Beginner Package — (Master Fantasy Football Quickly)

Enjoy this free guide for fantasy football beginners…In general, fantasy football is played by a group of friends, who get together and select a team full of NFL players each season. The unique aspect about fantasy football is that there are no universal rules. In other words, it’s up to each individual league to decide how they want to award points, how they want to set up rosters, and how they want to decide their champion each season. Below are some of the most commonly used fantasy football terms on No-Offseason.com to help you out if you’re head is spinning a little after reading some articles. Changes are though, if you’re reading this site, you’re in a highly competitive league and are looking for that extra edge. Regardless of your situation, you’re in the right place. Just ask around.

• Dynasty Leagues vs. Seasonal Leagues – Draft Day – The inaugural draft in a dynasty format is the mother-load. You better come prepared, or your team could be screwed for years to come. You get no second chance. Loading up on young, valuable offensive talent is crucial in the inaugural dynasty draft. Passing on older RBs in the early rounds is common, while younger guys are “groomed” for future championships. There’s no doubt that there’s still a “win now” element to dynasty leagues, but the smart owner will load up on young talent, knowing they can always find a taker and trade for an immediate impact player when they need one.When drafting in seasonal formats, owners are much more likely to pass on the “potential stud” and go with the perceived “sure thing” or accomplished player with the solid past statistics.What about after the inaugural draft, you ask?Seasonal owners who are unfamiliar with dynasty formats sometimes complain that they don’t want to try a dynasty league because they enjoy their yearly draft too much, and don’t want to give it up. Listen, you still draft every year in dynasty formats, only the focus is on building your team via rookies and free agents, rather than regurgitating the same veterans over and over again. If it’s the draft day camaraderie or adrenaline rush that you’re scared of losing, just know that all dynasty leagues hold yearly drafts as well – and they’re full of just as much talent, the only difference being that the talent is younger.

• Making Decisions For “Now & Later” vs. Making Decisions For “Now” – From the draft, to the waiver wire, to trades, every decision needs to be much more carefully thought out and executed in a dynasty format, due to the lasting implications. If a team were loaded at RB but thin at WR due to mid-season injuries and wanted to trade Reggie Bush and Cadillac Williams for Torry Holt and Joe Horn in week 10, each would play out completely different depending on league format. In a dynasty, such a move would be greatly frowned upon, unless it guaranteed a championship for a team getting the 30-something year-old talented but injury-prone WRs. In a seasonal format, as long as the owner receiving the WRs had two other good RBs to start for the rest of the season, the move would make perfect sense. Seasonal owners make decisions for now, while dynasty owners make decisions for now and later.

• Primary Methods Of Improvement (Pre-Season, Regular Season and Off-Season) –In seasonal formats, owners prepare religiously for their drafts each season, and then proceed with their squads post-draft as if they have the best roster in the world. Everyone jocks their team so hard following the draft, that – for the most part – nobody wants to make trades until mid-season. All owners are so proud of what they’ve done on draft day, and want to see their masterful plans play out, which sometimes prevents them from looking at how to improve their team throughout the season. In other words, the draft – in seasonal formats – is the main way to improve one’s squad. It’s quite the contrary in dynasty formats, where trading is highly encouraged. There’s so much trade talk among dynasty owners that each day feels like draft day – even in the off-season. There’s a constant adrenaline rush when owners propose ways to improve each other’s teams. The increased amount of transactions in a dynasty league definitely isn’t something you see in a typical seasonal format. Due to the fact that all stud players aren’t available in the draft every year, trading is necessary to improve one’s team. Also, due to the fact that all dynasty owners know who their players are in the off-season, the activity continues year-round…unlike seasonal owners who, come January, have clean slate to start preparing for next August’s draft.

• To Pack It In, Or Not To Pack It In – Unlike seasonal leagues and standard keeper formats, where 99 percent of players are going back into the draft pool at the end of each season, a dynasty owner must not lose interest during the end of a season, regardless of how poor their team might be playing at the time. A dynasty owner could be eliminated from any possible run at the money in their league by week 10, but still have an incentive to remain as competitive as all of the other teams throughout the rest of the regular season and into the off-season…Why, you ask? Because trades and waiver wire transactions can still be made that can help their team down the line. If a dynasty owner can grab an emerging young wide receiver off the waiver wire in week 15, they can begin improving their team heading into the next season. On the contrary, a seasonal owner in the same position would most likely pack it in (or settle for playing spoiler), seeing as how picking up a player for three meaningless games doesn’t really have much of a point. There are always ways for dynasty owners to continue to shape their squad. In other words, the strategy never stops.

• Playing In A Dynasty League Can Help You Win Seasonal Leagues – While always striving to win both now and later, dynasty owners are always searching for the next best thing to complement the current stars on their teams. It’s this burning desire to anticipate the changing of the guard that helps dynasty owners pinpoint the timing of which a certain player becomes worthy of becoming a fantasy starter, or about to become a fantasy stud. Dynasty owners that also play in seasonal formats can integrate this into their redraft strategy every year by picking players who they’ve had their eyes on for a while in their dynasty league. The same holds true for anticipating when to pick someone up on the waiver wire, like Samkon Gado 2005, and Reuben Droughns in 2004. Dynasty owners who constantly scour the depth charts were more likely able to anticipate when each of these players would get their own opportunity and time it perfectly in their seasonal leagues.

• Roster Size – Due to the philosophy of dynasty league owners to always try and find the next young breakout player, typical dynasty rosters can range from 25-50 players, while most standard non-IDP seasonal formats cut off at around 15 or 16 players.The number one goal of all fantasy owners, whether dynasty or seasonal, is to put together championship squads and win money while beating their buddies in the process. Dynasty and seasonal leagues simply give fantasy heads two highly competitive but very different options.

• Keeper Leagues – Somewhere in between the differing worlds of seasonal leagues and dynasty formats lies the most rapidly growing segment of the fantasy population – keeper league owners. Fantasy heads have figured out that taking more ownership over a player can result in a higher level of competition – and as a result – more fun. The “increased ownership over a player” that I speak of is very simple – owners may literally keep players on their fantasy rosters from season to season, without throwing them back into the draft pool. Keeper formats are set up a number of different ways and have a number of different stipulations – that lead to strategy differentials depending on league rules. Some leagues allow as little as 5% of rosters to roll over to the next season (one player in a twenty player per team league, for example). Other leagues allow as many as eight or nine players out of approximately twenty to be kept by the same owner from season to season. These types of formats are usually referred to as “deep keeper” leagues.

• You may be thinking – What fun is it to allow the same owner to have LaDainian Tomlinson on their squad for as many years in a row as they want?” But, before you turn skeptical of this concept, allow me to explain the different ways keeper leagues can be set up – which I alluded to in my intro paragraph.A common way to run a keeper format allows for owners to be rewarded for good mid-to-late round picks the previous season. Under these particular rules, if an owner chooses to keep a player, they may not draft in the round that they drafted that player in the previous season. For example, if a person drafted Reggie Bush in the third round last season and elects to keep him for this season, he loses his third round pick in this year’s draft. Or, if someone drafted Frank Gore in the fifth round last season and wishes to keep him this year – they lose the rights to their fifth round selection. Now, many would agree that both of the examples I gave would benefit the owner, as they’d be getting both of these players at an incredible value this year. In essence, they’d be getting rewarded for their outstanding foresight from a year ago. But what if the owner that drafted Gore wants to keep him year-after-year-after-year? Well, some leagues put a limit on how many times you can keep a player before throwing him back into the draft pool – while other leagues simply allow that owner to be rewarded season-after-season for their outstanding selection. Now you see that the strategy has already increased ten fold.Conversely, an owner who took Clinton Portis in the first round last season is faced with a huge dilemma. The owner must decide if Portis will yield production worthy enough of bypassing his first overall pick in 2007.An alternative keeper league format only allows owners to roll over players that they’ve drafted in rounds four or higher the previous season. This is a very similar concept in that the owner would still lose the draft pick in the round of the player that they kept, but this format ensures that all players drafted in rounds 1-3 the year before would be thrown back into the draft pool – making it likely that perennial top players at their positions, like LT, Steven Jackson, LJ, Peyton Manning, Steve Smith (CAR) and Ocho Cinco would be available every season.Another type of keeper format simply trades keepers for draft picks. Meaning, however many players you choose to keep, that’s how many draft picks you lose – starting with your first round pick. Let’s refer to this as an “eye-for-an-eye” league.You can easily see how a player like Travis Henry would hold different value in the first type of keeper league I described and an “eye-for-an-eye” league. In the first type, most likely Henry was taken in rounds 10-13 last season, meaning he’s a no-brainer keeper heading into 2007, because you’d in essence be trading in a pick in between 100 and 140 for a top fifteen value. However, in the last type of keeper league I described (an “eye-for-an-eye” league), whether or not you kept Henry would very much depend on what other players you had on your roster, in conjunction with your league’s keeper limit, and an in-depth analysis of every opposing owner’s roster.

  For the sake of discussion, in this “eye-for-an-eye” league, there’s a two-keeper limit per team, and Henry is by far your best RB. You also have Peyton Manning at QB. You’re thinking of keeping both of them, right? But wait, you need to look around at the other teams’ rosters first! What if one owner has the following three players – LT, Frank Gore and Joseph Addai? You’re faced with the following decision – “do I keep Henry and Manning, or do I guarantee myself one of the top picks in the league, to draft Gore or Addai? Remember, everyone else keeping a player loses their first round pick – hence – “eye-for-an-eye.” If you keep Henry and not Manning, you may be, in essence, picking Henry over Addai/Gore, because another owner in your league with no real running back may not be keeping anyone to ensure their shot at whomever the loaded owner drops. Follow me? But, if you drop both of them hoping to have the first pick and draft Addai or Gore, you may not be the only one with that idea, and may lose Henry and Manning for nothing. All of the sudden, the seemingly simple question of whether or not to keep Travis Henry has turned into a very complex situation, worthy of plenty of analysis…and it all depends on what your keeper league rules are.

  Once you fully understand your keeper league rules, you can really being to manage your roster. When drafting, always view each potential draftee as a player for both now and later. Taking Andre Johnson in the fourth round, Marion Barber, DeAngelo Williams or Adrian Peterson in the fifth or even Braylon Edwards in the sixth could REALLY pay off for you depending on your keeper league format. Even every waiver wire move has to be carefully made. Be careful that you’re not dropping a guy like Leon Washington or Michael Turner in order to pick up a midseason band-aid starter. Young RBs with potential to start one day should be held in just about as high regard as current RB starters.

  Smart owners can also actually use the fact that they’re in a keeper league to their advantage in order to help them win. For example, an owner with a squad stacked full of potential who is one or two pieces away from dominating the competition, can unload a bunch of guys to an owner near the middle of the standings with solid veterans but no real keeper-material. Such a trade wouldn’t really be grounds for veto, as long as it was a fair deal. “Exchanging potential for immediate results” is probably the quickest way to sum up a move like that, and loyal keeper league owners simply have to deal with it as yet another layer of intense strategy.

  To be completely cheesy and steal a line from the Transformers – there’s a lot more than meets the eye when managing a keeper league roster. Every decision is magnified, and strategy depends on each league’s rules – not just scoring format. Like anything else in life, the more time and effort you put into something, the more you get out of it. Ask any keeper (or dynasty) league owner if they feel the same is true with fantasy football, and the answer will nine times out of 10 be a resounding “yes.”

• IDP Leagues – No-Offseason.com focuses on a specific area where there happens to be a lack of fantasy football information available to hardcore owners. That area is individual defensive player formats. If you’re not playing fantasy football with individual defensive players, you’re missing out. IDP leagues add more players to the mix, increasing the overall competition level. If a stacked offensive team has a few holes on defense, it can be vulnerable against a team with a bang-up D that may be struggling on offense due to injury problems. IDPs give the margin of error some breathing room, as more factors need to be taken into account – like who ranks higher on draft boards – Marc Bulger or Brian Urlacher?Some IDP formats require one or two defensive starters, while others have multiple starters at defensive line, linebacker and defensive back. Some award points for tackles only, and others award large amounts of points for game changing plays like sacks, interceptions, forced fumbles and fumble recoveries.There’s a lot to consider when playing in a league where Adrian Wilson might be more valuable than Donovan McNabb. Don’t let it intimidate you – use No-Offseason.com to find tips to compete in the world of individual defensive players.

• Head-To-Head Leagues vs. Total Points Leagues – Perhaps the most interesting and perplexing thing about fantasy football, from a global perspective, is that there really is no universal rules system. Maybe that’s one of the key reasons why millions of Americans are addicted to setting their line-ups every week. Anyone that can find nine friends (or strangers) can be the commissioner of their own league, and set up their own rules. Actually, it could be five friends, or 11 friends — that’s the beauty of it. But with freedom comes decision making, and one of the hardest decisions to make is how to decide which team wins your league.The criteria for deciding a winner can be created in any number of ways. Playoff systems are widely used, all-play record is always an option, but the most logical (and popular) two seem to be head-to-head and total points.

HEAD-TO-HEAD

The names are incredibly self-explanatory, but I’ll elaborate: winners of head-to-head formats are decided based on their squad’s record throughout the course of a season. A schedule is determined prior to the start of the year – usually by the commissioner or the league hosting site. In a 10-team league, there are five match-ups each week, and each team plays each other at least once. Typically, playoff formats are implemented in head-to-head leagues, but again, it is essentially up to the commissioner to make that decision. Timing is important in fantasy football, but magnified in head-to-head formats. Every week counts, meaning teams can get off to a 4-0 start, and just like in the NFL, can suffer key injuries or lack of solid play for a few weeks and fall behind in the standings. A win is a win, whether your players outscore their opponents by 100 points, or one point.

Frustration often sets in from head-to-head owners that have extremely good weeks, outscoring 90 percent of the league, but fail to beat their opponent on that given occasion. A team that scores 120 points can lose — while a team that scores 85 takes a victory.

Before you form a judgment, keep in mind that owners of head-to-head leagues have to rely on players who are fairly consistent, which adds an element of strategy when drafting. They can’t simply fly off the cuff and draft up-and-down, boom-or-bust type players and expect to win consistently.

The theory behind head-to-head leagues is to give teams a chance to stay in the money for as long as possible and keep the interest level high throughout the season, as teams near the bottom can go on a winning streak and move up the standings — not necessarily having to worry about outscoring seven or eight different teams by a certain amount of points.

Another popular option frequently utilized by commissioners of head-to-head formats, is rewarding the “all-play winner” in some way, shape or form. A commish that is smart and hates when owners complain, implements this for sure. Remember the owner that was mad because they barely lost their match-up, but outscored all of the other owners that week? Well, here’s how it would work in a head-to-head all-play format:

- In a 10-team league, the owner with the highest point total on any particular week, holds a 10-0 all-play record for that week. Conversely, the owner with the least amount of points, holds an 0-10 all-play record that week.
- An owner that loses to the week’s all-play winner, but still finishes second in total points for the week, would hold an all-play record of 8-1 for that particular week.

In essence, the all-play prize is implemented as a fair way of recognizing those teams that may have gotten “unlucky” via the league schedule on given weeks. It’s a nice complement to a head-to-head league to award the all-play winner with a prize similar to that of second place.

TOTAL POINTS

Total points is an even simpler concept. The team with the most cumulative points rises up the standings throughout the season, and is either rewarded with the championship outright, or the highest seed in a playoff system of some sort. While at first glance it may seem like the most logical and fair way of deciding a champion, there’s actually a certain element of strategy that’s missing.

Owners don’t have to take into account consistency — they can simply draft high cumulative scorers and completely get away with it. It’s also harder to make a comeback in a total points league if you get off to a slow start or suffer early-season injury issues. It’s one thing to be down two or three games. It’s a complete other to have to make up hundreds of points. Keeping the interest of all 10 or 12 owners throughout the course of an entire season is never a bad thing in fantasy football, but very hard to accomplish in a total points format.

Yes, it’s true that fantasy football completely revolves around statistics and individual performances, but — name one professional sports league that awards their champion based on how many points, runs or goals their team scored throughout the season.

TO PLAYOFF OR NOT TO PLAYOFF

Perhaps a whole other article, but worthy of a mention in this one, is the question of whether or not to implement a playoff system in your league. Both head-to-head formats and total points formats can decide their champion via a playoff system. A total points league playoff can be set up in a way that includes a certain amount of top teams to make the cut and advance at the end of a given week. Let’s say, for sake of discussion, that a league decides to end its “regular season” after Week 14 and let the top four teams continue on in a playoff format. All four teams would play the remaining three weeks of the NFL season, and the team with the most points strictly during Weeks 15, 16 and 17 would be crowned the champion.

The playoff system in a head-to-head format would only allow the winner of each match-up to advance and play the next week. So, in Week 15, teams one and four would match-up and teams two and three would square off. The winners would advance to play in the championship game or “Super Bowl” in Week 16. Many leagues refuse to play their Super Bowl games in Week 17, due to the benching of many NFL starters for rest prior to the upcoming January second-season.

COMBINATION LEAGUES

A common way to bring together the best of both worlds is to set up a combination league. Depending on league size, there are five or six match-ups between two teams each week, just like a standard head-to-head format — but the league champion is decided by total points. The winner of each match-up is awarded a certain amount of points to add onto their cumulative point total, making the weekly pairings significant in determining the outcome of the league — but not the sole determinant. Combination leagues are a nice way to keep all owners happy, regardless of how opinionated they all may be.

Head-to-head and total points formats are the most clear-cut ways of determining a champion, but there is no end to the amount of time and creativity that can be poured into developing various versions and off-shoots, and deciding how to reward and recognize fantasy owners regardless of league format.