Fantasy Football is a fantasy sports game based on statistical results generated by National Football League and/or college football players and teams. Leagues are organized with a set group of "owners" that compete in weekly head-to-head or cumulative points systems. Leagues hold a draft or auction before the start of the season to form rosters, and just like in real football, owners can make trades with other owners for players, and sign and waive players. The last few weeks of the season are generally used for playoffs to help determine the league champion.
Networks such as NBC, ESPN and others have created web pages in response to the growing interest in fantasy football.http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/ http://games.espn.go.com/ffl/welcome These sites feature forums for online interaction, player statistics and league information such as leader boards.
In addition to the online sites that offer tools for play, there are also mobile applications to stay in touch with your team. The Android Market offers several apps that can be used for free to track statistics, roster management and real time scores. http://www.androidguys.com/2010/09/09/fantasy-football-apps-android-phone/Blackberry users can access their team by using the ESPN Fantasy Football 2010 app while Apple offers applications that can be used with the iPad, iPhone or iPod such as the Fantasy Football Draft Guide and the ESPN Fantasy Football Draft Kit.http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/14021 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/espn-fantasy-football-draft/id386084373?mt=8 For other mobile users, the Yahoo Fantasy Football mobile site is free to use.http://mobile.yahoo.com/fantasy-football
Types of Leagues
In Fantasy Football, a league can be comprised of several teams as low as four and as high as 20. A league may be classified as being either a redraft, keeper or dynasty league. These classifications determine the rules for selecting players to a fantasy team.http://football.about.com/od/fantasygames/a/fantasyleagues.htm
In a redraft league, all of the owners start the season without any players, having to draft a complete team at the start of each season. In keeper leagues, owners may keep a predetermined number of the players that they had on their team from the previous season. Dynasty leagues allow for an owner to retain all of the players on the team, releasing only those of their choosing. Drafts in dynasty leagues include only rookie players and those unclaimed by other teams.http://dynastyleaguefootball.com/
Draft Procedure
The procedure for drafting players to a team can involve a traditional method or an auction method. In the traditional method, drafts occur in serpentine cycles, hence their colloquial name of "snake drafts." This involves the selection process being divided into rounds, with the owner to have selected first in and odd numbered round selecting last in an even numbered round. This process is carried through until the final selection is made. In the auction method, the process is more straightforward, each owner if allocated a predetermined amount of fantasy money and available players are auctioned to the highest bidder.http://games.espn.go.com/ffl/content?page=fflrulesdraftmethods2009
Finding a League
The NFL has its official fantasy game entitled NFL Fantasy 2010. It requires users to register at their website, NFL.com. The registration is free and includes enhanced live scoring features as well as in-game video highlights and offers prizes at the end of the season to the best performing owners.http://app.edialog.nfl.com/sweeps/fantasy/signup.cfm?icampaign=Fantasy_early_signup
Other venues to find or administer your fantasy league are Yahoo Fantasy Sports and the website fftoday.com.http://www.fftoday.com/tools/index.htm http://sports.yahoo.com/fantasy The latter allows for direct interaction with leagues manged through the myfantasyleague.com website.http://myfantasyleague.com/
Top Performing Players of 2009
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4434 YDS |
4388 YDS |
4202 YDS |
4500 YDS |
4770 YDS |
Leading Running Backs
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2006 Rush Yds |
1389 Rush Yds |
1391 Rush Yds |
1339 Rush Yds |
1402 Rush Yds |
Leading Wide Receivers
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101 Rec |
83 Rec |
81 Rec |
63 Rec |
97 Rec |
References
Fast Facts
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Fact:
Drafts are usually held in August
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Fact:
Types of leagues are head-to-head or cumulative
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Fact:
Some leagues hold auctions and use salary caps
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Two basic playing levels
casual and competitive
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Fact:
Keeper leagues allow you to hold onto predetermined number of players from year-to-year
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Fact:
Leagues may also draft new teams each year
