Fantasy Football for Beginners

My office has several avid fantasy football players, who have been trying to get me to play for years. I've avoided getting involved because I'm a bit over-involved in work and would rather keep those lines as separate as possible. Nonetheless, as someone who is naturally curious, as well as a devoted Giants fan, I did talk to them about it, learned fantasy football rules, and eventually started playing last year. It's a lot of fun and if you're interested in playing, here are some basic fantasy football rules for beginners:

Overview

To play, you and the other players assemble a fantasy football league. The league is comprised of one commissioner and multiple owners. Each owner assembles a team by drafting football players from a commonly agreed upon real-life football league, such as the NFL or NCAA. Each owner accumulates points based on the performance of their respective players during the course of a regular football season. And of course, the player with the most points wins.

The Owners

The play is between the owners of which there are usually at least four and as many as twenty, but usually between eight and sixteen in multiples of four. We have twelve in our league, which is comfortable. If you don't have enough friends who are interested you can easily find leagues online on ESPN.com, Yahoo Sports, or via a simple Google search of "fantasy football league."

The Commissioner

The Commissioner handles the administrative work, such as organizing the draft selection process, organizing team match-ups, tallying scores, and managing trades between teams. A lot of the grunt work of these tasks is handled by online fantasy football applications, such as those offered by ESPN.com, Yahoo Sports, and other similar sports outlets. Or you can use a simple spreadsheet coupled with sports stats culled from online sports websites.

League Types

It is good to know the fantasy football rules for league types if you are a beginner. There are two basic types: keeper and non-keeper. Keeper leagues allow older players to hang on to some players from previous teams, which can potentially put beginners at a disadvantage. Non-keeper leagues force players to create new teams in full each season. Try to get involved with a non-keeper league if you are a beginner.

The Draft

The Commissioner will generally handle most of this process. It's easiest if everyone pick a day to get together to conduct the draft in person, but this can also be handle through online fantasy football software applications. You can handle it similar to the NFL with first pick going to the previous team with the worst record, or you can set up your own system. Many leagues determine order at random and then reverse it during each draft round which works quite well.

Auctions/Salary Cap

Alternatively, you can create an auction to create team. Once everyone agrees upon a salary cap (we use $34.6 million, the salary cap of the NFL), you set increments to bid and determine a bidding process (online, in-person, sealed, live, etc.). It's important to keep in mind, especially if you are a beginner, that you do not want to spend all of your money on players during the initial auction because you may want to set aside money for midseason trades. This is particularly important when you consider that one or more of your players may get injured during the season and be unable to play. We cap the auction at half the salary cap. Once players are obtained, they are each paid half their actual starting salaries.

The Play

Owners' teams are pitted against each other weekly. Each owner submits a line-up of wide receiver, quarterback, running back, kicker, tight end, and a single defensive position. Some leagues submit a full roster of defensive positions. The Commissioner tallies stats and reports on them weekly as well. We submit our lineups every Sunday and get our previous results each Sunday (although a few of us keep our own records).

Scoring

There are lots of different scoring methods, and there's no hard and fast standard as far as fantasy football rules are concerned. Ours is pretty basic:

• Touchdowns equal six points, touchdowns over 50 yards equal twelve points
• Conversions equal two points
• Field goals less than 40 yards equal three points; more than 40 yards equal four points; and more than 50 yards equal five points
• Passing equals one point per ten yards; passing for touchdown equals three points
• Receiving equals one point per ten yards; passing for touchdown equals three points
• Receptions equal one point
• Interceptions are minus two points
• Fumbles re minus one point

but there are probably as many variations on this as there are rules. Many leagues include multiple defensive players and keep track of defensive stats too. There are also many other offensive statistics one can keep track off. The more your league keeps track of the more complicated scoring becomes; it can be much easier to keep track of comprehensive league scoring using an online application rather than trying to do so on your own.

Remember...

As a beginner, it's important to make sure that everyone is aware and in agreement with all of the rules at the outset. Misinterpretations and misunderstanding of your league's fantasy football rules can make the whole experience rather unpleasant, particularly if there is money or prizes at stake. But if everyone has a good understanding of the rules and regularly plays over the course of three months or so, fantasy football is great fun.