FANTASY FOOTBALL BASICS
ABOUT:
So you're new to fantasy football, you have no idea where to start or what to do. Fantasy Football can be very overwhelming to new players, there are many different platforms, league types and different scoring set ups. This page is to get you started in the right direction so you can get the most enjoyment possible out of it. The easiest way to describe fantasy football is a group of owners trying to earn points based on the stats from real NFL games. Most leagues will roster around 12-16 players and the owners of those players will gain points based off of how they perform week to week.
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First things first, you have to get a group of people together of 8-12 people (owners). You can play with more but the players thin out real quick, as a beginner I would suggest staying in the 8-12 range. There are also options to join public leagues with random people on most fantasy platforms, however it typically isn't nearly as fun as playing with people you know.
PLATFORMS:
Ok lets get into the different platforms that you can play on. When I say platforms I'm talking about the site or apps that you play on. The three most common platforms that you will hear about are Yahoo, NFL, and ESPN. My recommendation to everyone is the Sleeper App which is hands down the best in my opinion. Sleeper has an abundance of options for league set up and is extremely user friendly. Another great thing about it is they are constantly updating and looking for ways to improve. Best thing to do is research and gain opinions from other people that have played.
LEAGUE TYPES:
Here is where things can start getting really confusing. There are so many different types of leagues to choose from and the longer you play the more you will learn about all of them, so here we will give you a basic understanding of them. Let's start with a standard Redraft league, this league is what you will more than likely start out in fantasy with. Redraft leagues will be your standard league set up and you will redraft your team every year.
Dynasty league, now this type of league requires a lot more strategy. The reason it requires a lot more strategy is it' s almost like managing your own NFL team as you will draft your original team then it's all about how you manage that team year after year. After your initial draft in a dynasty every year after will be just a rookie draft with incoming rookies. Keeper league, so a keeper league is kind of in between a redraft and a dynasty. This type of league you will only be able to keep a certain number of players every year. So, you draft your team and after the year is over you choose your keepers for the next year, and normally you can only keep 3 to 4 players based on your league rules.
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The final type of league I will mention here is a new type that has been up and coming for the past few years. Best Ball leagues are pretty simple, you draft your team and that's it, there is not in season management of the team. So really the most strategy that will go into a best ball league is the draft, because you don't set your line up, have a waiver wire, or trade during the season. Your highest scoring players each week will be automatically put into your starting line-up. As I said before there are many types of leagues to choose from, more than I mentioned here, but the league types I did not mention are not played very often.
ROSTERS AND SCORING:
These two things can be set up in many different ways it's really all on the preference of your league. Roster sizes will typically be around 12-16 players. Your basic roster will typically have 1 Quarterback (QB), 2 Running Backs (RB), 2 Wide Receivers (WR), 1 Flex (usually a WR or RB sometimes a TE or QB), 1 Kicker (K), and 1 Defense (DST). A lot of leagues are getting rid of the Kicker position because it is unpredictable, the same goes for Defense in some leagues although it's a little more predictable. You will also have 5-7 bench spots: The bench players will gain points for the week, but they will not count towards your weekly total.
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The most common two things you will hear when it comes to scoring are Points Per Reception (PPR) which means for every catch that one of your players make you get a point. The other is Standard Scoring which just means you are not getting a point for the receptions. PPR leagues seem to be the go-to these days, with some people even going with a Half PPR league which is becoming more and more popular. Most of the platforms have adjustable scoring set ups though so it's all up to how the league commissioner sets up the league. One of the most important things prior to drafting your team though is know your Roster and Scoring set ups because it could affect your draft.
SEASON & PLAYOFFS:
The season for Fantasy Football typically runs through week 14 or 15 with the playoffs running between weeks 15-17. One thing to keep an eye on is bye weeks, some people will let bye weeks affect their draft but I am here to tell you don't. Draft players based off of who you like for the year, I would rather take a loss because I have a lot of people stacked on one bye week than to let it affect my whole season.
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The reason most leagues won't run their playoffs through the last week of the season is there is a possibility that teams that have playoff positions locked will bench their stars and you end up scrambling to find replacements. Most leagues have 4-6 playoff teams that make it based off of regular season records. Make sure you check your league settings for tiebreaker rules, some leagues do head-to-head tie breakers and others are based off of total points for the season which is what it is most of the time.
WAIVER WIRE:
The waiver wire can be set up a few ways for leagues, my personal favorite is Free Agent Acquisition Budget (FAAB). FAAB is set up so each owner gets a certain budget at the beginning of the season and when a player is on the waivers you can bid a portion of your budget to try and claim that player with the player going to the highest bidder. Once your budget is gone you can still claim players, but you will not get them if someone with a budget left bids on them. Another way it can be set up is reverse order of standings, which is pretty simple whoever is in last going into the new week has the #1 waiver priority, and whoever is first when the week starts gets the last waiver priority.
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The final common way I've seen waivers set up is every time you make a waiver move you move to the end of the line (For ex. if you have the #1 waiver priority and you pick someone up you move to the end of the line and whoever was #2 moves to #1. Most of the time waivers clear on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning and then all the unclaimed players mover to free agency, the players move back to the waivers once they play a game.
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If I could give one piece of advice to new fantasy owners with the waiver wire it would be don't always buy the waiver wire hype. Do your research on players and know the situation that they are in, just because they have one breakout week doesn't mean they won't flop the next or even the rest of the season. If you waste your entire FAAB on one player, you may really regret it down the line when you need a replacement due to injury.
TRADES:
This could be one of the most frustrating things in fantasy football, and the reason I say that is everyone values players differently. You have to look at trades and realize you will not win them all the time. What I mean when I say you won't win them all the time is sometimes the value of the players you are giving up will be a little higher than what you are receiving. Some of you may ask, well why would I give up higher value than what I am receiving? The answer to this question is I may be stacked at WR but I need a decent RB, the value of the RB may not be quite as high as the WR but I'm making my team better by getting that RB.
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Trading is really important in dynasty leagues because you have to learn timing on when to trade players off when they get older or when you think they are going to start producing less. If a trade seems lopsided typically the commissioner has the final say on if it's pushed through or not. If you have an issue with a trade take it to the commissioner and have that discussion don't blow the whole league up over it, and also don't be that person who complains about every trade because you are not a part of the trade.