Fantasy Football 2024: My Penix Was A Huge Mistake (2024)

A way to get even angrier about numbers than looking at a US hospital bill!

Free League Hosting Services

• Sleeper: Gunning for the #1 spot. A dedicated fantasy football platform that has lots of pretty colors and makes team management easy to use. It also has some really weird stuff like mascots that I'm sure they don't want anymore. My preferred platform because it's so drat easy to use.
  
• ESPN: ESPN is stable and reliable system that's fairly powerful. It also hasn't been updated since Matthew Berry had a full head of hair.
  
• CBS: One of the old-school free league sites There are both free and premium subscriptions.
  
• Yahoo: I like Yahoo! the best, but a lot of people complain about their interface being clunky.
  
• NFL.com: Flashy interface and integrated video, but it's awful. The draft interface is unfortunate.
  
• Fleaflicker: It’s a free site and very highly reviewed. The interface is spartan and information-driven and league customization options are deep.
  
• Fantrax: A lot of people have been complaining that MFL sucks but is the only option for salary keeper leagues. Don't use Fantrax if you can help it, it was a nice in-between from MFL to Sleeper but its time is gone.

• My Fantasy League: Allows the greatest range of league customization options (both the league website and rules). Winner of multiple FSTA League Manager Product awards. Fantastic for dynasty, and well worth the $60 it costs to run a league each year. The insanely specific user interface is usually quite overwhelming at first. If you're running a redraft league, this is a bit like using an uzi to open a beer can. Too much power for what you need.
  

• Football Absurdity Goon-run fantasy football site that hosts Beersheets.
  
• NBC Rotoworld Sports Edge: THE source for examining specific players and getting news on them. I don't even bother using their on-site search engine; just Google "Rotoworld (Player Name)" and it'll pop right up.
  
• Football Guys: Has a free daily newsletter that I consider mandatory. It provides you with updates and alerts about players. They also have a really nice amount of content should you subscribe.
  
• FantasyFootballCalculator: The current standard for mock drafting. It's a good place to find other people and get some experience with the pace of drafting. Another new mock draft site that's generating some buzz is SnapDraft. I haven't had a chance to use it myself.
  
• FantasyPros: An immensely helpful aggregator, taking data from all sorts of sources and providing a consensus of their thoughts. Personally, I think this is the best method for looking at projections and predictions, as to be honest at best people will be around 60% correct. They also have a free weekly cheat sheet where you can input your team and get back projections; if you have multiple teams it's worth dropping the cash for the premium edition.
  
• Reddit Fantasy Football: They're very active and frequently post new information and articles. Probably one of the easiest ways to pick up new info, and the community is well moderated.

• The Edge: Amazing stat analysis tool that has recently taken the fantasy world by storm.
  
• Pro Football Reference: The Mac Daddy of football stat sites. They're dipping their toe in advanced stats but their data there isn't the best. Stathead is a great resource for running queries to find the player splits to prove your point but it costs money.
  
• PlayerProfiler.com: An extremely slick interface that lets you look at a player to get basically all the information you might need in an easily readable package. It charts stuff like PFF but uses it for a fantasy football slant. The owner is insanely brash but the site is A+. It has a pay option that lets you run (easy to use) queries to get the stats in spreadsheet format instead of player-by-player. That's some real sicko poo poo though (it's me I'm sicko)
  
• BRotoFantasy.com: Has free tools that gain you access to other advanced stats. I particularly like Rush Yyards Over Expectation per attempt.
  
• DynastyLeagueFootball: Has some great tools after purchasing FFStatistics a few years ago. Kind of starting to go by the wayside but there's no better site for historical week-to-week rankings or splits data.
  
• Sharp Football Stats: Lets you find stuff like % of team pass plays in 13 personnel. Real sicko hours.
  

• Rotopass: A group rate for multiple sites; Footballguys, Rotowire, ESPN Insider, RosterWatch, RotoViz, Fantasy Insiders, and $10 credit to FanDuel and DRAFT.
  
• The Fantasy Footballers: Three guys with a great podcast and an extremely comprehensive draft guide.
  
• 4For4: Known for their accuracy, and one of the premium services I subscribe to.
  
• Rotoviz: Premium article-heavy site full of interesting analysis and data driven projections. One of my favorites.
  
• Dynasty League Football: This site offers advice specific to dynasty leagues. I consider this a mandatory subscription unless you're in my dynasty league.
  
• Pro Football Focus: Additional projections and fantasy news.
  
• FantasyPros: The standard for fantasy data aggregation, and you can pay for access to a roster management and mock draft package called My Playbook that is very helpful.
  

• Clicky Draft: Online free draft board. Good for putting an IRL draft on a TV screen for easy reference.
  

• Dynasty Daddy: Uses multiple sites to help you gauge whether a trade is fair or not.
  

• Boris Chen's Fantasy Football Tiers: Boris aggregates data from Fantasypros and applies a statistical clustering algorithm that creates natural tiers within the data. It's a really awesome method and Beer highly recommends checking it out and he has a PhD in statistics so I just do whatever he says.
  
• FantasyFootballCalculator: We religiously check their ADP Data, but make sure you factor out dynasty drafts if you are looking at it pre-August.
  
• ESPN: Includes projections as well as live draft results.
  
• FantasyPros: Includes consensus ADP rankings along with projections for each offensive position.
  
• FFToday: Another resource for rankings and projections.
  
• FFToolbox: Assuming you're not sick of these yet here are more rankings and projections.
  
• Gridiron Experts: Additional rankings, noted for their accuracy by the FSTA.
  
• My Fantasy League ADP Data ADP results from all of MFL's drafts.
  
• FantasySharks: More projections!
  
• NumberFire: Registration required, but it's free.
  
• KFFL Fantasy Football
  
• http://www.nflweather.com/en/: Useful for finding gameday weather to help guide decisions.
  

• The Fantasy Footballers: Has basically become the default fantasy football podcast, featuring three guys who are full time fantasy nuts. Decent balance of humor and conversation, although they get a bit repetitive and I find a lot of their opinions to be rather knee-jerk rather than insightful.
  
• The Audible: Footballguys has a regular podcast that combines a healthy amount of insight, injury help with Dr. Jene Bramel, and they're very football-focused if you prefer that to other podcasts that have gimmicks or gags.
  
• CBS Fantasy Football Today: Another high tier podcast that balances humor and insight, with multiple perspectives and a decent amount of access thanks to their CBS affiliation. They also have a Fantasy Football in Five edition that is essentially a short version of the main episode.
  
• 4For4 Most Accurate Podcast: John Paulsen has repeatedly won awards for accuracy, and he provides a ton of information in a condensed amount of time. The mood is light and never boring, and at only 30 minutes per episode it's short and to the point.
  
• Around The NFL: Although not technically a fantasy-specific podcast, they have a lot of useful information and provide a pretty cool insight into the workings of NFL media. They also seem to get a ton of really cool guests and the conversation is surprisingly candid. This has been my favorite podcast for years. RIP Wess.
  
• ESPN Fantasy Focus Football: Small indie podcast by some guy who was an extra in Avengers once.
  

Beat Writer Aggregator
@32BeatWriters

Real NFL Guys
@AlbertBreer
@gregcosell
@mortreport
@AdamSchefter
@rapsheet

Football Guys
@Sigmundbloom - Produces the excellent "Audible" podcast. My favorite follow.
@MattWaldman - Writes the Rookie Scouting Portfolio. I'm not sure he sleeps.
@JeneBramel - MD and Football Guy, excellent for injury updates on gameday morning and IDP advice
Not Dov Kleiman

The Fantasy Footballers - some people don't like them (too much fluff) but they are insanely accurate
@JasonFFL
@AndyHolloway
@ffhitman

CBS Sports
@DaveRichard - might be the nicest guy in fantasy
@JameyEisenberg - doesn't sleep
@HeathCummingssr - contrarian takes
@CTowersCBS - mix baseball/football
@AdamAizer - Trash takes

ESPN
@MikeClayNFL - The only one worth your time on their godawful analysis network
@StephaniaESPN - ok, Stephania Bell is good, too.

NFL
@GreggRosenthal - Former Rotoworld writer, great real life football knowledge
@AdamRank - Fantasy Analyst
@MarcasG - Fantasy Analyst
@MichaelFFlorio - Fantasy Analyst

NBC Sports Edge (current and former)
@LordReebs
@JoshNorris
@EvanSilva - The GOAT
@RotoPat - The guy who writes the funny Rotoworld blurbs
@CDCarter13 - FF #taeks and owning the ilbs

Yahoo!
@scott_pianowski
@AndyBehrens - boring
@LizLoza_FF
@MattHarmon_BYB - The Reception Perception guy.
@YahooNoise - Accurate/ballsy, but can take over a twitter feed

Misc. Writers/PFF Guys
@friscojosh - The Airyards Guy. Kind of an rear end in a top hat but has great WR insight
@LateRoundQB - JJ Zachariason, Editor-in-Chief at Fanduel & Numberfire
@ChrisRaybon - DFS Expert, but gives some good insight
@ScottBarrettDFB - Head PFF Fantasy Analyst, extraordinarily good info
@MikeTagliereNFL - lead NFL Writer, Fantasypros (RIP Tags)
@Allinkid - Lead Writer, The Athletic Fantasy
@4for4_John - from 4for4, most accurate guy the last couple years
@TJHernandez - DFS Director, 4for4
@HarrisFootball

Recommended by goons
@MySportsUpdate - Ari Meirov

Introduction - lifted directly from Beer because this is all good stuff!
Fantasy football does something amazing for sports fans in that it can make any game interesting. Two 0-5 teams across the country from you squaring off? Well if you have one of their quarterbacks, you will be pounding the table and screaming at the game until they kick you out of the bar.

Basically, you put together a team of individual players from around the league, then score points based on their performance on the football field. Lots of stuff can score points, like gaining yards and catching passes, so there's room for excitement during every single play.

The cycle of an NFL week provides a great framework for fantasy football. Most fantasy leagues are set up where each player plays another every week, and whoever has the highest total once the Monday night game ends gets the win. The playoffs happen during the last few weeks of the NFL regular season (although week 17 is a severely unpopular week for fantasy championships, because playoff-bound teams often rest their best players.)

Pretty much, if you like football and watching football, you will most likely love fantasy. If you never have before, give it a try.

The Basics
A league consists of several owners (typically 12), one of whom is the commissioner who manages the league. At the beginning of the season each owner drafts a roster of players. Rosters are typically fifteen players and consist of starters and a bench of reserve players to replace starters who are injured or on bye weeks. A typical starting lineup that will mirror NFL positions and consist of 1 Quarterback (QB), 2 Running Backs (RB), 3 Wide Receivers (WR), 1 Tight End (TE), a Place Kicker (PK), and a Team Defense/Special Teams (DST).

Each week your players will score points for your team according to their performance. Scoring can be very simple or incredibly complicated depending on the league, but many leagues use a standard scoring system where passing provides 1 point per 25 yards, 4 points per passing touchdown, and -1 point per interception and receiving and rushing gain 1 point per 10 yards, 6 points per receiving/rushing touchdown. Field goals are typically worth 3 points, and team defense scoring depends on a number of factors including sacks, interceptions, points allowed, defensive touchdowns, etc. Many leagues will use different scoring systems depending on the preferences of the players. One significant difference is PPR, or Points Per Reception, where wide receiver are awarded a set number of points (typically 0.5 or 1) for every reception.

The league season will go for a set number of weeks during the regular NFL season. Typically the last two to four weeks of the regular season are reserved for the playoffs, and most leagues end on the sixteenth week because many NFL teams will sit their star players in Week 17 if the outcome doesn't matter.

Variations
There are many roster variations that different leagues will use. Many leagues use a flex position where different positions can fit into a slot. The most common form of flex position replaces the third WR position in the standard lineup above with a WR/RB/TE flex position. That means that any Wide Receiver, Running Back, or Tight End player could be used in that slot. Leagues where that flex position allows a QB are typically called "2 QB leagues" because quarterbacks typically score far more points that other players. Other leagues utilize IDP or Individual Defensive Players instead of Team Defenses. IDP players score points for tackles, sacks, interceptions, touchdowns, etc. Many leagues are several years old and include rules to provide continuity between seasons. In contrast to a redraft league where every player is drafted at the start of each season some leagues use keepers where team owners are allowed to keep a set number of players per year. Other leagues are dynasty leagues where the entire roster is kept from year to year. Typically dynasty leagues use much deeper benches and include a rookie draft.

The Draft
Every league starts with a draft, where team owner pick their players. There are two major types of draft; the snake draft and the auction draft. A snake draft is where every owner receives a draft position and then picks a player in order for a number of rounds equal to the roster size. It's called a snake draft because the order "snakes" back and forth each round. In other words the owner who picked last in the first round will pick first in the second. Auction drafts are where each team owner has a set budget and they bid for each player until everyone's roster has been filled. There are numerous drafting strategies out there, but ultimately the goal of any draft is to get the maximum amount of value for your players.

Trades and the Waiver Wire
While drafting is essential, the most successful teams typically win by taking advantage of the waiver wire and trades. Trading is precisely what it sounds like; players offer each other trades that are accepted or rejected. Many leagues incorporate an approval process to prevent collusion where two players will deliberately stack one team and then split the winnings; there is no universe where Adrian Peterson is worth Mark Sanchez. Depending on the league trading may either be nonexistent or commonplace. Many leagues will end trading several weeks before the playoffs begin.

The NFL has hundreds of players and most of them will not be on a team roster. As players are injured or fall out of favor team owners will be forced to pick up free agents to replace them. To do this they use the waiver wire. Each week individual players are locked the moment their team starts their game. For the duration of this "waiver period" owners who wish to claim a free agent submit a "waiver claim." Owners who wish to make more than one waiver claim must indicate the priority of their claims. At the end of the waiver period (typically a day or two after the beginning of the new week) the league software checks the standings of the teams. Going in reverse order (worst standing to highest) the teams get their highest priority claim. If multiple teams have submitted waiver claims for the same player it will go the team with the lowest standing, and the other teams will get their lower priority claims. After the waiver period has en`ded every player is available to be claimed immediately. The waiver wire is extremely important. Alfred Morris, the 5th ranked running back of 2012, was a free agent in most leagues until the first week. Many owners use the waiver wire to "stream" defenses and other players based on that week's match.

Advice:
Know your drat league settings and make a plan before the draft. Does your league give a point per reception? Raise your valuation of pass catching running backs and those low-highlight receivers that get a bunch of targets. Are you in a league that gives bonus points for drafting players that are literally the worst human being? Whoever is quarterbacking for Tampa Bay should get a boost.

So many times, people sit down at a draft and ask, "is this 4 point or 6 point passing TDs?" Don't do that: If you're going to do no research beforehand, just get a Beer Sheet and follow it, that's exactly what they're invented for.

A very special rant about auctions: Don't take auction advice from analysts who primarily do drafts. Auctions take longer and how they go is greatly dependent upon the people involved. So analysts only have time to get in a few auctions each season, and it's usually with the same batch of other analysts they work with. This means that often the advice they give has only been shown to work a few times with a pre-set group of owners.

If you're looking for some tips as a first-time auctioner, or you're wondering how the meta has shifted for this year, don't Google it. Just hit us up here in the Armchair Quarterback.

A WAY TO GET BETTER ADVICE ON KEEPERS FROM THE THREAD
Put as many rules as possible in your questions. Include league size, keeper rules (cost, how long can you keep, etc), rules (4 points for TD, PPR, etc)

BETTER THREAD TITLES THAN MINE
AnacondaHL - I've got to ask you about the Penix Mightier
Ches Neckbeard - Thread, won't you be my Nabers?
The Wild Man of YOLO - The Penix Mightier

Silly Burrito f*cked around with this message at 14:59 on May 22, 2024