Fantasy Football 101 - Bachelor Pad Edition

A representation of my street-cred after this post.

Last week, my girlfriend told me that she was going to organize an all-female fantasy football league for her and her friends. After explaining why this made me more attracted to her than ever before, I agreed to write her a beginner's guide to fantasy football, explaining the basic rules of the game to someone who is completely new to it. And to tailor it to her audience, I put it in terms of the summer reality show, Bachelor Pad (my roommate Doug describes it as a brilliant show where D-list celebrities look down upon aspiring D-list celebrities).

You might say this post will ruin my credibility, but the joke's on you; I don't have any credibility to begin with. Here it is for your enjoyment/ridicule. 

FANTASY FOOTBALL 101 - SO YOU THINK YOU CAN FOOTBALL?

Why Fantasy Football is Awesome 

1) It makes boring games fun: "Jaguars vs. Titans? Who cares? Wait...has Maurice Jones-Drew scored any touchdowns?"

2) It gives you a sense of ownership over a team that you created yourself. It's like owning a fake business.

3) It brings you closer to your friends. I'm am still very much in touch with my college roommates who live across the country, mainly because we frequently email each other to talk smack and negotiate trades. 

History
At some point a few decades ago (possibly with a Raiders minority owner in 1962), a group of football fans decided to compete with each other by picking individual players and tracking newspaper box scores to see who accumulated the best statistics. The fantasy industry blew up with the internet, as sites popped up that allowed fantasy players to view their stats and manage their rosters in real time. 

How to Win
There are 17 weeks in the NFL season (each NFL team plays 16 games and gets one BYE/week of rest). Each week, your team competes against an opponent and accumulates points based on how your players perform. The team that scores more points gets the win. Accumulate enough wins during the fantasy regular season (13 weeks) and you make the playoffs. Win all of your playoff games (3 rounds from Weeks 14-16) and you're the champion. Easy peezy. 

Rosters
Each team has 15 players. Each week, you start 9 of them and leave 6 on your bench. The 9 starters are:

1 Quarterback (QB)

2 Running Backs (RB)

2 Wide Receivers (WR)

1 Tight End (TE)

1 FLEX (your choice of RB, WR, or TE)

1 Defense (DEF)

1 Kicker (K) 

Drafting

Drafting your team is as simple as it sounds. There will be 15 rounds (one for each roster spot) and you get a pick in each round. The order is determined randomly, but there isn't a huge advantage to what spot you pull because of the snake draft format. Under a snake draft, if you have the first pick in Round 1, then you'll get the last pick in Round 2, the first pick in Round 3, the last pick in Round 4, etc. Some people like to have the first pick so that they can get the best player, but others prefer the 12th pick to get two Top 15 players.

You'll draft via your league's website. I suggest taking 5 minutes to sign up for a random mock (i.e. fake) draft, and check out the website you'll be using to draft. There's nothing worse than walking into your real draft and not knowing which buttons to press to select the players you want (I've seen it happen many times). 

Scoring
Your players will acquire/lose points based on a few different categories. Here is how it breaks down:

25 passing yards = 1 point

10 rushing yards = 1 pt

10 receiving yards = 1 pt

Touchdown (TD) = 6 pts

Turnover (interception or fumble) = -2 pts

So say that Eli Manning finishes a game with 300 yds passing, 2 TDs, 1 INT and 1 FUM. His fantasy total for the day would be 20 points (12+12-2-2).

Kickers score 3 to 5 pts for each field goal, depending on how long it is. They also get 1 pt for each extra point they kick after a TD.

Defenses have a lot more categories, including sacks, INTs, FUMs, and number of points allowed. 

Position Breakdown

Now let's go through each position, Bachelor Pad-style:

QUARTERBACKS - Bachelor Pad Equivalent: Michael

Like Michael, QBs are the golden boys of this game. Everyone loves them (although I've never presented Eli Manning with a sketch drawing of his face).

QBs put up the most fantasy points because of the amount of TDs they thrown. The best RBs and WRs score 15 to 20 TDs in a season, but the best QBs throw for 40 to 50.

Does this mean that you should draft a QB with your first pick? Not necessarily. Remember that the goal of fantasy football isn't to score the most points, but to score more points than your opponents. That means that the best players are the ones who are outscore their peers the most.

For example, Packers QB Aaron Rodgers led the league in fantasy points last year with 385. But the 5th best QB, Matthew Stafford, still had 333; only 52 points fewer. But the best RB (Ray Rice - 283 pts) had 80 more than the 5th best RB (Michael Turner - 203). This is why, if you look at an expert mock draft, you'll see more RBs taken in the first round than QBs, even though QBs score more points.

Nevertheless, having a good QB is an important step to winning your league. In recent years the NFL has made rule changes to help the passing game. Now, QBs are putting up bigger stats than ever. 5 years ago, you wouldn't see the first QB taken until Round 2 or 3. This year, several QBs will be taken in Round 1 of most drafts.

RUNNING BACKS - Bachelor Pad Equivalent: Ed

Like Ed, fantasy running backs used to be stars but are now on the ropes. Back in the 1990's, a coach would give 30 carries to his best RB and watch him rack up yards and TDs. If you wanted to win your fantasy league, you needed to take an RB in Round 1. But as the NFL has shifted to more of a passing game, coaches are running the ball less and using more RB committees (spreading the ball to 2 RBs instead of 1). Now, even the best RBs don't get more than 20 carries per game.

If a RB wants to be elite today, they need to contribute by catching the ball as well as running it. Of Ray Rice's 283 pts last year, 88 came from receiving yards and TDs. Now, you'll see many of the best RBs gather 25 receiving yards per game in addition to their usual running stats.

WIDE RECEIVERS - Bachelor Pad Equivalent: Blakely

Wide receivers, like Blakely, are the divas of fantasy football: they're talented, but you can never really trust what they're going to do. Because a lot of outside factors contribute to a WR's success (how his QB is throwing, if the defense is double-covering him), his production can roller coaster from week to week. One game, he could catch a 50 yd bomb TD to give him 11 pts on one play. The next week, he could get shut down to just 2 catches for 20 yards. Still, as QBs put up bigger stats, the value of a good WR has increased in the last few years.

TIGHT ENDS - Bachelor Pad Equivalent: Chris

Tight ends were once anonymous players in the fantasy football world. Coaches used them as blockers first and receivers second. Each season, only one or two TEs put up noticeable fantasy stats. However, that has completely changed in recent years as stronger and faster receiving TEs are dominating the middle of the field. Last year, Rob Gronkowski and Jimmy Graham set records for TE receiving and were better than almost every WR out there. Much like Chris, TEs have come on strong and are a powerful weapon to have (except most of them aren't as, how-do-you-say, "asshole-ish").

DEFENSES - Bachelor Pad Equivalent: The Twins

When you draft one defense, you're taking more than one player. Like the Twins, that makes their impact smaller and completely reliant on how well they work together. You can draft a defense that gets a lot of sacks or turnovers, but you should also remember that its production can change week-to-week based on the strength of the offense it faces. Some people prefer to draft a good defense in the middle rounds, but others get along just fine by switching defenses each week based on who is facing the worst offense.

KICKERS - Bachelor Pad Equivalent: Dave

Kickers in football are like Superfan Dave: they're just happy to be there. (Disclaimer: I like Dave, but the "I'm just trying to make it to next week" strategy will only get you so far. Better switch it up soon, buddy.) Sometimes owners will draft a kicker early because he's on a really good offense, but studies have shown that kicker performances are completely unpredictable from year to year. At this point, every smart fantasy owner just drafts a kicker with their last pick.

After the Draft - Waiver Wire, Trades, and Managing Your Team 

Drafting a good team is only half the battle in fantasy football. Afterwards, you want to make sure you check on it every week to set your roster, look for hot pickups to grab off the waiver wire, and maybe trade with a friend for a player you really like.

Remember that each NFL player has a BYE week when their team doesn't play, so you'll need to start your bench players some weeks. You'll also want to see which of your guys has the best matchup, as some opponents are tougher than others.

For the first time ever, the NFL will have an early Thursday night game every week of this season. So make sure that you have your preferred starters in by Thursday evening.

Any player that isn't drafted becomes a free agent. You can freely add one of these players and drop one from your roster at any time, with one exception: when Sunday games begin, the free agent pool locks and every free agent goes to the Waiver Wire. You can still try to pick one up, but he won't be added to your roster until Wednesday, and that's only if a friend with a worse record for you didn't claim him. The Waiver Wire is in place because it stops someone from picking up all of the weekend's best performers on Sunday night while everyone else is still away for the weekend.

Oftentimes, the best players won't be available to you because one of your friends owns them. That means that you'll have to trade to get them. Don't be afraid to trade. In my experience, the more trades a fantasy league has, the more fun it is.

Some Resources 

Draft Prep - Many sites, like ESPN, will have plenty of articles and lists for you to use to familiarize yourself with the players. Some people spend hours upon hours prepping for their draft by analyzing expert projections, last year's top performers, training camp news, and expert mock drafts. If you are short on time, I suggest just printing out a cheat sheet and crossing names off as people draft them, taking the best player available. Even if you have no idea who any of the players are, you'll have a decent team if you just follow this list.

Player News - Whenever I am wondering whether to pick up or trade for a player, I always search for him on CBS Sports or Rotoworld. They are great places to get the most up-to-date info with quick fantasy advice.

Start/Sit Decisions - Each week, you'll have to decide which of your players to start and which to leave on the bench. ESPN's fantasy football section is constantly putting out valuable advice columns.

Final Words

A fantasy league is only as much fun as the amount of investment its owners put into it. I've been in leagues where friends stop paying attention when they lose a couple of games, and that ruins it for everyone. I've also been in leagues where everyone pays attention all season (there is money on the line, after all) and those are the ones I want to come back to next year. Heckle your friends in the draft room, lowball them with trade offers, pay attention to your team, and don't be afraid to take risks. You're going to have a lot of fun this season.

I talk about all things football, few things reality TV, at @BostonGiant.

 Images found here,  here, here, here, here, here and here.