Fantasy Football 101

By Rick Welch
Fantasy Football is one of the most exciting and fun fantasy games on the planet. You usually can't go into work on Monday mornings without hearing how someone's fantasy football team has done this week.

The great part about Fantasy Football is that it is easy. It doesn't require much of your time and its a great way to keep in touch with friends.

Let's get down to the basics of fantasy football. Fantasy football is your set of all-star players vs. another team's set of all-star players. Depending on how well your players do in the real game on Sunday and Monday determines how well your fantasy team will do for you.
For example, most fantasy football teams start a quarterback, 2 running backs, 2 wide-receivers, one tight end, 1 kicker and 1 defense. There are variations of this, but for the sake of simplicity this is what we will use.

You receive scoring points for touchdowns made and field goals kicked. Your quarterback may throw for a touchdown (4 points), your wide-receiver caught a touchdown pass (6 points) and your kicker kicked an extra point (1 point). So far your team has 11 points. There are many variations of scoring depending on which league you join, however, all the scoring rules are available to look at before you join. Once again it is your teams total points scored vs. another league members team score. Whoever scores the most points wins the game that week.

To obtain your all-star team, your league may have a live draft or your league may be part of an online group such as nfl.com or yahoo.com fantasy football leagues. With the online leagues, your teams will be picked by the computer. During a live draft, you may have a great party with friends and take turns picking your all-star team. There are many online draft guides and you can purchase fantasy football magazines that rank players for you to help you make intelligent picks at various drug stores and magazines shops.

There are 17 games in the NFL season. Most of the fantasy football leagues regular season ends in week 14. Week 15 and 16 are playoffs and the Fantasy Superbowl. They don't go into week 17 because many of the good teams who are headed for the play-offs rest their starters.