaboos ought to seriously look at dis-banding in light of the obviously questionable commitment of all involved.

Assuming your league can somehow find a day that works for owners to gather in the samelocation and that everyone has at least a third-grade education, the auction is and alwayshas been the Fanball.com-endorsed preference over the draft. Why do leagues continue to insist on settling for an inherently unfair system of distributing players via a draft? The mystery is more confounding than Donald Trump's hair.

"It's just the way we've always done it" isn't a good reason. It's just a bad excuse offered up by those who still play eight track tapes, don't have email addresses, and have never heard of TiVo. "But it's just an office league and everyone is new to fantasy football and an auction is so complicated and takes more time." We understand the need to keep it simple for those just dipping their toes in the roaring waters of fantasy football, but time-consum-ing and complicated are both auction misconceptions. Auctions are not at all confusing and (when done properly) use no more clock than a draft.

A serpentine draft (1-10, 10-1, 1-10) is unfair because if you have any pick other than the first overall selection, you have no chance of getting the player you most want to build your team around. And that's the point, isn't it? In fantasy football, shouldn't you be able to get the one player you really want more than anyone else? Having a system that does not allowyou to do so, only subtracts from the fun. The auction permits you to go after any player. It is a far more equitable way of distributing the talent, involves more strategy, and believe it or not, it's more fun.

A draft compensates those owners who don't do their homework. Simply pick up Fantasy Football Weekly's three offseason issues over the course of the summer, bring them with on draft day, and remain just sober enough to avoid vomiting on your cheat sheets and you'll be okay. This is especially true if you are fortunate enough to draw a card that posi-tions your team in a favorable draft slot. Good luck and lack of preparation are two thingsthat should be downplayed as much as possible in fantasy football, not rewarded. Those who don't prepare won't be able to hang with those that do at an auction.

Drafts also tend to be tedious and can get pretty boring while you sit and wait betweenpicks. In an auction, owners can be involved in the bidding on every single player as longas they have the money and roster space available. You have to think quickly and change strategies on the fly. And yes, you still have time to drink and eat. Just don't try belting out a bid with pizza in your mouth…it's not pretty.

Now that I've extolled the virtues of an auction for the umpteenth time, hopefully convincing the unwashed masses to make the switch, a basic "How to Auction" lesson seems appropriate.

How to Run an Auction
Once you have completed the very fundamental duty of choosing an auction date, the nextjob is to locate a venue in which to hold said auction. Any place will do, but preferable amenities include: chairs, a nearby refrigerator fully stocked with beer, and close access to a bathroom.

Step three is finding an auctioneer. You'll need someone who has mastered the addition and subtraction skills mentioned above. A quick warning: designating one of the owners in your league to be auctioneer works about as well as hiring Michael Vick to dogsit for the weekend. Not a good idea. Instead, just convince a friend to handle the duties by offer-ing free food and booze. He or she doesn't need to own a gavel to be auctioneer-eligible, although it wouldn't hurt.

Auction rules then need to be made clear. The first decision is how much mythical money each team will have to bid upon players. $100 is a nice, round number to use for those thatmay have killed a few too many brain cells back in their beer bong days. Bidding is alwaysdone in whole-dollar increments. You will need to set aside a week for the auction if you allowed bidding by the penny.

At all times during the auction, owners must have at least one dollar for every remainingopen spot on their roster. If you need three more players to fill out your squad, you need to have three bucks left in your auction budget. Thus, the auctioneer (or better yet, more than one person) needs to constantly track how much bid money each team has left. When a player is purchased, subtract the amount that was spent from that owner's auction budget. This is where that always-tricky subtraction stuff comes into play. To make things handy, post every team's remaining budget on a white board, tag board, or pieces of paper where everyone in the room can easily see it.

You are now ready to auction. Each owner takes turns putting players up for bid so deter-mine an easy order to remember. It doesn't matter who goes first; unlike the draft, there's no advantage to going first, sixth, or 10th. Just pick an order: go around the roomstarting just to the left of the refrigerator for instance.

Bidding is simple. Let's say Jose has the first turn. He decides to offer up "$11 on LaDai-nian Tomlinson." Any owner can then increase the bid on Tomlinson by any whole dollar amount. For instance, Charlie can yell out "16 dollars!" only to immediately have his bidupped to "19 bucks!" by Tom, who has a thing about bidding in prime number increments. . goes to Jose. In the extremely likely event that he goes for more than $11, Tomlinson remains available until the bidding slows and finally stops with a "going once, going twice, sold!" from your all-powerful auctioneer. Owners can jump in and out of the bidding at any time, so there's room for quite a bit of gamesmanship. It's important to remember, however, that an owner may not bid on a player or even offer up a player for to be bid upon if his roster is full at that player's position. After the auctioneer closes out the bidding on one player, the next owner in line puts up another player for bid. And so the process continues until all the rosters are full. That's all there is to it. Who said auctions were difficult?

Auction Strategy
Just as you would plan for a draft by ranking players at each position and then conductingmock drafts to simulate multiple scenarios, so too must you prepare for your auction. The planning is different, though. Mocking won't be possible. Unless you are afflicted with multiple personality disorder and have the ability to arrange for 10 or 12 of your personasto bid against each other at a predetermined time, you'll need to forgo holding your own mock auction.

Auctions are much more unpredictable than drafts, however, so doing a mock auction may be of limited value. In a draft, the best players go first. In an auction, many of the topplayers will invariably be sold early, but some of the best players might not be submitted for bidding until late in the proceedings when budgets are running low, thus affecting the dollar amount the player sells for.

The complexities involved in forecasting player values should not drive you to calculatingnumerous auction algorithms to account for roster spot and salary cap differentials. To even contemplate doing so gives me the type of headache I only thought possible from havinga sinus infection and a hangover while listening to Ryan Seacrest and eating ice cream too fast.

Keep it simple. Rank players as you would for a draft and then assign them auction valuesfor what you think they will go for in your league if they are brought up for bid early on.If you need some help in this regard, we've done much of the work for you on our cheatsheets, which each come equipped with auction values. You're welcome.

Have a Budget
Now that you have established some baseline player values predicated on your league's size and each team's auction salary cap, it's time to create your team's budget and your team's player values. In other words: who do you absolutely need on your team, who do you want on your team, who would you be okay with on your team…and how much wouldyou be willing to pay for them?

For the sake of simplicity, we'll assume your league uses the very standard $100 auction day salary cap and a 13-player roster: two quarterbacks, four running backs, four widereceivers, a tight end, a kicker, and a team defense. Begin with a blank 13-man roster and . Then start filling in the dollar amounts you'll be willing to pay for each. It will soon become clear that there are countless ways to assemble a roster via the auction.That's the point. Make a plan A and a plan B. Then go ahead and make a plan C, D, E, and F. Each of these "plans" will be potential rosters, with players you need, like, and don't mind spread among the 13 positions and adding up to $100.

The ability to even do such an exercise underscores one important way in which an auc-tion is superior to a draft—if there are one or two players you absolutely must have on yourteam, you can get them as long as you are willing to pay the price. The same cannot be said of a draft, in which the luck of the draw might leave you with the 10th pick. But again, Iam not really here to extol the virtues of the auction for the trillionth time.

There are two general budget strategies that most owners employ—the pyramid and the silo. A "pyramid" (or "studs and scrubs") approach is one in which you spend big on one or two players—perhaps as much as $80—and then fill in the rest of your roster with cheap talent, including several"one dollar wonders." The "silo" approach is where you don't spend big money, but also aren't forced to scavenge for $1-talent at the end of the proceedings. The silo budget meta-phor indicates that you spread your money evenly throughout your roster—you might havea $20 player or two, and several in the $5-to-$15 range.

One factor to keep in mind when planning your budget: don't be afraid to go the extra buck or two where the talent pool is thinnest. In other words, if you feel that there are onlythree quarterbacks you'd be happy leaving the auction with as your starter, you might need to turn a few of those $5 and $3 roster spots into $2 and $1 spots and beef up the pot ofmoney you have set aside for purchasing one of those top signal callers.

Which type budget you use will be based in part on the answer to the first question asked:who do you absolutely need on your team? If the answer is Steven Jackson or Peyton Man-ning (or both) you're going with the pyramid approach, like it or not. If you feel uneasyabout putting all your eggs in one or two baskets, the silo approach is the way to go. Bothhave proven to be successful so it really just comes down to which tactic you feel morecomfortable with.

In-Auction Strategy
It should be a given that you will need to monitor your own roster, your remaining money, and the maximum amount you have left to bid at any given point during the auction. Butyou will also need to keep track of the other teams. You need to know how much money has been spent by the other owners and which positions they have filled. will have this information prominently displayed for all to see at the auction venue, but beprepared just in case the festivities are poorly planned or the white board with all the perti-nent details is tough to see from across the room after six beers. Knowing which positionshave been filled by each team tells you which positions they can't bid on and which posi-tions they have yet to fill. Combining positions left to fill with the amount of money theyhave spent also tells you the maximum bid of each owner. This crucial information will come in handy during the second half of the auction.

Spending
The most powerful position to be in on auction day is to have the most money left in yourcoffers. Part of your spending strategy should be landing some of the guys you want, while the other should be saving your money for the second half of the auction. Knowing howlong to hold your cash is something that comes with experience, but in general, if you areamong the owners with the most left at around the half-way point, you will be in goodshape. Such a position will afford you the opportunity to buy nearly any player that you re-ally want over the second half of the auction.

Spending too much money too soon might land you a few great players, but it will alsoforce you to sit out the bidding until many of the other owners spend themselves down toyour level. The result is a couple top players and a whole bunch of leftovers. Conversely, holding onto your money too long nets you a team filled with average players, forces youto over-spend on players at the end when you could have bought much better players at the same price 45 minutes earlier, and in some cases it leaves you with money left over—the cardinal sin of auctions.

Bidding
Bidding is at once the most difficult, most important, and most enjoyable part of the auc-tion. It can empty your opponents' wallets, stick them with players they don't want, and land you end-game bargains. An owner with the most precise and polished rankings can be easily out-done at an auction by someone who's a better bidder.

Let's start with offering players up for bid. Auction newbies will tend to throw out a player they want when it's their turn. Bad idea! ding, you have many strategies to consider. If you only offer up players you want when it's your turn, even the most inebriated of your opponents will figure you out within two or three rounds. What does that accomplish? Less money in your bank—and in most cases a lot less money because other owners will "bid you up" knowing that you will pay more toget the guy you submitted.

The object of bidding is to waste other owners' money, not yours. The less they have to spend, the better position you will be in. It's pretty basic stuff.

Thus, it often makes more sense to throw players out for bid that you don't want on your team. But you can't just toss out "Ron Dayne for one dollar" and expect other owners to get all lathered up like they were checking out an Eva Longoria spread in Maxim. Toss out a dud, and you'll be stuck with him. The ideal strategy is to throw out the name of a star player that, for whatever reason, you don't want on your team. Then watch as the other owners go after him in a bidding war that winds up taking a huge bite out of someone's budget. All that being said, you can't stick with this tactic every time it's your turn—or else savvy owners will get a read on you. Mix it up. Toss out a big name stud you don't want one time, followed by a good player that you want, followed by someone that you don't. Such a varied approach will make your intentions undecipherable. Late in the proceedings,you can "freeze out" other owners with opening bids that are just above their maximum,which is why it is imperative to keep track of such things.

You also need to alter your approach when it's not your turn to initiate the bidding. Re-member, as long as you have money to spend and an available roster spot, you can bid all you want. Don't be obvious when bidding on guys you want. Some guys fold their arms or adjust their glasses when they want a guy. For others, it's a rapid-fire-up-the-bid-imme-diately-after-someone-else-raises-it bidding approach that makes it so easy to get a "tell". You don't want to be like that. Jump in on the bidding fast and furious early on for guys you don't want, and then duck out. Lay in the weeds for guys that you do want, only jump-ing in at the end. Then, do the exact opposite. Again, you have to vary the way you bid on players or else other owners will figure you out.

This all leads us to the trickiest bidding strategy, the aforementioned "bidding up." It's a great weapon, but you can't over-use it or you will suffer for it. "Bid up" means to raise the bid on a player for the sole purpose of draining another's bankroll. It's nasty, but it's the way to play the game. The best time to bid someone up is early, when the owner you are targeting has ample cap room to spend foolishly with. The best tar, or the dude with the collection of Marvin Harrison bobblehead dolls. If he says uno, you say i>dos, if he says tres, you say catorce! It he says $25, you go $30. Squeeze every dollar you can from him. It doesn't mater if he's your brother; he'd do the same thing to you.

The obvious danger to bidding up is getting stuck with a guy you don't want at a price well above book value. This happens when the owner getting bid up, turns the tables and stops bidding. You got served, you got clowned, you got whatever you want to call it…but you also got a guy you don't want and a lot less money. It's a beautiful thing when it happens to someone else.

Make the Switch
I once met a guy who said that his league tried an auction, but didn't like it so they switched back. Note the word "once" in the preceding sentence. Every other fantasy foot-ball player I have ever spoken with that has been in a league that switched from draft toauction has told me that they loved it and would never go back.

Does your league still use the draft? Start rallying league members and badgering the com-missioner—show them this article if you have to. It's never too late to switch to an auction.

Above everything else, fantasy sports is about having fun, and that should resonate in yourteam name and logo. While it may be an afterthought to some owners, the time spent creat-ing a unique team name shows your competition you're serious about both having a goodtime and building a team that will pummel your opponents at all costs; after all, that's what the medic is for.

Finding the right moniker for your team starts with figuring out what inspires or motivatesyou. Wshows, current and past events, name plays, alliteration, and family to be a few of the strongest sources of ideas.

Movies
Mattress Police (from Fletch)
Machine Gun Jubblies (fromAustin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me)
Chickens with Large Talons (from Napoleon Dynamite)

TV Shows
Vandelay Industries (from Seinfeld0
The Red Menace (from Seinfeld)
Milkbone Underwear (from Cheers)

Current/Past Events
The Ron Mexico Experience (thank you, Michael Vick)
Pat O'Brien's Harem (thank you, Betsy)
Name PlaysPaulverizers (from Paul Charchian)
CornBolio (from Bo Mitchell)

Alliteration
Millhouse Maulers
Apu's Armslingers
Flanders Flea Flickers

Family
Charlie's Angels (derived from an owner with multiple children)
At Your Cervix (from an owner whose wife was pregnant)
Cooperstown (from an owner with a son named Cooper)

• Pulling an image from the Internet - careful of the sites you access at the office
• Digging up old pictures of Aunt Beatrice or Uncle Rico
• Grabbing that camera (digital or film) and remembering the world is your canvas
• Bribing your artistic college roommate with as much beer as it takes to get the job done
• Taking your child's first artwork from daycare or preschool

You'll get some owners who shrug and roll their eyes when you mention team names and negative STD test belonging to Ron Mexico, they could be too stuffy for your league's own good. So in between your preseason preparation and league draft or auction, reservesome time to brainstorm a team name and corresponding logo. If nothing else, it will showeveryone you're serious about competing, yet prepared for gut-wrenching fun.

While drafting a good team is obviously very important, equally important is the abilityto effectively ditch underperforming players on your own team for available players on the rise. Fantasy football owners are constantly tinkering with their lineups due to injuriesand/or ineffectiveness, and rarely will finish the season with the same team they started with after the draft.

That is why one of the most important aspects of your league is to regulate the distributionof free agents throughout the season. All players not on any team's roster at a given point in time are considered free agents.

Before talking about the different ways of acquiring free agents, let's discuss the waivers process. Waivers are used as a way to allow all owners in your league equal access to free agents. Players are on waivers if they weren't on anyone's roster at the beginning of the -ers until a set time and date during each week (usually Tuesday or Wednesday), at which time any claimed free agents are awarded to the appropriate team based on the methodsdescribed below.

There are several commonly accepted ways of divvying up free agents:

1) First-come, first-served: In this method of player distribution, players are awarded to the first owner who is able to contact the commissioner or pick up the player via theinternet. For example, say one of my fellow league members' top running back, LaDainian Tomlinson, goes down with a career-threatening knee injury in the third quarter and No.1 Fantasy Football Addict Guy is sitting there on the couch watching the game with his laptop computer and the satellite television package that allows him to watch 10 gamesat a time. Within 10 seconds, depending on his connection speed, Addict Guy claims Tomilnson's backup, Michael Turner, thereby preventing Tomlinson's owner, who had the misfortune of being forced to do something with the wife and kids instead of fallinginto a zombie-like football trance all Sunday, from grabbing him. The advantage of this method is that it rewards owners for paying attention to their teams and to what happensaround the league. The disadvantage is that not everyone in your league is sitting around watching 10 hours of football with their finger poised over the mouse every Sunday, and those who have a computer and the satellite television package that allows them towatch every single game are rewarded for their fanaticism.

2) Pure ranking system: Leaguthat use this method disallow all transactions until sometime after the last game of the week has been played (i.e. Tuesday or Wednesday). Each owner has time to peruse the list of available players on Monday and Tuesday and enter a claim for whichever players they want to add to their teams. After a pre-selected deadline (say, Wednesday at 9:00 a.m.), players are awarded to fantasy teams in the reverse order of their current standings. For example, Team A has a record of 2-6 and is in last place. Team B has a record of 7-1 and is in first place. Both put in a claim for Michael Turner (using the same example as above). Team A is awarded Turner because he/she has a worse re-cord than Team B. The advantage of this method is that all league members have a chance at every player, rather than rewarding the computer/satellite TV addict. The disadvantage is that this method rewards owners who did not draft a good team – i.e. if you drafted poorly enough to have the worst team, you have first dibs on free agents. This can either be a good or a bad thing, since it also promotes parity within your league.

3) Waiver ranking system: A system using waiver rankings works in the exact same way the pure ranking system does, except it is only roughly based on how good or bad ateam's record is. In a waiver system, all players are on waivers until Tuesday or Wednes-day, but they are assigned based on a waiver ranking, usually from 1-10. If two teams, (Team A, with a waiver ranking of 1 and Team B, with a ranking of 5) each claim a play-er, the team with the lowest ranking gets him (in this case, Team A). Unlike a pure rank-ing system, Team A is then moved back to the end of the line for their next claim (they now have a waiver ranking of 10). If the No. 2-ranked team decides not to make anyclaims that week, they move up to the No. 1 spot until they do make a claim, at whichpoint they move to the end, and so on. This system is more effective in not rewarding the worst teams in the league by automatically giving them dibs on free agents.

4) Blind bidding: This is generally considered the most fair, but most complex and time consuming, way of distributing free agents. Leagues that use this format assign all teams an imaginary budget for making transactions for the entire year (usually $100). Borrowing from the ranking method, all teams have until a predetermined date and time to submit claims for the players they desire. After that time, the commissioner (or Fanball's Commissioner product) divvies up free agents to the owner who bid the most free agent dollars on each player. For example, Team A owns Tmlinson and is in dire need of picking up his backup, Turner. Team A therefore bids a hefty $20 on Turner. Team B also needs a running back, but bids only $15. Team A is awarded Turner based on the higher bid. Once a team runs out of their mythical $100 free agent budget, they can no lon-ger make transactions. The only disadvantage of this system is that it can be a lot of work for the commissioner of the league, although products like the Fanball Fantasy Football Commissioner offer an automated blind bidding service that makes this method simple.

In all formats, owners are generally allowed to pick up free agents on their own (i.e. with-out bidding or claiming) after a pre-determined date and time (usually Tuesday or Wednes-day after the players who were claimed or bid on have been assigned to teams).

If this appears confusing, don't worry; Fanball's Football Commissioner is here to help. Fanball Commissioner allows leagues to set up automated claims systems that do all thework for you – including all of the different options described above.

Whatever option you decide on, make sure the members of your league understand ex-actly what the rules are and how the rules work at or before your draft. Many owners havelearned the hard way that, if there is a loophole in the rules related to the free agent/claim-ing system, it will be exploited.

Tuesday
The typical fantasy football week begins early Tuesday morning. Rosters unlock for the up-coming week and the action begins. You'll want to start the day by checking Fanball.com and other media outlets for the latest news on injuries, bye weeks, and favorable matchups.Based on the information you gather, you should weigh the plusses and minuses to deter-mine your best initial lineup and find any deficiencies in your roster. Start combing the free agent pool for players who might fill any gaps in your lineup.

Wednesday-Saturday
One of these days is typically dedicated to transactions, at least free agent transactions. De-pending on your particular day, you'll want to queue any claims before your league's week-ly deadline. After the transaction deadline has passed, transactions are normally processed based on standings, or some other barometer your league uses. Trades are also processed during this time. Once transactions are processed, the free agent pool is opened to all own-ers until Sunday's first kickoff. You'll want to browse the free agent list once more in the likelihood that a desirable player is still available. Start putting some more thought intoyour starting lineup.

Sunday
Make sure your lineup is set before your league's dedicated cutoff time. Kick back in your recliner with a cold beverage and some scorching hot buffalo wings. Fire up the TV and wait for the crawler at the bottom of the screen to start rolling. Boot up your computerand make sure the Internet connection is available. Point your browser to Fanball.com andlog in to your account. Go to your Fanball Commissioner league's homepage and click on "Live Scoring." Let Fanball.com track every pass, catch, run, touchdown, field goal, andextra point.

Monday
Hopefully, Sunday went so well Monday is irrelevant. If that's the case, email the other own-ers and rub their faces in the fact that Monday's game has no bearing on your team. Make sure to remind them that your football IQ is high – in fact, tell them you're a football genius. Otherwise, if Sunday treated you like the 2004 San Francisco 49ers, you'll have to endure a long night of Ron Jaworski and Tony Kornheiser rubbing each other's ego. Bless your soul. Try to squeeze in a few hours' sleep, because Tuesday the grind starts all over again.

Once you've got the basics down, there are several variations of scoring that can makeplaying fantasy football even more enjoyable.

One such wrinkle is called Milestone Scoring. In addition to receiving points for touch-downs, field goals, etc., players get bonus points based on reaching certain performancemilestones—for example, 100 rushing yards or 300 passing yards.

Obviously, these bonus points reward players who have a big statistical day regardless of whether or not they make their way into the end zone. Of course, they also add anotherlevel of frustration: the same anguish you feel when your player is pulled down at the one-yard line can be felt when your player finishes with 98 or 99 yards—or even worse, reachesthe century mark only to be thrown for a loss on the following play and finish below triple digits.

From milestone scoring, it's a short jog to performance-based scoring. The formats are similar in that points are awarded for statistical production other than touchdowns, but inperformance leagues there is no minimum performance or "milestone" that needs to bereached. One common performance-based scoring system awards one point for every 25 yards rush-ing and receiving or 75 yards passing. This way touchdowns will carry the day , but yard-age contributors are also recognized.

A guideline to keep when structuring your performance-based league is to not devalue touchdowns; after all, they're still what football is all about. The points awarded for a touchdown should be roughly equal or slightly greater than those awarded for 100 rushingor receiving yards or 250-300 passing yards.

Once you've got your slide rule out to calculate performance points, the next step is a hy-per-performance league. In a hyper-performance league, points are doled out for just about every possible stat measurement—yards, carries, catches, etc.

A common hyper-performance league scoring system would award a point for every yard gained, a point for every catch or carry, and 100 points for each touchdown scored. Of course, you'll need John Nash or Raymond Babbitt watching the game with you to keeptrack of your points, as final scores in this format creep into the four-digit range.

You can tone that down a bit—maybe bring it more in line with a typical Suns-Mavs NBAtilt—by bringing a decimal point into the equation. Yards would be worth 0.1 point, touch-downs 10 points, etc.

If you're givething out so many points, you may also want to consider a little taketh awayas well. While many traditionalists frown on the idea of negative fantasy points, a hyper-performance league is the perfect place to include negative scoring for foibles such asfumbles, interceptions, and missed field goals.

The advantage to hyper-performance leagues is that everything your players do earns you points. The problem is, it's nearly impossible to track your weekly score while watching the game without the help of a computer.

Weigh those factors before adopting your league's scoring format. Depending on the com-mitment level of your commissioner and your league members, combined with the acces-sibility of a live scoring engine (like that of Fanball's Football Commissioner) to track .

After all, the most important thing isn't how many points are scored—just as long as you're the one with more.

Are you jonesin' for a fantasy football fix that your friends can't feed? It might be time to keep it real. Real Leagues are open leagues filled with people just like yourself, peoplelooking to feed a hungry beast.

The game doesn't care whether you're a first-timer who's just dabbling or a full-blown addict. Leagues are set up using one of two formats. The first is a private league where you can join with your friends, a sort of gateway league. The second, a public league, is for us-ers who are beyond dabbling and ready to go head-to-head with other hardcore users.

Since Real Leagues inception in 1999 (it was previously known as Exit 42), players havereturned year after year not only to renew rivalries from established leagues but also to cre-ate new leagues with new fantasy football junkies. Leagues are available in 8, 10, 12, and14-team formats, which include both keeper and re-draft formats. In any case, you have theopportunity to carry your league over from year-to-year.

After you've chosen with whom you're rolling, you can get started on your league's draft. If you can manage an intervention and bring all your players together, Fanball offers a live t ready to sit down for an afternoon and take their medicine, you can stretch it out over a few days through email. And should another conflict arise, no worries, because you can set up a draft card that will automatically select players based onyour input.

Best of all, if you're lucky enough to survive a season and come out on top, your nextyear's fix is free!

It might be the world's most complicated league. It's called, appropriately, the Insanity League, and it began play in the Fanball offices several years ago. This salary cap dynasty league features player contracts, restricted free agency, franchise tags, and a practice squad. And if your players out-perform their contract, they'll actually hold out on you!

Here is the full text of the Insanity League rules; feel free to steal whatever you wish fromthem.

League format
The Insanity League is a dynasty league with a salary cap and player contracts. Ownersretain each player until such a time as the player is released or his contract expires. Playervalues are determined by preseason and regular season auctions.

Auction draft
The Insanity League uses an auction for player distribution. Each team is awarded a mythi-cal $100, with bids accepted in whole-dollar increments only. Teams will take turns bring-ing a player up to bid with a bid of at least $1. The highest bidder receives the playertime during the auction may a team have fewer dollars than available roster spots. Teams may not bid on players from positions that they cannot fill. Players and monies cannot betraded, sold, or redistributed in any manner during the auction. At no time can a team bid on a player that cannot be placed on its roster. After the auction, any remaining unspent salary cap money is retained by the team and can be applied toward future use. Additional money is not granted to teams later in the season.

Different from most auction drafts, any monies remaining when a team's roster is filled remains with the team for the purpose of later use, such as bidding on free agents.

Player contractsPlayer contracts run 1-5 years, at the owner's choosing. Contracts always follow this format:

Year 1 = 100% of original auction value
Year 2 = 120%+$1
Year 3 = 140%+$1
Year 4 = 160%+$1
Year 5 = 180%+$1

Example: Joe Blow is auctioned for $10 and signed to a five-year contract. His values areas follows.

Year 1 = $10
Year 2 = $13 ($10*1.2+1)
Year 3 = $15 ($10*1.4+1)
Year 4 = $17 ($10*1.6+1)
Year 5 = $19 ($10*1.8+1)

Note: All fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Releasing a player from his contract before the contract has expired leaves a signing bonuspenalty of 10% of the contract value in each future year. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Within three days of the conclusion of an auction, owners must assign a contract length to each newly acquired player. The decision about how long to apply each person's salary is wholly up to each owner. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Trades cannot be made that involve a player who does not have a contract (for example, a player that has just been drafted, but not yet signed to a contract). fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Free agent bidding
Before the first regular season game, players can make their own transactions on the Insan-ity League web site. All players acquired this way automatically have a contract consisting of one year and $1. If you pick up a player that has previously been on your roster, you'll pick up his original contract amount. This avoids the following loophole: An owner could drop a $5 guy for one minute, and then re-sign him to a $1 contract. That's bad. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

During the regular season, transactions are handled two ways. On Tuesdays, teams can blind bid for any available player by using Fanball Commissioner's Blind Bid Claim Sys-tem. Each Tuesday at 8:00pm, the commissioner will process transactions. Your Tuesday bid can include multiple requests as long as you indicate the order of preference for yourselections. The commissioner will make every effort to understand your bid request. If he cannot do so, the commissioner is not responsible for the resulting actions. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Players are awarded to the team with the highest total contract value across all years of theproposed contract. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Example: three sample bids for free agent Joe Blow.

Bid #1: "Three year contract starting at $5" (Year 1=$5; Year 2=$7 (5*1.2+1); Year 3=$8 (5*1.4+1); Total: $20)
Bid #2: "One year contract for $19" (Year 1=$19; Total: $19)
Bid #3: "Two year contract starting at $9" (Year 1: $9; Year 2: $12 (9*1.2+1); Total: $21) fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Bid #3 wins Joe Blow because it has the highest total contract value. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Then, beginning Wednesday at 10:00am (CST), players make their own transactions on the web site. All players acquired this way automatically have a contract consisting of one year and $1. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

DO NOT PICK UPA PLAYER PRIOR TO WEDNESDAY10:00AM!
Any team that picks up a player prior to Wednesday at 10:00am (CST), will face the fol-lowing punishment: The picked-up player will be released for 24 hours, the released player will remain released for 24 hours. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

If you use the waiver wire to reacquire a player you have dropped, he maintains his previ-ous contract. This is waived if the player is unclaimed for an entire NFL week (Sun – Sun). This prevents low-ranking teams from using the waiver wire to unfairly decrease the priceof their players. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Teams that have been eliminated from the playoffs may still make roster moves. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Teams do not receive additional salary cap room to deal with free agents. There is not a separate pool of money for bidding on free agents. Teams will need to remain under the $100 salary cap while acquiring free agents. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Injured Reserve
Owners may place an unlimited number of players on injured reserve, but only in the eventthat the player is actually placed on his NFL team's injured reserve. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Franchise Tag
During the offseason, a team may choose to retain one of its free agent players by using an available franchise tag. If the team chooses to do so, the player automatically signs a three-year agreement with the player at the terms listed below. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Year 1: When you franchise a player, you'll pay either the average of the top-five players at his position, or his previous year salary plus 20%, whichever is higher.
Year 2: Take Year 1's amount, add an additional 20% and $1.
Year 3: Take Year 1's amount, add an additional 40% and $1. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

The decision to apply the franchise tag must be made by March 31st.

Restricted free agents
Prior to March 31st each offseason, upon dropping a player, owners can designate ONE soon-to-be free agent to be a Restricted Free Agent. The player will be released to the free agent pool, but if this player is bid upon at the free agent auction, the team holding theRFA's rights can match the highest auction bid for that player and retain his services. Upon the conclusion of bidding, the RFA rights-holder must immediately declare his intention to match the auction price. The rights-holder may not violate any rules (such as salary cap or roster requirements, for example) in retaining the RFA. If the player is not bid upon at the free agent auction, the RFA rights-holder relinquishes any rights to the player. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

The decision to tag a player as an RFA must be made by March 31st. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Practice squad players
Owners may designate one offensive and one defensive player as being on his "practice squad." These players must have a current-year salary of $1. come active (starter or bench) if a rostered player moves onto injured reserve. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Teams may not auction players onto their practice squad. Practice squad players must be added after the auction as a free agent transaction. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Practice squad players salary does apply to each team's salary cap. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

The practice squad is available after week one's games. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Players can only come off the practice squad when:
A) a rostered player at the same position goes on injured reserve due to an injury sustainedwhile on the owner's roster.
B) the practice squad player goes on injured reserve. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Holdouts
At the end of the regular season, any player whose end-of-year stats place him in the top 10at his position is subject to examination as a possible holdout candidate. If a top-10 playeris making less than one-third of the average salary of his position's top-10 highest paid players, he is deemed to be a "holdout" player. Holdout players will demand a Year 1 salary equal to the average salary of the top-10 highest paid players at his position—not includingholdout players. If the owner chooses to retain the services of the player at his new price,he may extend the contract up to five years. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Owners who choose not to pay the player at his new demand, can release the player tothe free agent pool. In that event, the owner cannot designate the player as a franchise orrestricted free agent.

If a player is deemed to be a holdout player, the team needs to decide by March 31 if the player will be signed to a new contract or released. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Retirements
If a player retires from the NFL, his owner can choose to either:
a) Immediately void his contract, eliminating all salary cap burden for the player, and relin-quishing any future rights to the player.
b) Immediately pay 10% (rounded up) of the player's current-year contract to retain the rights to that player throughout the length of the player's current contract. The 10% is applied to the current year only, but the owner retains the rights to the player for the dura-tion of the contract. Example: Owner A has Player X under contract in 2003, 2004, and 2005. During the 2003 season, Player X retires (quitter!), and Owner A chooses to pay 10% (rounded up) of his current year contract, and retains the right to obtain Player X in 2003-2005 should that player choose to return to the NFL. If that occurs, the player will returnunder his previous contract. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Salary Cap
Each team has a salary cap of $100. At no time may a team's current-year roster exceed $100. fractional values always round up to next dollar.

Roster
Starters
1 Quarterback
2 Running backs
2 Wide receivers
1 Tight end
1 Flex position: RB, WR, or TE
1 Kicker 3 Defensive linemen
3 Linebackers
3 Defensive backs

Backups
5 offensive backup players 5 defensive backup players

Practice Squad 1 offensive practice squad player 1 defensive practice squad player

Auction Draft Dates
Around late-August, the league will hold a free agent auction.

Within 3 days of the conclusion of an auction, owners must declare the length of contract they are awarding to each player.

Season Changes
On April 1 of each year, the season advances, and teams must now be in compliance with the new year's salary cap. In many cases this will require teams to release players to the free agent market.

Scoring System
Yardage
.1 per yard rushing receiving
.1 per 3 yards passing

Touchdowns
0-3 yards: 6 pts rush/rec, 3 pts pass
4-9 yards: 8 pts rush/rec, 4 pts pass
10-29 yards: 10 pts rush/rec, 5 pts pass
30-49 yards: 12 pts rush/rec, 6 pts pass
50-69 yards: 14 pts rush/rec, 7 pts pass
70-90 yards: 16 pts rush/rec, 8 pts pass
91-96 yards: 18 pts rush/rec, 9 pts pass
97-100 yards: 20 pts rush/rec, 10 pts pass

Field Goals
0-29 yards: 1 pt
40-44 yards: 4 pts
45-49 yards: 5 pts
50-54 yards: 6
pts55-60 yards: 7 pts
60+ yards: 8 pts

Extra Points
All PATs: 1 pt

Defensive Players
Sack = 5 points
Interception = 10 points
Tackle = 1 point

Miscues
Interception thrown = -2 points
Fumbles lost = -4 points
Field goals missed from 29 yards and less = -1 point
Extra points missed = -1 point

Conversions
All parts of a 2-point conversion is worth 1 point.

Trades
Teams are allowed to make any trade that does not violate the team's roster restrictions or current-year salary cap. Trades that violate future year salary caps are valid. In that event, owners will need to reconcile their roster during the offseason.

Trades cannot be made that involve a player that does not have a contract (for example, a player that has just been drafted, but not yet signed to a contract).

Trades are allowed from April 1 to kickoff of week 12.

Lineups
Lineups are due 5 minutes before each player'Night Football quarterbacks can wait until Monday night to make a lineup decision.

Deadlines Trading deadline begins at kickoff on Sunday of week 12. There is no free-agent transac-tion deadline.

Ties
Games: This league recognizes a tie. There is no tiebreaker format, except in the playoffs. In the event of a tie in the playoffs, total yards (not including kicker and defense) is used as the tiebreaker.

Team Ranking: Regular season team success is ranked by winning percentage, followed by season-to-date points, followed by points against, followed by head-to-head (between twoteams), followed by the team with the most recent win(s), followed by coin flip.

Transaction Costs
This league charges $0.25 for each free agent pickup and $0.25 for each owner involved in a consummated trade. At the end of the season, all owners are responsible for remunerat-ing the league any balance due within 14 days from the end of the season. Failure to do soresults in a one-year cap penalty equal to the unpaid balance.

Free For All
In week 17, each team can choose any player to construct a lineup consisting of the samestarting positions used during the season. The highest scoring team wins the weekly prize.

Playoff format
Playoff weeks are 14, 15, and 16. At the end of week 13, the top three teams (as determined by the Team Rank criteria outlined in the Ties section) in each division advance to the playoffs, plus the next two teams with the most points, regardless of division standings. In the event that two have the same number of points, the Team Rank criteria (see Ties section) is used.

Timeline – Important
datesFebruary 1st: Holdout players declared by commissionerMarch 31st: Franchise players must be declared by ownersMarch 31st: RFA players must be declared by ownersApril 1st: New season's salary cap implemented. Teams must be under the $100 cap.On or about late-August, the league will hold a free agent auction.

Franchise Costs
The annual entry fee to this league is $X. First year owners must also pay a 50% down-payment on the next year's entry fee. This is because inactive owners will be jettisoned, and the commissioner may be forced to sell your crappy team at a discount. In that event, ifthe commissioner is able to sell you team for more than 50%, the difference will be re-turned to you.

Rounding
Any contract value that calculates to a non-whole number is rounded up. This means that a contract that would calculate to $5.20 is treated like $6.

Disclaimer
The commissioner has made every effort to provide comprehensive and fair rules. How-ever, due to the unusual level of complexity in this league, the commissioner will make changes to the rules on the fly if needed. If you have concerns about the commissioner's ability to fairly administer such changes, don't join the league.

17 week Season