MoSneaky Fantasy Football Online Magazine » How to Start a Fantasy Football League

How to Start a Fantasy Football League

14 May, 2007 League Tips

N. Ford So, you want to know about Fantasy Football eh? To define it, it’s a game in which you and some buddies draft actual NFL players onto a team, and their performance determines how well your team scores. Pretty simple, right?
WRONG!

There are many pitfalls, and difficult decisions to make on the way towards building a league, and a team. Our goal here at MoSneaky is to facilitate this process. But before we divulge managerial secrets that will allow you to wow your dorky friends, let us first decide if you have what it takes to play this game.
If any of the following apply to you, please redirect yourself to the appropriate location.

If you want to play Fantasy Football because:

You aren’t very masculine, and want to fit in better with “the guys” click here.
You are an ex-high school jock who wants to continue dominating dorks at football, click here.
You want to brag to your co-workers around the water cooler, click here.
You know nothing about football, and thought this would be a neat way to learn, click here.

Ok, you made the cut. Congratulations, you aren’t a complete loser. However, you most likely have a lot of work to do before you are in tip-top Fantasy Football shape. But don’t despair. We will mold you into the slavering, screaming, glassy-eyed TV staring, cursing, animal flesh devouring, girlfriend ignoring, face painting, beer swilling, foe taunting, all knowing Fantasy Football GOD that mere mortals cower in the presence of. That’s what we’re talkin’ bout. We will call this dude exhibit A.

Note how none of the 30,000 mortals dare come within 30 yards of this guy. Fear and respect to the fullest. This could be you…

How to start a fantasy football League (Part II)

Building a league is easy. Any toolbox with a FF manager software can start a league. That doesn’t necessarily mean their league will be worth a crap. Here is a general how-to guide to making a successful league. Keep in mind, that the following will be biased and opinionated, and there are other ways of doing things. But, as I am a member of the greatest league in the world and I am also the smartest man in the world, you would do well to listen up, punk.

Step 1- Finding managers

The best Fantasy Football manager is an interested one. Obviously, to be interested in Fantasy Football, one must also be interested in real-life football. This rules out your wife/girlfriend/mother-in-law and so on, for the most part. Not that you would want to get beat by a girl, anyway. While being able to diagram the blocking scheme for a counter-trap isn’t a necessary quality for a manager, you definitely want them to have a little knowledge concerning the game. A manager’s knowledge of football (especially individual players) will grow after a year or two of playing fantasy, but if the interest isn’t there it is likely that they will give up on it before this happens. It’s also good to have your managers know one another and, ideally, be able to get together to watch games. The more rivalry there is, the better.

Your friends are the best bet for starting a league, obviously. Being placed head-to-head against one of your buddies is much more interesting than being pitted against some random dude off the street. Great rivalries will develop, glorious victories, agonizing defeats. And what is better than rubbing a pal’s nose in the fecal stench of his so called “team”. This gives mighty incentive for a manager to give a crap about the game. It also allows you to keep in closer touch with your friends than you might have otherwise. And also to brutally crush them week after week (did I mention that?). Awww, isn’t that sweet?

If you have no friends, co-workers can be a good source to recruit from. But, since you don’t know them as well as you know your friends, it’s a bit tougher to gauge how well they will fit into your league. Just talk football with them around the water-cooler. You’ll be able to find out who the true fans are without much trouble.

Family members can make good members as well. But other managers may accuse you of cheating if you make trades with each other. Probably not a huge deal, but it’s something to keep in mind, nonetheless.

Step 2- Deciding on a structure

Once you have your prospective managers selected, it’s time to structure your league. Here are some questions you need to answer, along with my splendid advice.

· Do I want a keeper league? First, for the slow-witted, a keeper league is a league in which teams hold a certain number of players over from year to year. Keeper leagues are great. They allow you to build your franchise up over the course of time, dominating your buddies on a year-to-year basis. Having the same players each year also gives your team a sense of identity, much like a real NFL team. However, the answer to the question is: No, you do NOT want a keeper league. Yet. Take at least a year to make sure your managers are loyal enough to stick it out, especially should they draft a horrible team. There’s no bigger pain in the ass than trying to pawn off someone’s discarded pile of trash on a new guy. Redrafting every year will also give your managers a chance to learn the ropes, before they start building a team with the future in mind. View a keeper league as something to aspire to, don’t just dive right in.

· What kind of games do I want to play each week? There are several methods, but they all take a backseat to head-to-head games. Head to head is simple to keep track of, and by golly, that’s the way the NFL does it. Rotisserie style scoring keeps a running total of points all year, and the guy with the most at the end of the season wins. Utter horse crap. There is no excitement from week to week, and no rivalries. What the hell is the point? Play head-to-head, or not at all.

· What players should I include in the rosters? This is completely up to you. If you wanted to have a quarterback only league, I suppose you could. The only real thing to keep in mind is the talent pool you have to work with. If you have 16 teams in your fantasy league, starting 3 running backs each week doesn’t make sense. That is 48 running backs, which is more than there are NFL teams. 1 quarterback, 2 running backs, 2 receivers, 1 tight end, and 1 kicker is a pretty standard setup, for starting teams. As a rule of thumb, your backup roster should include at least as many players as your starting team. That would make a total roster of 2 quarterbacks, 4 running backs, 4 receivers, 2 tight ends, and 2 kickers. Including a defense is feasible as well

· How do we acquire players? There are 2 choices: draft and auction. If you haven’t figured it out yet, it is my belief that you should adhere to the NFL setup as closely as possible. The game is called Fantasy Football, not “Communist Fantasy Football” or “Silly Rules Make-Believe Football”. Auctions blow, plain and simple. What else are you going to do in the off-season, besides formulating a mock draft? Get a job? I thought not.

· You will also need a free agency system/waiver wire (or whatever you want to call it) in your league. A way to pick up unclaimed players. First-come-first-served is the obvious method, and probably the easiest. However, it is very easy for the commissioner to cheat. “Barry Sanders is coming out of retirement?! Sorry dude, I just picked him up 20 seconds before you called to pick him up.” You will probably want to have a way for the worst teams to get the first crack at free agents. Set aside Tuesday and Wednesday as the time to pick up free agents for the next week. Take all the requests during this time, and then dole out the FA’s according to managers records after this deadline is over (12am on Thursday morning). Same record tiebreakers should be determined by total scoring. Any free agents picked up between 12am Thursday and the start time of the 1st game of that week should be dealt out on a first-come-first-served basis. Lock all free agent transactions while games are going on. It sucks to be at a bar watching a game, and have to worry about hitting the pay phone to call long distance to pick up some scrub eligible tackle who scored on a goal-line PA pass. To clarify:

12:01am Tuesday - 11:59pm Wednesday: Free Agent requests are taken. At the end of this period requests are met, team record is used to settle any duplicate requests.
12:00am Thursday - Kickoff time of the 1st game of that Football Week: Free agent requests are met on a first-come-first-served basis.
Kickoff time of the 1st game - 12:00am Tuesday: No Free Agent requests are taken, or met.
However you decide to do it, you DEFINITELY need to charge a fee for transactions. It’s a good way to get some extra cash flowing and it also keeps managers from picking up 100 different players every week. That’s a lot less work for you.

· How do I set up the scoring? Scoring should be reasonably balanced. If you weight touchdown passes too much, Ray Lucas could be a better fantasy player than Marshall Faulk. That prospect should make you sick to your stomach. You can basically assign points however you want, but just make sure you compare the average season for each position, and see what the scoring will be for each category. Here’s an example from my league.

- TD pass- 4pts
- TD run/catch- 6pts
- Field goal- 3pts
- Extra point kick/pass- 1pt
- Extra point run/catch- 2pts

Now we take that, and figure out what kind of scores we will get from a benchmark year for each position. QB benchmark is 20TDs. A good QB will score around 90pts (keep in mind that most QB’s will run for a couple scores). RB/WR benchmark is 10TDs. A good RB/WR will get about 60pts. A good kicker will get around 120pts. As you can see, our league is a little out of proportion, but it’s still within reason. If you wanted pure equality between the categories, 5pts for passing TD, 12pts for rushing/receiving TD, 3pts for FG, 1pt for PAT. Note that the NFL is not equally proportioned either, kickers are consistently higher in overall points than other positions.
If you are thinking about giving points for yardage, DON’T DO IT. It sucks so bad we had to write a whole article on it

Step 3- Managing Your League

Shell out some cash to get management software of some sort. Trust me, having to figure out all the scores, team match-ups, reserve points, and every other little thing can be a TON of work.

A few last words of wisdom for new commissioners. It will sound like common sense stuff, because it is. But how am I supposed to know if you’re stupid or not?

· Poll the league before you make any changes. Keeping the other managers involved makes them feel important. It also will give you more ideas for the league than you could have come up with on your own. Plus, if a change you make bombs, its good to have other people to blame it on!

· Don’t be afraid to recruit help. If there is too much work for you to handle, assign someone to handle free agent pickups, or money collection, or whatever it is that you don’t have time to get done. You can even name a co-commissioner if you so desire.

· Put the yearly dues into a bank account. You might as well make 2 or 3% on your money while it is sitting around waiting for the football season to finish. And DO NOT spend it under any circumstances, bonehead.

Now you know enough to start a fantasy football league. Get off your lazy ass and do it, or I’ll send the Viking guy to your door. You definitely don’t want that (Due to legal responsibilities, we must tell you that the Viking is really a good guy at heart. He will eat a whole roasted pig by himself and create horrible gastro-intestinal explosions, but he IS a nice guy).
Feel free to email us with questions or comments, or if you are a supermodel who likes football and cooking that is currently looking for a date. Best of luck.