Explaining the different types of leagues available and scoring
The preseason has begun for the NFL and that means fantasy football is just around the corner.
In this the first addition of my fantasy football corner for the 2013-2014 season I will go over the different types of fantasy football leagues, scoring options, drafting options, and ideas that might help you going into your draft.
The first thing you need to know when going into any fantasy sport is what type of league you are in.
There are several different types of leagues, standard draft leagues, auction draft leagues, dynasty leagues, keeper leagues, individual defensive player (IDP) leagues and survivor leagues.
The most common is a standard league where you draft your players round by round at a table with a group of friends, online in a chat forum, or auto drafting with pre-draft rankings.
The others less commonly used are auction drafts, which involves getting a budget amount before the draft and bidding on players. You can only buy players with the amount of money given before the draft, so once you are out of money you have to hit free agency or the waiver wire to fill your team.
A dynasty league is one that can take several seasons to master. After the initial draft you keep your entire team for the next season unless you trade or release players. This is like playing franchise mode on Madden, but with your friends in fantasy football mode.
A keeper league is based off a standard draft like a dynasty league but you only keep a selected number of players into the next season. Currently I am in a keeper league where we get to keep two players. In this format you want to keep your best two players, or players who have the highest upside. Example being Robert Griffin III has a high upside because he is young and is a quarterback, which is a high scoring position.
An IDP league is one where you draft offensive players like normal, but instead of drafting a team defense you select individual players. In most IDP leagues you do not draft an entire defense, but rather one to five players. In IDP leagues line backers are usually the best choice as they record the most tackles. You can gamble and go for a lineman or secondary position with a high upside on sacks and interceptions, but the tackles are less. Consistency is key for IDP, so taking players like Patrick Willis and Navarro Bowman is a good choice.
Finally a survivor league is very unique. You draft your team then the real fun begins. Each week the team with the lowest scoring is eliminated. Not sure what this means? Say Team-A plays Team-B, Team-C plays Team-D and so on. The team with the lowest scoring, say Team-A scores the least amount of points, Team-A would not get to play any other weeks from then on. The winner of the survivor league is the team who did not score the lowest point total each week and never gets eliminated. Get it? Kind of like the TV show survivor.
There are also several different ways to score a league, with the most common being the Head-to-Head with points. Others less commonly used are rotisserie and Head-to-Head with categories.
In a Head-to-Head league with points Team-A plays Team-B, Team-C plays Team-D and so on. If Team-A beats Team-B 125-101, and Team-C beats Team-D 124-102, Team-A would be in first place at 1-0, and Team-C would be in second place with a 1-0 record. The reason they are not tied is because the points are different, Team-A scored 125 while Team-C scored 124. The difference of one point can make a difference, and has. Some leagues count half points too, so watch your stats!
Head-to-Head with categories is a bit different than Head-to-Head with points as instead of totaling points you need to win each category, such as Team-A plays Team-B, Team-C plays Team-D and so on. If Team-A had more passing yards, receptions, rushing attempts, touchdowns and field goals than Team-B, but Team-B had more completions, receiving yards, rushing yards and extra points, Team-A would win 5-4, as they won five categories while Team-B only won four categories.
Rotisserie leagues are the least common in football, as each week you are not playing against a single opponent but the entire league. So each week you need to account for every game and every player not on your roster being your opponent. In a rotisserie league you playing based on categories.
Example: Team-A 300 passing yards, 15 completions, 100 rushing yards, 18 rushing attempts, 120 receiving yards, 12 receptions, two touchdowns, two field goals, and two extra points. Team-B 320 passing yards, 18 completions, 90 rushing yards, 22 rushing attempts, 135 receiving yards, 10 receptions, one touchdown, three field goals, and one extra point. Team-C 280 passing yards, 14 completions, 85 rushing yards, 20 attempts, 115 receiving yards, nine receptions, no touchdowns, no field goals, no extra points. Team-D 299 passing yards, 17 completions, 115 rushing yards, 21 rushing attempts, 105 receiving yards, 11 receptions, one touchdown, two field goals, one extra point.
Here Team-A would be leading rushing yard, receptions, touchdowns and extra points while Team-B would be leading passing yard, completions, rushing attempts, receiving yards and field goals. Team-C and Team-D did not lead in any category but were not last in every category either.
In this scenario Team-B would be leading the week as he had led the most categories and was higher in the categories he lost than the other teams. Team-A would be second as he led the second most categories and did well in other categories. Followed by Team-D and Team-C.
There also also a variety of venues to host your fantasy league with CBS, ESPN and Yahoo being my favorite.
Now that you have the gist of Fantasy Football go gather some friends together and choose a league type you want to play. But remember to check back next week because I will go over some pre-draft rankings by position and how those effect what league you are playing in.
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