My Apologies!

For some reason I assumed that everyone on the planet knew what exactly Fantasy Football is. Obviously I was wrong. So I feel it my duty to explain it to you the way I know how. Just because I've played for 5 years does not make me an expert in any way shape or form. I just like to pretend like I know what I'm doing.

First of all you join a league of about 10 or so guys who really think they know what their doing even more than you. That's the genius of all this, cause half of the guys really don't have a clue any more than you do. Don't tell them I told you that.

Secondly and the most fun of all is the draft. If your not familiar with what a draft is, it's basically like picking teams at kick ball back in elementary school, but your the team captain and your picking some highly paid professionals. The "Commissioner" (that's the dude in charge of the league) draws every ones name to see what order we pick in the draft. So if your first than you get the best pick. If your last you get last pick. But being last is not always a bad thing as you come back up rotation you get two picks and then second to last picks and so on, til your back to number 1. Then number 1 picks twice and you do it all over again. You follow? You do this for 14 plus rounds. The first 3-5 rounds are critial as this is where everyone gets all the top players. Stay with me now I'll explain about the players in a sec. As you get to the last rounds your pretty much getting the sucky players, but they are primarily for backups. You use a back up when one of your top players gets hurt or they are on a bye. If you ever wonder why a grown man is crying when a top player gets hurt, it's cause they were probably on his fantasy team and his back up is probably some 3rd string high school quarterback.

Every league is different on what required players they must have. Our league sticks with the typical standard. 1 quarterback, 2 running backs, 2 wide receivers, 1 tight end, 1 kicker, 1 defense. All these players are picked from various teams. Some people like to pick a quarterback/wide receiver on the same team to kind of get double points. I don't like doing that, but that's just me. Now each player gets a certain amount of points for so many yards they've threw/ran/caught with the ball. They then get 6 points for every touchdown plus how ever many yards. "Hey you in back, no sleeping during class." Normally the standard is 25yards=1 point. So if for example Peyton Manning threw the ball to Marvin Harrison for 25 yards and Harrison made a touchdown. Peyton and Marvin would get 7 points each.Since Peyton threw the ball he gets the points also. Now in most cases you will not have both Marvin and Peyton both on your league. If you do then bravo to you for being so lucky. The great thing about the scoring is you don't have to keep up, the league website does it for you. Also you don't have to score a touch down to get your yardage points. If Peyton threw the ball to Marvin and Marvin got tackled both would still get 1 point. Since Peyton has a rocket arm he can usually score a good 15 points just on yardage. However if Peyton were to be intercepted, he would lose 2 points. The defense of the other team(whoever by chance has that team) would then gain 2 points.

Basically we've gone over picking your players, and how the scoring is done, any questions? It's really pretty simple. The most important thing is studying what players you want to pick and when to pick them. Most people pick a running back or quarterback in the first couple of rounds as they are the higher scorers and the good ones go really fast. If you were to pick a kicker in the first round you'd be shunned from the league. Another reason you want to "study" your players is to know who is actually playing/injured or even worse retired. Last year a dude on my league picked Marshall Faulk in one of the first rounds and had no clue that he was retired. The guys on our league are pretty nice enough to give you a heads up that someone is hurt. Cause sometimes you just don't, and it's hard to keep up. NO ONE told this poor dude that Marshall was retired. Instead we all tried very hard from containing ourselves from busting out laughing. Were all good sports like that. The website like CBSSportsline is always good about providing up to date info on players and stats. So it makes it pretty easy. Just in case you were a little intimidated by that keeping up with players part.

Once the draft is done your then set to go head to head against the other dudes in the league. Your following your score and your opponents score. The fun part is your not just following one NFL team, your following several. That my girlfriends, is why most men want the Sunday Ticket. So they can flip around to watch their "players" play. They probably could care less about the Bengals despite the fact that your dude has Chad Johnson on his team. At the end of the season before the real play offs, the FF playoffs begin. At this point it's no more mister nice guy/girl and the trash talk is on.

I have been very fortunate to make it to the play offs and so close to making it to the final 4. My poor hubs didn't even make it to the play offs last year. Sorry hon I'm really hoping for you this year. I honestly can tell you how nerve racking it can be watching your scores and your players. Your begging the quarterback to pass the ball to your dude. Yes you will be yelling at the T.V. saying your dude was wide open, or RUN baby RUN!

Playing FF has pretty much saved my marriage during football season. We bond like never before and share a commonality other than kids, work, and Mythbusters.
Class dismissed. There will be a quiz later.
BTW! I forgot to mention the most important part in all of this...the money!!! There is quite a substantial amount of money to be won for the Super Bowl winner. Sorry gals there is no ring involved for the champion.