Jump to content

How does fantasy football work?

Airehead

By Airehead
in The Café

 Share

Recommended Posts

MickinMD KOM / QOM

MickinMD ★

Posted
Posted

The most common form of fantasy football is called "head-to-head" where you become a team owner in a league where the teams have offensive players. Great free leagues are available at the beginning of each season at places like NFL.com, CBS Sports, Yahoo, and ESPN.

LEAGUES

The sites list leagues and, in most cases, you pick one to you want to join that isn't filled up with the typically 10 or 12 teams required in that league.  The teams in the league follow a game schedule and may be divided into 2-3 divisions that play a regular season for the first 13-14 weeks of the regular NFL season, then have knockout playoffs weeks 14-16 or 15-16.  The last week, 17, of the NFL season isn't usually a fantasy week because many already-clinched playoff teams rest their starters.  So almost all fantasy leagues end with week 16.

PLAYERS

The team you form, by choosing from all the NFL players, in a draft (automated or live), usually requires a starting lineup of one quarterback (QB), two running backs (RB), one tight end (TE) three wide receivers (WR) or two wide receivers and a FLEX (choice of WR, RB, or TE), a kicker (K), and for non-offensive flavor, an NFL team's Defense and Special Teams.  Additionally, you will 5 or more Bench player positions which can be any of those positions.

DRAFTS

There are two kinds of drafts for NFL players where each player can be owned by only one team. Those not drafted are called "free agents" and can be added later:

1) Automated Draft, where the site's computer picks the initial roster of players for all the teams, using an algorithm that usually results in a balanced league.  As the season goes on you can add/drop players from your roster.

2) Live Draft:  This is one of the most fun things in fantasy football if you know your players - or you can let the site's computer pick for you. This is where a certain date and time is listed with each league, you log in to the site, a draft window opens for you, and you are given 90 seconds to make each pick - if you miss the deadline the site's computer picks for you  The computer randomly determines the order in the first round. To make things equal, the order is reversed each round. So, in the CBS Lord of the Rings league, my Gandalf's fireworks got the 2nd pick in the first round and so had the 11th pick (2nd to last) in Round 2:  They they had 2nd in each odd round and 11th in each even round to the end.

image.png.fe5bab69f5fa19747602e5e82a239883.png

SCORING

The typical fantasy team scores around 100 points/game and basic scoring typically works like this:

Passing: 6 pts (4 pts in some leagues) for a touchdown, 1 point for every 25 yards passing, 2 pts for 2 pts after TD, -2 pts for an interception or lost fumble.

Receiving or Rushing: 6 pts per TD, 1 pt for every 10 yards receiving or rushing. -2 points for fumbles lost.  2 pts for scoring 2 pts after TD.  Many leagues today are called "PPR leagues" and also award 1 Point Per Reception,

Kicking: 1 pt for every extra point, 3 points for 49 yd or less Field Goals, 5 pts for 50 yd + FG's

Defense & Special Teams: 6 points for return or defensive TDs, 3 pts for a sack, 2 pts for turnovers, various points for holding down an opponent's score.

EXAMPLE

Here are several starting players from my #1 seed "Sapiens" and my opponent, #4 seed "Shake N Bake," who like most fantasy leagues are playing in their championship semi-finals - the winner goes on to the league's Super Bowl next week:

The players scores are updated live as the weekend goes on.

Here you can see, both quarterbacks already have their game scores since they played each other Thursday. Some sites round the scoring down to the nearest whole number (CBS) and some down to the nearest 0.1 fantasy pt. Here in an NFL.com custom league, it goes to 0.01. My QB Lamar Jackson of the Ravens (who I stole with a 12th round draft pick before the season!) had 212 passing yards (212/25 = 8.48 pts), 5 TD passes (5 x 4 = 20 pts), and 86 rushing yards (86/10 = 8.68 pts).  8.48 + 20 + 8.68 = 37.08. He got an extra 2 points for recovering a fumble for a total of 39.08 pts.  Jackson had an extremely high fantasy score, double the avg. QB's weekly score: my opponent's Jets QB Sam Darnold only had 15.82, calculated by the same scoring rules, and the site's computer now projects me to win the game by 33 points.  Of course, there is a great amount of deviation in actual scores compared to projected scores, so my opponent still has a decent chance

image.thumb.png.9218bf06aca8bab4f17e0b17394e66a5.png

 

 

 

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
MickinMD KOM / QOM

MickinMD ★

Posted
Posted

In addition to head-to-head leagues, there are fantasy games where you pick a team, of any players you want or players whose cost totals a certain number of play-money dollars, that lasts just one week of the season and your goal is a high score - either highest in a group or higher than a standard.  The highly NOT recommended gambling sites like Fanduel use such a setup.

There are also free sites and there's one for the four weeks of the postseason at: https://playoffchallenge.fantasy.nfl.com/

It will allow you to play after the playoff teams are determined.  You pick fantasy teams by choosing any player you want and last year's prize was a trip for two plus cash to this year's Super Bowl. One key trick is to guess which two teams will be in the Super Bowl and pick players from only those teams - even if they have a bye the first week - because your players' scores are doubled, tripled, and quadrupled if you pick them 2, 3, or 4 weeks in a row.

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Kzoo Flahute

Kzoo

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, Airehead said:

Wow, thanks. Now to figure out what I understand 

I would also suggest you work on what you don’t understand.  Enjoy Erie.  I hear the Bayfront Convention Center is a nice place. None of that was there when I moved from the area.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
smudge KOM / QOM

smudge ★

Posted
Posted

Cliff (smudge) Notes:  You and 9 or 11 other people compete against each other to form teams. Usually a team has a quarterback, 2 running backs, 2or 3 wide receivers, a kicker, and a defense along with 5 or so guys on the bench. Each week your team will face off against one of your friends teams. You can drop and add players each week to adjust to the way you think the players will perform in their real life game against the team they are actually playing. You get points for things like touchdown passes, touchdown receptions, yards run, interceptions, etc. 

Setting up your team each week seems obvious, but then your star player gets hurt or someone you've never heard of ends up having a monster game (scores a ton of points) and your star player gets hardly any points. Ugh... But, it's part of the day!

It's actually very fun. 

  • Heart 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
BR46 KOM / QOM

BR46

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, MickinMD said:

The most common form of fantasy football is called "head-to-head" where you become a team owner in a league where the teams have offensive players. Great free leagues are available at the beginning of each season at places like NFL.com, CBS Sports, Yahoo, and ESPN.

LEAGUES

The sites list leagues and, in most cases, you pick one to you want to join that isn't filled up with the typically 10 or 12 teams required in that league.  The teams in the league follow a game schedule and may be divided into 2-3 divisions that play a regular season for the first 13-14 weeks of the regular NFL season, then have knockout playoffs weeks 14-16 or 15-16.  The last week, 17, of the NFL season isn't usually a fantasy week because many already-clinched playoff teams rest their starters.  So almost all fantasy leagues end with week 16.

PLAYERS

The team you form, by choosing from all the NFL players, in a draft (automated or live), usually requires a starting lineup of one quarterback (QB), two running backs (RB), one tight end (TE) three wide receivers (WR) or two wide receivers and a FLEX (choice of WR, RB, or TE), a kicker (K), and for non-offensive flavor, an NFL team's Defense and Special Teams.  Additionally, you will 5 or more Bench player positions which can be any of those positions.

DRAFTS

There are two kinds of drafts for NFL players where each player can be owned by only one team. Those not drafted are called "free agents" and can be added later:

1) Automated Draft, where the site's computer picks the initial roster of players for all the teams, using an algorithm that usually results in a balanced league.  As the season goes on you can add/drop players from your roster.

2) Live Draft:  This is one of the most fun things in fantasy football if you know your players - or you can let the site's computer pick for you. This is where a certain date and time is listed with each league, you log in to the site, a draft window opens for you, and you are given 90 seconds to make each pick - if you miss the deadline the site's computer picks for you  The computer randomly determines the order in the first round. To make things equal, the order is reversed each round. So, in the CBS Lord of the Rings league, my Gandalf's fireworks got the 2nd pick in the first round and so had the 11th pick (2nd to last) in Round 2:  They they had 2nd in each odd round and 11th in each even round to the end.

image.png.fe5bab69f5fa19747602e5e82a239883.png

SCORING

The typical fantasy team scores around 100 points/game and basic scoring typically works like this:

Passing: 6 pts (4 pts in some leagues) for a touchdown, 1 point for every 25 yards passing, 2 pts for 2 pts after TD, -2 pts for an interception or lost fumble.

Receiving or Rushing: 6 pts per TD, 1 pt for every 10 yards receiving or rushing. -2 points for fumbles lost.  2 pts for scoring 2 pts after TD.  Many leagues today are called "PPR leagues" and also award 1 Point Per Reception,

Kicking: 1 pt for every extra point, 3 points for 49 yd or less Field Goals, 5 pts for 50 yd + FG's

Defense & Special Teams: 6 points for return or defensive TDs, 3 pts for a sack, 2 pts for turnovers, various points for holding down an opponent's score.

EXAMPLE

Here are several starting players from my #1 seed "Sapiens" and my opponent, #4 seed "Shake N Bake," who like most fantasy leagues are playing in their championship semi-finals - the winner goes on to the league's Super Bowl next week:

The players scores are updated live as the weekend goes on.

Here you can see, both quarterbacks already have their game scores since they played each other Thursday. Some sites round the scoring down to the nearest whole number (CBS) and some down to the nearest 0.1 fantasy pt. Here in an NFL.com custom league, it goes to 0.01. My QB Lamar Jackson of the Ravens (who I stole with a 12th round draft pick before the season!) had 212 passing yards (212/25 = 8.48 pts), 5 TD passes (5 x 4 = 20 pts), and 86 rushing yards (86/10 = 8.68 pts).  8.48 + 20 + 8.68 = 37.08. He got an extra 2 points for recovering a fumble for a total of 39.08 pts.  Jackson had an extremely high fantasy score, double the avg. QB's weekly score: my opponent's Jets QB Sam Darnold only had 15.82, calculated by the same scoring rules, and the site's computer now projects me to win the game by 33 points.  Of course, there is a great amount of deviation in actual scores compared to projected scores, so my opponent still has a decent chance

image.thumb.png.9218bf06aca8bab4f17e0b17394e66a5.png

 

 

 

My head hurts 

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...