I’ve always thought a fantasy football cheat sheet for the playoffs would be a great idea. With the fantasy football playoffs just around the corner, getting one or two pieces of advice might be exactly what a team needs to win the league title.

There’s always one or two players who turn it up a notch when it comes time for the playoffs. Sometimes, these are players who can’t be had, because they have been huge stars all year and are the key player on a playoff run for a team (Chris Johnson, Ray Rice, Sidney Rice). But sometimes, those players are fairly obscure free agents who have been brought to prominence for a few weeks due to injuries.

That’s the fantasy football playoff cheat sheet I’m talking about.

For instance, in 2001, Pittsburgh Steelers starting RB Jerome Bettis got hurt for several weeks. In came Chris Fu’Amatu Ma’Afala, the 240-lb bruiser from Oahu. Ma Afala had several solid games in the Steelers running game, enough to be a great “flex position” player on a championship run. Pretty much, no other 4 game stretch of his career would Fu’Amatu Ma Afala have been useful to a fantasy team. We’re looking for those players right now.

Fantasy Football Running Back Cheat Sheets

Running backs are the most invaluable asset you can have as a fantasy owner. Also, even ordinary RBs can be a huge addition this time of year. You get a runner who has fresh legs running against defenses that have been beaten up through 3 months of NFL regular season games.

It’s a mismatch, even if this runner could hardly have gotten 2 yards against the same defense in the preseason. If you can grab one or two of these guys, they could be a solid fill-in for a week or two. And bad teams might shut down the starter for the year in meaningless games, giving you a chance to roll this player out the rest of the year.

A no-name running back puts up big numbers in fantasy football this time every year.

Jerious Norwood – Atlanta Falcons RB

Norwood has been on the hopeful list for years now. This might finally be his chance. Michael Turner looks like he’s going to be out another week for the Atlanta Falcons and possibly more, after getting a second injury to his damaged ankle.

Jerious Norwood came in last week and looked good, after missing five weeks with a shoulder injury and some time with a concussion earlier in the year. In both cases, Jason Snelling, the 3rd string runner, came in and looked good. But now, the real handcuff at RB is back and it looks like Jerious Norwood is the choice over Snelling (0 points last week) to get the bulk of the carries.

Grab Jerious Norwood in free agency, if he’s still out there.

More FA Running Backs

If Norwood’s not available, then look at Chris Brown with the Houston Texans or Chris Jennings with the Browns. Rock Cartwright and Justin Forsett were probably snatched up last week, but take a look at them, if they aren’t on rosters (Forsett definitely).

If you get real desperate, pick up Lex Hilliard from the Miami Dolphins. Ricky Williams is taking all the carries with the Dolphins, now that Ronnie Brown is out of the picture. But Ricky is 32 years old and likely to wear out quickly at the rate he’s running. Lex Hilliard has looked good in spot duty the last couple of weeks and would be a 240-lb load to take down if Ricky suddenly got hurt.

Look at Donald Brown, in the unlikely case he was cut. While Brown is slowly being eased back into the lineup, he’s a 1st rounder that’s shown explosion and Joseph Addai is bound to get hurt eventually. If so, Donald Brown suddenly becomes the difference maker many people thought he would be by now.

Fantasy Football Wide Receivers Cheat Sheets

The receivers are a little picked over this time of time, but with constantly changing situations, you can still find a couple of guys that can help you compete. Here’s a couple that have have big upside right now.

Jason Avant – Philadelphia Eagles

Jason Avant has been productive three weeks in a row, so he might have been snapped up in certain leagues. But with DeSean Jackson’s concussion, Avant is certain to be the starter in Week 13. And because Roger Goodell was raked over the coals by Congress about NFL concussions back in October, NFL teams are being way cautious with concussions this year.

That means Jason Avant could be the start into the fantasy playoffs. Looks like he’s established rapport and trust with Donovan McNabb at just the right time.

Chris Chambers – Kansas City Chiefs

If Chris Chambers hadn’t been cut by most teams by the time he was waived by the San Diego Chargers, most owners ditched him when he left the Bolts. Three weeks with the Chiefs and Chambers has been productive all three weeks. At this point, Chris Chambers is definitely worth a roster spot.

Antonio Bryant – Tampa Bay Buccaneers

I’ve noticed Antonio Bryant was cut in a number of leagues I was in, after his chronic knee injury left his pretty useless most of the season. Last week, Antonio Bryant looked to finally be getting healthy, after the plane ride from London left screwed up his knee for the last month.

Pick him up and see what he does the next week or two. If Antonio Bryant appears to be establishing a connection with Josh Freeman, start him.

Fantasy Football Quarterback Cheat Sheet

NFL QBs get so much coverage that there aren’t a whole lot of sleepers out there. You might look at Vince Young, Alex Smith or Matt Stafford, if you’re quarterbacks have been terrible lately. If you have Matt Ryan, consider picking up Chris Redman, who will get the start this week and led the team on a game-winning drive last week.

If you have Kurt Warner, consider picking up Matt Leinart. He hasn’t looked very good and plays the Vikings Defense in Week 13, but his schedule gets a ton easier after that. Kurt Warner should be back soon, but you never know with concussions. Warner is complaining of lingering vision problems, that kept him out last week.

Fantasy Football Team Defense

Along the same lines, if your defense has been failing you recently and you’re desperate for a defense to play in the coming weeks, consider pickup up the Arizona Cardinals Defense off waivers. The Cards play the Niners, Rams and Lions in Weeks 14 through 16, the normal time for fantasy playoffs.

Fantasy Football IDP Cheat Sheets

In your individual defensive player leagues, there are always a few good steals out there. Look for guys who have either been injured up until now, or who have got a chance to start because of injuries.

David Hawthorne – Seattle Seahawks MLB

David Hawthorne has been phenomenal since taking over for Lofa Tatupu at middle linebacker, after Tatupu went to the I.R. Believe it or not, David Hawthorne has been as good as any linebacker in IDP formats since becoming a starter.

Nick Harper – Tennessee Titans CB

Nick Harper missed 5 weeks with a broken arm for the Titans, but he’s back now. Over the past 2-3 years, Harper has been consistently good in IDP leagues. The 35-year old former Colt is across from Courtland Finnegan, which means teams throw at Harper a lot. Also, the Titans stop the run as good as any team, so teams have to throw a lot. Nick Harper just gets a lot of chances to pick up stats.

Bryan Scott – Buffalo Bills S (LB)

This is the steal of the year here, at least in IDP leagues where you have to start defensive backs. Bryan Scott started the year as the Bills starting safety, but got injured for six weeks and lost his job to rookie Jairus Byrd. Meanwhile, the Bills had tons of injuries at linebacker, so when Bryan Scott came back to the field, the Bills moved him to outside linebacker.

Linebackers generally rule in IDP formats, because they make the most tackles, and tackle stats accumulate more consistently (and tend to account for the most scoring) in IDP scoring systems. So if you have to start a defensive back, you can start Bryan Scott, who will be listed at DB in most fantasy league sites. But he’ll be making tackles at the pace of a linebacker.

That’s fantasy gold.

Related Posts

Fantasy Football Mock Draft
Fantasy Football Player Rankings
Jessi Fantasy Sports
Telegraph Fantasy Football
Fantasy Football Cheat Sheets

“Jessi Fantasy Sports” kept coming up in fantasy sports searches and I started wondering who or what the heck Jessi was. I thought may Jessi Fantasy Sports might be some English Fantasy Soccer league management website, since that’s usually where a term comes from when I’m not immediately familiar with it. Turns out everyone is searching for “Fantasy Sports Girl Jessi”.

Fantasy Sports Girl Jessi is a hot blonde gives streaming sports updates online at fantasysportsgirl.com, associated with Spike TV. One of the first set of videos I found had Jessi offering up her review of the 2008 NFL Draft for various teams. The first two were Fantasy Sports Girl Jessi’s review of the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears drafts.

Jessi thought the Packers’ draft didn’t make a lot of sense, given they drafted Brian Brohm and Jordy Nelson in high positions, when they had more pressing needs. The Jordy Nelson particularly came under fire, since that’s a position of strength for the Pack.

NFL Draft Review Videos

I loved the analysis of the Bears 2008 draft.

Chicago got panned, despite having 12 selections in the draft. They got high marks for drafting RT Chris Williams with the 14th overall selection. Unfortunately, Jessi panned them for passing up on Malcolm Kelly, Limas Sweed and Chad Henne in the 2nd round, instead drafting lesser known Matt Forte. Well, after a year and a half of NFL games, I’m thinking that one’s actually working out pretty well for the Bears.

In Jessi Fantasy Sports’s defense, there was a lot of criticism of the Matt Forte pick at the time, because he wasn’t considered fast enough to be a difference maker at the NFL level. And I looked at the the Bears’ draft picks in Rounds 3 through 7 and few of them seem to be playing a whole lot. Besides, I’m sure Fantasy Sports Girl Jessi’s opinions were written by someone else.

Fantasy Sport Girl Sports Reviews

Still, it’s a good way to get some quick sports news and updates. The best part of Fantasy Sports Girl Jessi’s selections, of course, were the fact Jessi wore a low cut tank tops with the Packers and Bears logos while she gave her reviews, while tying it all together with a short skirt and bare midriff. Apparently, other girls were assigned other NFL teams to review.

More Fantasy Sports Girls

Other fantasy sports girls on the site include “Fantasy Sports Girl Raylene” and “Fantasy Sports Girl Holly Weber”. Holly Weber actually has a number of film credits as a film actress, including Click, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan and Frost/Nixon. Holly Weber also has appeared on tv shows like CSI: New York, Nip/Tuck and Shark.

Now, all I want is to learn the full name and career highlights of “Jessi Fantasy Sports” or Fantasy Sports Girl Jessi.

Related Posts

How To Win at Fantasy Hockey
How To Get Your Wife Into Fantasy Football
How To Be the Best Fantasy Football Player Ever
How To Make a Fantasy Football Draft Into an Event
50 Free Online Resources For Fantasy Basketball Geeks

A fantasy football mock draft is a simulated draft performed in anticipation of a coming live fantasy football draft. Mock drafts help fantasy owners practice under similar conditions to what will exist on draft day.

A player can enter online mock drafts with the same basic scoring rules and the same number of teams as they will have in their official fantasy league, while selecting a draft where they select in the same spot they expect to draft from in their real draft.

Individual Mock Drafts

Some fantasy football league owners will get together with one or two players in their local league and have their own mock draft. Using experience with the other owners in the league, those participating in the mock draft will not only draft for their team, but a select number of other teams in their league, using tendencies in past years to try to predict what the rival owners will do.

This gives those players involved in the mock draft process some idea who might be available when they draft in each round. Knowing who is likely to be available in each round helps a player craft a strategy based on draft tendencies.

Even more common is the individual mock draft one fantasy owner performs, trying to speculate who will end up selecting whom in their local draft. Usually, these players will only draft for the first 4 to 8 rounds, after which the selections become increasingly speculative. Given the unpredictable nature of fantasy football drafts, any mock draft is going to prove inaccurate at predicting what will happen in the live draft, when owners are on the clock and some are inevitably less informed than others.

Still, I know one owner who keeps a notebook of mock drafts every year, creating new mocks as the fantasy football news comes in from training camps. He also does up mock drafts to see the potential value of trading up or down in the draft, or trading for extra (or fewer) picks.

Because these mock drafts are conducted by 1 to 3 owners in the league, a person’s own prejudices about NFL players or league owners are likely to slip into the drafting process, making the eventual accuracy of these picks unlikely. Still, a mock draft of this type can sketch a broad outline of what a draft is going to look like, so the owner is less likely to be surprised on draft day.

Online Mock Draft

Most mock drafts are online mock drafts performed on various fantasy football websites online. Simply find a mock draft site on the Internet, sign up under a log-in name and join a mock draft. Select the scoring system, starting lineups and roster requirements which most closely resemble you league, then draft when your time comes.

Generally, these fantasy football mock drafts will include 10-12 different drafters, and each will have a certain amount of time (12 hours is common) to make their selections. In the mock draft, one or two teams will invariably stop drafting, which means the site’s fantasy football computer database is likely to draft for that team off an “ADP” list.

(You can find mock drafts that only allow a minute or two to select, if you prefer a less laid-back, more immediate mock draft simulation.)

Mock Draft ADP List

ADP stands for “Average Draft Position”, and simply drafts the next player on a list of average positions drafted during all the drafts performed on that website. While this keeps mock drafting from coming to a complete halt, the ADP lists are self-reinforcing, so you’re likely to have players rise and fall less quickly (as fantasy football updates happen throughout the summer) than they would otherwise.

Once again, the online mock draft has reasons it’s not entirely a gauge of where the fantasy football public would draft a player on that day, on average.

That being said, online ADP lists offer a nice snapshot of what the average fantasy football player is thinking. Since mock drafts tend to draw the most dedicated and studied fantasy football team managers, they are likely to put some thought into their selections and the ADP list will be pretty solid. ADP lists are good references.

In fact, I have a friend in one online keeper league who can’t get to the computer much during August, but wants to continue playing in our league. So he sets up draft preferences for each round (by position), then simply sets autoselection pick from our fantasy football league management site’s ADP list. Strangely, this has drafted better teams the last three years than he likely would have drafted for himself.

Fantasy Football Mock Draft Resources

So fantasy football mock drafts can be used as a valuable tool for someone getting ready to draft in their local league. You can use mock drafts to practice being “on the clock”. You can use fantasy mock drafts to study the tendency of your opponent and get an idea of what you’ll have to select from when it comes your turn in the high rounds. Or you can look at the online mocks to see exactly what the rest of the fantasy football world thinks about the players you’ll be drafting this year.

Related Posts

Fantasy Football Player Rankings
Fantasy Football Cheat Sheets
How To Create a Winning Fantasy Football Team
How To Be the Best Fantasy Football Player Ever
How To Make a Fantasy Football Draft Into an Event

Fantasy football player rankings list the NFL players at each position you project to have the best stats. In fantasy football, NFL player statistics translate into fantasy points, so ranking the players accurately means you’ll be able to draft the best fantasy football team. Unfortunately, these projections are almost impossible to nail in the preseason.

Most fantasy football owners will hit on a few players they had ranked high and miss on others. Injuries might take one of their high round draft picks out for the season, or promote their deeper sleeper pick into a fantasy all-star.

The fact is, no matter how much preseason research you do for your fantasy football season, you get a lot of new information as soon as the Week 1 rolls around and the season begins. Almost instantly, your fantasy rankings change radically.

With that in mind, here are my midseason fantasy football player rankings.

Quarterback Fantasy Football Rankings

These rankings are based on performance so far in the season, as well as factors such as injuries, remaining strength of schedule and (in one or two cases, like Matt Schaub) bye weeks remaining. Note that I have taken into account injuries on the part of starters like Donovan McNabb and Matt Hasselbeck and they still fall in line with their average points per game, according to most standard scoring systems.

1. Aaron Rodgers
2. Drew Brees
3. Tom Brady
4. Peyton Manning
5. Matt Schaub
6. Ben Roethlisberger
7. Tony Romo
8. Philip Rivers
9. Kurt Warner
10. Jay Cutler
11. Brett Favre
12. Donovan McNabb
13. Carson Palmer
14. Eli Manning
15. Joe Flacco
16. Matt Ryan
17. Matt Hasselbeck
18. David Garrard
19. Kyle Orton
20. Matt Sanchez

Running Back Fantasy Football Rankings

The running back list is completely crazy, if you saw what it looked like on Sunday, Week 1. Injuries always happen at this position and throw them out of whack. For instance, Thomas Jones was expected to lose carries to Leon Washington, who is no out for the year. I would rather have Lesean McCoy than Brian Westbrook at this point in the year, while Clinton Portis may sit out weeks with his concussion. Ray Rice looked like he might be in a productive platoon for the first month of the season, but his play has relegated Willis McGahee to the Ravens bench at this point.

1. Maurice Jones-Drew
2. Chris Johnson
3. Ray Rice
4. Adrian Peterson
5. Frank Gore
6. DeAngelo Williams
7. Michael Turner
8. Joseph Addai
9. Cedric Benson
10. Rashard Mendenhall
11. Thomas Jones
12. Steven Jackson
13. Ronnie Brown
14. Matt Forte
15. Ricky Williams
16. Ryan Grant
17. Pierre Thomas
18. Marion Barber
19. Kevin Smith
20. Marshawn Lynch
21. Steve Slaton (Ryan Moats)
22. Tim Hightower (Chris Wells)
23. Julius Jones
24. Brandon Jacobs
25. Ahmad Bradshaw
26. Lesean McCoy (Bryan Westbrook)
27. Reggie Bush
28. Laurence Maroney
29. Jonathan Stewart
30. Knowshon Moreno (Correll Buckhalter)
31. Ladainian Tomlinson (Darren Sproles)
32. Jamaal Charles (Kolby Smith)
33. Darren McFadden (Justin Fargas)
34. Sammie Morris
35. Clinton Portis (Ladell Betts)

Wide Receiver Fantasy Football Rankings

This one is even crazier than the ball carriers list. I remember a friend sitting next to me at a fantasy draft cursing that Greg Jennings went one spot before he selected, so he “had to” draft Reggie Wayne. Sometimes, it’s the picks you don’t make in fantasy football – or the picks others make in front of you – that win you the title.

Wes Welker is probably down the rankings because of his early-season injury problems, but he’s actually averaging more points per week than Randy Moss in point-per-reception formats. His ranking tumbles 15 spots in leagues that don’t reward reception totals. Vincent Jackson has become a top-flight, elite receiver, as has Miles Austin. Mike Sims-Walker, touted by some in preseason, has broken out his rookie season, due to the injury of Troy Williamson and a chance to start. Austin Collie passed Pierre Garcon on the Colts depth chart and filled in nicely for Anthony Gonzales and, I’m not sure, but might keep the 2nd receiver spot in Indianapolis for the remainder of the season, if and when Gonzales returns.

Because of the Packers’ offensive line woes, Greg Jennings doesn’t have the time to run the deeper routes he excels at. Donald Driver, more of an underneath receiver, has once again become the Packers go-to-guy. Sidney Rice has emerged as Brett Favre’s favorite target and is having a breakout year in his 3rd NFL season. Devin Hester is finally justifying the selection someone makes of him in the high-to-middle rounds every year. Steve Breaston and Hakeem Nicks were hampered by injuries, but have come on in the latter stages of the season. Jerricho Cotchery is the same way.

As for Calvin Johnson, this is looking like a lost year for the Lions stud receiver. He could get healthy and come on in a few weeks, but if you want to make a late push to the playoffs, I can find a lot of receivers I have more faith in for the next month than Megatron. Trade for him in any keeper leagues or dynasty leagues you’re in right now, though.

I’m actually starting to feel sorry for Terrell Owens. The Steve Smith from the New York Giants is now the one that gets mentioned in fantasy football more than the Panthers longtime stud. The Oakland Raiders are a complete waste, as always, though.

1. Reggie Wayne
2. Larry Fitzgerald
3. Vincent Jackson
4. Andre Johnson
5. Wes Welker (only in a ppr league)
6. Randy Moss
7. Austin Miles
8. Roddy White
9. Steve Smith (NYG)
10. Hines Ward
11. Marques Colston
12. Chad Ochocinco
13. Mike Sims-Walker
14. DeSean Jackson
15. Donald Driver
16. Sidney Rice
17. Nate Burleson
18. Brandon Marshall
19. Devin Hester
20. Greg Jennings
21. T.J. Houshmandzadeh
22. Santonio Holmes
23. Derrick Mason
24. Dwayne Bowe
25. Percy Harvin
26. Santana Moss
27. Steve Breaston
28. Hakeem Nicks
29. Austin Collie
30. Steve Smith (Carolina)
31. Roy Williams
32. Jerricho Cothcery
33. Braylon Edwards
34. Calvin Johnson
35. Terrell Owens

Related Posts

Fantasy Football Cheat Sheets
How To Evaluate Fantasy Football Trades
Keeper League Fantasy League Rules

Fantasy football cheat sheets are used by fantasy football owners as draft guides for their yearly fantasy football drafts. A fantasy football cheat sheet general includes several lists of fantasy player rankings by position, so you can mark off players as they are drafted and know the relative strength of each position, helping you decide when you should draft a player.

Combined fantasy football cheat sheets or Top 200 cheetsheats are often included. These fantasy value rankings give you an idea who you should be drafting if you want to follow the “best player available” philosophy, regardless of position. With the Top 100 or Top 200 player rankings, you have the advantage of keeping one single list and you mark off player names from that when they are drafted. Whoever is at the top of the list when it’s your turn to select, that’s who you draft.

Drafting from a Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet

Some fantasy football owners I play with look down on the players who come into the draft with a cheat sheet from a fantasy football magazine. That’s because those players look like fantasy football amateurs, not even putting in the time to come up with their own player rankings list. That being said, I’ve seen guys draft off a cheat sheet and win a league. Sure, that requires a little bit of luck, but most of it does, anyway.

Don’t blindly draft off a cheat sheet. If you use magazine rankings, also bring with you an updated depth chart and take a look at the latest injuries. Fantasy Top Hundreds lists tend to be 2-3 months old, so that information is 2-3 months old. A lot happens in NFL training camps that will affect a fantasy football draft, from season-ending injuries to nagging injuries that change position battles to players getting in a coach’s doghouse.

If you don’t have updated fantasy football cheat sheets or you don’t mark up your list with the new updates (or remember it yourself), you’re likely to draft someone who’s out for half the season or who lost their starting job in the offseason – and you’ll get snickers when you draft this player.

Printable Fantasy Football Cheat Sheets

If you want to draft off ff cheat sheets, I would suggest you go to a respected online fantasy football site and print off their yearly fantasy football player rankings. These cheets are a lot more up-to-date, so you’ll be drafting off a list ranked using much more recent information. The last thing you want to find is you drafted an I.R. player with your 4th round pick. That’s a huge disadvantage to start the season that way.

FantasySportsHero will publish its own 2010 Fantasy Football Cheat Sheets next summer and probably update them several times over the course of the training camp period. Right now, there’s no reason to put out our cheat sheet, but keep checking back. Looks like the 2009 fantasy football season is one of major transition, where fantasy stalwarts like Ladainian Tomlinson, Terrell Owens and Brian Westbrook are becoming increasingly irrelevant and new stars will be crowding the 1st and 2nd rounds.

Making Your Own Draft List

The most serious fantasy football owners want to create their draft lists. That’s the way I play fantasy football. I’ll go over last year’s numbers, factor in the offseason free agent moves and relevant NFL draft information and decide which players should improve and which should decline. It’s amazing what last year’s top performers list changes when you add a year to all the players’ ages and factor in the new team additions. The difference from one year to the next in fantasy football is huge.

I’ll project the numbers of each player, mainly by taking a look at their numbers last year and deciding whether I think those numbers will increase, decrease or roughly stay the same. Factor in the growth of the quarterback on that team, the addition or subtraction of coaches to that unit, whether the offensive line has improved or not and how other players on the team are likely to factor into the equation. Strength of schedule and any injury situations are always important.

Even when I intend on drawing up my own draft list, I take a look at other peoples’ cheat sheets and ADP lists on the mock draft websites. That’s to get some idea what other people are thinking and whether my projections are way out of line. I would encourage a peak at other cheat sheets, even if you draw up your own player rankings, but don’t look at them too much or too closely.

There’s a certain conformity that’s likely to happen, so you end up following the herd mentality, instead of truly breaking down and analyzing your projections for the next year. Maintain realistic predictions, but don’t assume that everyone else is right, if you think one particular player is wildly overrated or underrated.

The great thing about creating your own fantasy football cheat sheet is you can get the team you want, without a snap decision on draft day. For instance, I tend to have one or two players I wouldn’t draft under any circumstances. Last year, I had a bad experience after I drafted Larry Johnson in one league. This year, I simply left him off my draft list altogether. I didn’t care how far he fell, I believed Larry Johnson was finished and I didn’t want to deal with him on my team.

So when the 6th round came this year and Larry Johnson was still on the board, I didn’t make the mistake of thinking I was drafting for value by getting an old runner on a bad team who was pretty likely to get in Coach Todd Haley’s doghouse. Two months in the 2009 fantasy season, I’m really glad I didn’t have that temptation.

Related Posts

How To Create a Winning Fantasy Football Team
How To Be the Best Fantasy Football Player Ever
How To Make a Fantasy Football Draft Into an Event

Telegraph Fantasy Football is a English football fantasy sports website run by The Daily Telegraph, the highest-circulation U.K. based newspaper. Telegraph Fantasy Football is a league management tools for fantasy football involving the English Premier League (soccer, for you American football fans). Telegraph Fantasy Sports also handles fantasy cricket leagues.

If you are searching the Internet for American fantasy football and you come across “Telegraph Fantasy Football”, you need to know that you’ve wandered into a English fantasy football domain. Unless you want to play fantasy football based on English soccer or another fantasy sports contest based on the cricket leagues, you’ll probably want to navigate away from the web address.

For those rare NFL fans who are also interested in the Premiership, here’s some of the background on the Telegraph fantasy football leagues.

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph has been around since 1855 and has a headquarters on Buckingham Palace Road in London, England. The Telegraph publication is considered a right-of-center newspaper. Approximately 64% of its 800,000+ daily readers regularly vote Conservative. Of course, most of us fantasy football fans don’t care about English Premier Soccer, much less English politics.

Telegraph Fantasy Football

The Telegraph fantasy football site operates a yearly fantasy sports challenge that’s worth £110,000 this year. By American fantasy football standards, the Telegraph leagues are wild.

First of all, you pick a team of 11 players to start the game in one of four different soccer formations. But during the game, you can change your lineup up to 30 times, in the hopes of increasing your players’ chances of scoring. You get fantasy points based on whether your players appear in the game, get a goal or assist, is the man-of-the-match, has a clean sheet, for not conceding a goal during a substitute appearance, for a penalty save. The same players lose points for being sent off, for a booking, for missing a penalty, for an “own goal” or for a goal conceded.

Owners can compete in the superleague, a private league, in weekly contests and a number of other special contests, like the TFF Cups and Super20s competitions.

Related Posts

What Is a Premier Fantasy Football League?
How To Get Your Wife Into Fantasy Football
Fantasy Sports Phone Apps

The day of the fantasy football draft is a great day of the year for most fantasy football owners. “Fantasy Football Draft Day” is a lot like Christmas morning for grown men. Drafting a fantasy football team is like opening Christmas presents, while the anticipation of drafting those players is a whole lot of fun, too.

Fantasy football drafts are exciting for us guys. But if you’re the fantasy football league commissioner and you want your fantasy football draft to stand out from the rest of the drafts this year, here’s advice on how to make your fantasy football draft an event.

Host the Draft in a Public Venue

Don’t host the draft in your house. Have the draft at restaurant, bar or other exotic location. This automatically turns your draft into an event. Many restaurants have private rooms and banquet rooms, which are great for a fantasy football draft. Banquet rooms are great, because they often come with a public address system or microphone. When everyone can step to the podium to announce their draft pick, it just makes the draft seem cooler.

There are all kinds of possibilities for where to host your draft event. Some sports bars have special packages for fantasy drafts. Guy restaurants like Hooters also hosts fantasy football drafts. I’ve known league that have their draft in Las Vegas or some regional gambling location. Some host their fantasy football events in a hotel room. Our local league had our fantasy football draft on an 80-foot houseboat on a lake one year.

Get exotic. Setting is everything. Find some crazy location to have your draft and turn your draft into an event.

Alcohol Helps the Event

Okay, there are going to be fantasy football owners who refuse to drink and draft. I respect that.

But there are some fantasy football fans who have to have alcohol at their draft. For those owners, make sure you have plenty of alcohol for them. This can only be an advantage. Besides, drinking and drafting can be fun (if the owners don’t drink and drive later).

Many great fantasy football draft stories start with a glass of alcohol. We had a guy one year get drunk one year and insist on drafting a field goal kicker who was no longer in the league. After informing the drunk the guy wasn’t a player anymore, we gave up and let him draft the kicker.

We had a guy get drunk and try to draft “Korean Robinson” instead of Koren Robinson one year. Back when Brett Favre was throwing to Packers receivers like Antonio Freeman and Anthony Morgan, there was an owner who got drunk and tried to draft “Morgan Freeman”.

One team had it’s name changed to “Thumbs Up”, because of a story I can’t really repeat, except it involves lots of alcohol, a cellphone camera and a lovestruck overweight woman whose name the league never knew. Well, and a thumb.

One commissioner brought a margerita machine to the draft. We had a league owner who owned a bar, so we got the bar to ourselves, a bartender and a cook: both of whom to take our orders.

While alcohol isn’t a necessity at a fantasy football draft, it does add a party atmosphere to the draft. And even if you don’t like drinking yourself, wouldn’t you prefer to have your opponents just a little bit impaired in their judgment?

Have An Emcee

Bring in someone to run the draft. If the commissioner conducts the draft, he’s going to have his mind on drafting his team 90%. He won’t have time to make the fantasy football draft an event.

So have an emcee who calls out every pick, announces who’s turn it is to draft and who is next, then have him announce how much time the team on the clock has remaining.

This makes the ff draft seem more of an event, having an announcer. Besides, that 10% of the time you are focusing on the event instead of drafting the best team is a competitive disadvantage.

Have a Non-Owner Man the Draft Board

Draft boards are great, but only if you have an outsider to write the names or put the stickers on the board. Otherwise, every single person is going to be putting up their own stickers, instead of keeping track of who they’re going to draft next and who has already been drafted.

You’ll get lots of confusion, the draft will drag and, inevitably, a handful of players will stop putting up their stickers. That means you’ll have to spend extra time doing it yourself.

A better plan is to have someone handle the draft board instead. It’s better when this person is a female and even better when this female is attractive. Consider hiring a someone to look nice, wear something revealing and smile while she puts stickers on the board for four or five hours.

Have a Time Limit on Draft Picks

If you let people take an indefinite amount of time on draft picks, you’ll have one or two owners who let their decision-making process drag on and on. This gets other teams impatient and makes the draft take all day long.

Get a hold on this right away. Set a time limit and don’t be afraid to announce how much time a team on the clock has. And if that team goes over the time limit, say out loud for everyone to hear to the owner on deck that they should have their pick ready.

Don’t force the team dithering to make a pick: just let the draft continue until they finally have a selection.

That usually makes fantasy football owners decide on their picks real quick.

Don’t Play Music

Some ff hosts think playing loud music makes a fantasy football draft into an event, like it’s a party. The problem is, loud music from NFL Films makes it hard to hear what the draft picks are.

You’re setting your league up to be screaming over the music all day, yelling out picks. You’re also setting it up where people are drafting players drafted 4 rounds ago, because they didn’t hear when the player was taken.

Plus, loud music blaring for four hours is annoying.

Hire Bikini Girls

If nothing else happens, hire bikini girls. Women with little clothing almost always make life more interesting. If you have bikini girls at your fantasy football draft, it becomes a party.

Many wives hate fantasy football. There’s even a term for women whose boyfriends and husbands abandon them during football season: “football widows”. If your wife is like the average woman, she’s likely to hate the NFL, college football and fantasy football all the same. Wives can’t understand why we abandon them on the weekends to sit in front of our tvs and cheer for people we’ve never met.

To make your life easier, you need to turn that animosity around. Getting your wife into fantasy becomes a matter of teaching her what fantasy football is about, relating fantasy football to her life and conveying to your wife why you enjoy fantasy football so much.

None of these is an easy process. But we’ve produced a guide for how you get your wife into fantasy football. Good luck.

1. Explain to Her Why You Enjoy Fantasy Football

Women like communication.

If you explain to her why you enjoy fantasy football, she’s more likely to understand why you devote 6 hours every Sunday afternoon in the fall to watching the NFL. When she understands your passion for fantasy football, she’s more likely to want to get into the sport herself. Both of these things will make your home life and sports life a whole lot easier.

When you explain to her, focus on several things.

• It’s a Competition Between Friends – You get to compete with your buddies to see who’s got the best “football mind”.
• Camaraderie Among Friends – The fantasy football draft is one of the only times all year you get to see a few of your old friends.
• Enhances Enjoyment of the Sport You Love – You love football, but fantasy football makes you watch the game in a different way.
• Winning money – There’s gambling involved, so if you win, you have a nice little Christmas bonus coming.
• Winning…Period – Guys are competitive. Men like to win. At your age, fantasy football is the best way for men to compete in sports.

2. Teach Her the Basics of Fantasy Football

Next, teach your wife the basics of fantasy football and how it is played. Explain to your wife the basic concepts of fantasy football (NFL player stats equal points for your team). Explain to her how fantasy football scoring works. Go into detail about why you need more NFL news and updates to be a good fantasy football player.

When you show why it’s so darned important that Reggie Wayne and not Dallas Clark scores that touchdown for the Colts, she might understand your bizarre tantrums every Sunday.

If she seems confused, hand her one of your fantasy football magazines. This should start to explain your hobby to her somewhat. If that doesn’t work, send her to the Wikipedia article on fantasy football, have her Google “what is fantasy football” or just send her to this site.

3. Relate Fantasy Football To Her

This might sound like the hardest thing to do, but it’s actually one of the easiest. You just have to remember what’s important to your average woman: her relationships with friends, family and you. When you talk about fantasy football, try to drape the talk in how it lets you relate to your friends. This should remind her about her relationships with her friends and what activities they’re involved in that helps them relate.

Tell her that guys don’t like talking about personal stuff. Sports and entertainment takes their minds off the everyday stresses of a career. When guys get together outside of work, they want something to relate with one another about besides their job, politics or religion. That’s where sports comes in.

Then tell her that fantasy football takes that relationship to another level. Regular football is completely vicarious: you’re watching games with people you have no connection with. Fantasy football is different, though. Everyone picks players who will be on their team that year, and the one who picks the best set of players is considered the best fantasy football player that year. It’s a pride thing. Sure, you live vicariously, but there’s skill (and luck) involved, so you get to show you know better than your friends.

4. Get Real Basic – Explain Why You Choose Sides

If you have to get real basic, explain to your wife the reason why fans have a favorite team or favorite players in football. Sports are boring if you don’t care who wins. Whether it’s through loyalty to a school or hatred of a logo, through sports gambling or fantasy football, having a rooting interest makes sports entertaining.

It’s boring otherwise.

Watching a football game where you don’t care who wins and loses (or who does well) is like watching a movie where you don’t care what happens to the characters. It’s a complete waste.

5. Have Her Watch Football With You

One reason she resents your football watching is that it’s something you exclude her from. Fantasy football is your game, your hobby, your private time.

If you’re watching football, you might shush her when she wants to talk about something else. Of course, it’s an intrusion to bring the real world into your NFL watching, but that also doesn’t encourage her to get involved in your hobby.

So try to encourage her getting into fantasy football by having her watch the games with you. That might be a little taxing on your nerves for a while, because you’re going to have to answer a lot of questions no guy would ever ask about football. But if you want your wife to get into fantasy football, you’re going to need to be the one who does the bulk of the teaching.

6. Have Her Join a Fantasy Football League

Finally, if you really want to take the dive, have her join a fantasy football league with you and control her own team. Whether to save money or the embarrassment of asking your friends whether your wife can be in the league, you might consider joining an alternate league from your local fantasy football league: perhaps a Yahoo! fantasy football league or its equivalent.

Either the two of you can share a team, or you can manage competing teams in the same league.

When she’s competing and learning about all the football positions, she’ll learn the game a lot quicker.

Get ready for the fact that she might beat you. Contrary to what you might have built up in your head, fantasy football isn’t brain surgery. Anyone good with stats and willing to spend the time to figure out why you draft running backs higher than tight ends can compete and do well in fantasy football.

But you’ll never have to worry about either watching the NFL on Sunday or going to mall shopping, if you get your wife into fantasy football.

Setting an IDP fantasy football league lineup is pretty much the same as setting a lineup in a traditional fantasy football league. You’ll set your individual defensive players along with your starting offensive position players. Figuring out the right IDP players to start is the real trick. So I’ll go over who you should start when starting IDP position players while discussing how you start IDP players.

What Is An IDP Fantasy Football League Lineup?

“IDP” is short for “individual defensive player”. IDP leagues exist when teams start individual defensive players instead of “Team Defenses”. While team defense stats revolve around some combination of total team sacks, interceptions, fumble recoveries, points allowed and yards allowed, IDP stats involve a combination of tackles, assisted tackles, forced fumbles, fumble recoveries, sacks, interceptions and passes defenses.

In either case, if the defensive unit or player scores a touchdown, this is scored much like a touchdown scored by an offensive player.

The IDP fantasy football league is meant to make defensive players just as important to follow and watch as offensive players. Though Team Defense is the more common type of fantasy football player to use, it’s actually unnatural when you think about it. You might as well have “Team Offense” as a player.

IDP players force you to track individual defensive player stats and makes watching an NFL game more interesting and entertaining, because you’re pulling for a specific defender to make tackles and plays, instead of dreading your defense giving up a bunch of points. It’s more work, though, and there’s a trick to starting IDP lineups.

Which IDP Lineup to Start

Many IDP leagues only have one IDP player to start. Another common IDP format is 3 individual defensive players (either any type of defender or 1 defensive lineman, 1 linebacker and 1 defensive back).

I’m in a league that requires a balanced lineup of 7 offensive players and 7 individual defensive players (along with a head coach and field goal kicker). The number of players started and the type of players started are important, because you want to find the most consistent defenders to start every week.

Start IDP Middle Linebackers If You Can

Start as many linebackers as your league allows you to start. Start middle linebackers if at all possible. Middle linebackers typically rack up the most tackles for their team, even if they aren’t the best player on that unit.

Because good defensive players total 100+ tackles a year, but in an equivalent good year, maybe only 15 sacks, 5 fumble recoveries and 5-10 interceptions, the IDP players who get the most tackles are the most consistent. Take a no-name MLB over a big name outside any day.

Start IDP Players on Bad Teams

Here’s where IDP fantasy football lineups are counterintuitive. With offensive players in fantasy football, you want to start players on the best offenses. These players will be in scoring position more often, will get double-teamed (or have the line stacked against them) less often and will be on the field more of the day. The opposite is true for defensive players.

Defenses on bad teams and losing teams are likely to be on the field longer and play more plays. You want IDP defensive players on the field as many plays as possible, so you want to draft players on bad defenses and losing teams. Starting linebackers on the Detroit Lions, St. Louis Rams, Washington Redskins, Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders are a good bet right now. Oakland Raiders linebackers like Kirk Morrison have been golden for years.

Start Safeties If You Have to Start Defensive Backs

Follow the same logic with defensive backs. Draft safeties, especially strong safeties, and start them, but only in positions where you can’t start linebackers. Strong safeties are the players most like linebackers, because they are called on to pinch up to the line of scrimmage and help stop the run. If a running back breaks a run, it’s the safety who’s usually called on to save a touchdown with a tackle. Safeties pick up lots of tackles, especially safeties on bad defenses that let players bust runs a lot.

There will be a few cornerbacks who get thrown at a lot in a season. These are usually rookie cornerbacks, corners across from the NFL’s best cornerbacks and cornerbacks on teams who stuff the run really well. For instance, the Tennessee Titans cornerbacks have gotten a lot of work the last two years, because nobody can run on their defensive front seven. If a team can’t run, they have to throw it, which means a lot of work for the corners. Corners on defenses in a lot of shootouts also get a lot of work, though these are harder to predict from one year to the next.

Generally, I would suggest starting safeties if you must start a defensive back. But if there are no consistent safeties left, find a cornerback in one of the situations above and start him.

Start Defensive Ends and Never Start Defensive Tackles

On most NFL defenses, defensive tackles soak up blockers and free up linebackers to make the tackle. Most IDP scoring systems don’t give points for defensive tackles and nose tackles who take on the double team and soak up blockers. So don’t ever start them.

You’ll find one or two defensive tackles who do good in a year, but that’s a fluke and certainly not a good bet. Start defensive ends if you have to start a defensive lineman in an IDP league.

Starts Defensive Ends on Winning Teams

This is the only exception to my rule that you seek out IDP players on bad teams. That’s because defensive ends are going to get most of their production from sacks. Sacks usually happen when the offense is behind in a game and must throw the ball a lot.

The quarterback has to hold onto the ball longer and this leads to sacks. So you want defensive ends who are often in situations they can pin back their ears and rush the passer. That’s why Jared Allen has been so dominant the last couple of years, or Trent Cole with the Philadelphia Eagles, Terrell Suggs with the Baltimore Ravens or Justin Tuck and Osi Umenyiora with the New York Giants or Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis with the Indianapolis Colts.

Also, defensive ends are going to get their numbers in bunches. One week, they will hardly score at all. The next week, they’ll get a couple of sacks and be a difference maker for your team. For that reason, be more patient if a defensive ends don’t start the season out hot.

Don’t lose faith in an elite defensive end who has a couple of bad weeks. It’s almost built into the position. In fact, if any of the elite DE’s mentioned above has a couple of down weeks, make a run at them in the trades market, because they’re likely to make up the production in the coming weeks.

How to Start an IDP Football League Lineup

Once you have your strategy down, start the IDP defensive players who best fit the profile of the strategies I’ve spelled out above. If one of your linebackers is going against a good NFL team that loves to run the ball, start that linebacker. If you have a safety in the same situation, start that safety that week.

If you have a defensive end who’s playing a team that’s likely to fall behind and have to throw it a lot, start that DE. If you have a cornerback who looks like he’s going to be thrown at a lot, perhaps by a top passing team with good wide receivers, you can start that IDP player, as well.

See?

Setting an IDP fantasy football lineup is easy.

Creating a winning fantasy football team takes study of NFL news and trends, projection of players based on that information, a sound fantasy football draft strategy and luck. You’ll need a certain amount of all of these factors to win at fantasy football, but the less you have of the one, the more you’ll need of the others.

Sure, you can walk into a fantasy draft with a cheat sheet and no knowledge of what’s happened in the NFL over the summer and draft a winning team, but you’re going to need all kinds of luck.

For the rest of us who don’t want to leave it up to chance, creating a winning fantasy football team starts with a good fantasy football draft. While free agency and trades can augment a fantasy football squad, if you botch the fantasy draft too bad, you won’t have the team to build around.

Draft a Winning Fantasy Football Team

Drafting your fantasy football team is like laying the foundation of a mighty skyscraper. If the foundation isn’t sound, everything else will be a disaster. When you build a fantasy football team, you want to build a team with no glaring weaknesses, but with a few fantasy football superstars to make the difference between winning and losing any given week.

The draft hopefully lets you collect a few reliable superstars and a handful of breakout players. The rest of your draft, you’ll be drafting players who can give you solid but unspectacular numbers, players to backup your starters or who might come on later on in the year and players who give you some hope in case of major injuries.

Fantasy Superstars – Consistent Difference-Makers

The problem with elite players in fantasy football is their numbers don’t always translate from one season to the next. The NFL is a brutal game. Players get old quickly. Players can get injured at any given time. Some of these will never be the same. This makes fantasy football incredibly fluid, because just about everything fantasy football team is going to draft one or two “sure things” which don’t turn out to be.

That’s why you have to stack the odds in your favor by making smart picks in every single round. Smart picks don’t always turn out to be successful picks, but dumb picks are just giving away chances to hit on a player.

Drafting For Value

Many fantasy owners try to maximize the value of their picks by “drafting for value”: that is, drafting the best player available. This is a smart move, but it can be taken too far. That logic leads a team owner to draft Drew Brees as the 4th overall pick, because he’s a better quarterback than any possible running back who can be drafted there. That sounds logical, but it bad strategy in fantasy football.

Drafting for value not only requires you to know who the best player available is, but also what the value of a pick is. In a 12-team league, only 12 quarterbacks will be drafted as starters. Of these, only about 6-8 will even be drafted in the first few rounds of a fantasy draft. You can wait until the 6th round and draft the 9th-best quarterback. But if you draft a running back in the 6th round, you’re probably getting the 29th-best runner.

So drafting Drew Brees in the 1st round means you aren’t just drafting the best quarterback overall, but you’re selecting the #1 QB and #29 RB, while you could be drafting the #9 QB and #4 RB.

Now, if that #1 qb produced like he did the year before, that might still work. But that seldom happens. Quarterbacks’ numbers fluctuate wildly from one year to the next. The fact is, the chances that 9th ranked passer has similar numbers to that 1st ranked passer are a whole lot bigger than the chances the #29 runner’s numbers are anywhere close to the 4th-best runner’s numbers.

You’re playing the odds in a draft. Drafting for value means drafting the best player available, but sometimes knowing which positions hold the most value. If you can hold off on one position and get almost the same value a round later, you do it. Draft the scarcest player resource.

Drafting a Solid Team

Focus on running backs and wide receivers in the first 5 rounds of a draft. Focus on quarterbacks and tight ends after you’ve built the core of your team (which are RBs and WRs). Mix in a few running backs and wide receivers along the way. Grab a defense or two you believe in, but don’t obsess about getting that one great defense, because their numbers fluctuate too wildly from one year to the next. Don’t stress about kickers. If you have any rule about field goal kickers, in fact, my rule would be to draft one in the last round.

Even when you do this, you’re going to miss on a few of these players.

Reasons Can’t Miss Fantasy Football Players Might Miss

They might get injured. A key teammate might get injured and their offense will suck. No one on the team might get injured and their offense will stink. That younger, faster guy backing up your player might suddenly get more playing time. The player might have a harder schedule than last year, or simply start slowly.

You just never know when you draft a fantasy football player whether he will live up to expectations. That’s why you stack the odds in your favor by stacking the team with as many sleepers and breakout stars as possible.

Scour the Fantasy Football Waiver Wire

Through injury or ineffectiveness, you’ll inevitably be disappointed by a player. When this happens, it’s time to add free agents off the waiver wire. The first month of the NFL season is highly important for adding free agents, because new stars break out in these early contests. Teams will lie about their intentions with players, installing a new starter days before the season happens. Often, one player’s production on the field leads to their promotion to the starting lineup. There are going to be stars who don’t get drafted in a fantasy football league.

Of course, you’ll have to cut players to add new free agents. The higher you draft a player in your draft, the more hesitant you should be to cut that player. Some players start slow. Some fight through injuries and make up for lost time once they get healthy.

Just because a player posts low numbers the first couple of weeks, you shouldn’t discount them.

On the other hand, players at the bottom of your roster should be replaced if they aren’t producing, as long as they are starting. That is, if you drafted a backup runner on the assumption he would be good once he got the chance, you can’t cut him two weeks into the season, because he hasn’t gotten that chance yet.

At the same time, if a wide receiver you drafted late in the draft has some drops and the team’s 3rd receiver suddenly starts being throw to more often, you can drop that player for the free agent you want.

Target one or two high end free agents and aggressively add them to your team in the first week or two of the season. A warning, though: even lousy players can have one good week. If that happens Week 1 of the NFL season, a lot of people will pick up a sorry free agent they’ll be dropping again in 3 weeks.

Trade For That Final Piece

Trades can help team’s get over the top. When trading, it’s best to trade for the best player in the trade. Get the superstar by trading several pieces. Hopefully, you’ve built up some depth on your roster which you can trade away for one extra elite player.

When trading, it’s best to trade players after they have a huge week. It’s also good to trade for players when they either are coming off a bad week or they have a bye coming up. Fight through one bye week to get a player who will help you the remaining 6-8 weeks of the season. Like the stock market, you sell high and buy low.

It’s human nature to want to keep a player who just had a huge week. But if you didn’t have much faith in the player in the first place, you shouldn’t let one week change your evaluation. Don’t give him away, but trade up if possible. If you can’t make a trade for a couple of weeks and this same player has produced 3 weeks in a row, that’s when you keep him.

Create a Winning Football Team

It would be nice to have stars at every position. If you get lucky, you can have big names at every position, whether they become elite fantasy football stars or not. The key is to have production from every position. If you start a 9-man starting lineup, you don’t want one of those 9 positions to be a virtual 0 every week, or else you’re playing 8-men against 9-men. Even one or two superstars won’t make up the difference every week.

So get a core of superstars and then build the roster around those players. Make sure you have your positions covered. Then get solid backups for as many positions as possible. Injuries can make a great fantasy football team look average real quick. You can never have enough depth.

So even if you have solid starters, keep after the trades and free agents throughout the season. Keep up with fantasy football updates all year. When news hits, make last minute roster changes and lineup changes. Outwork your opponents and you might not need a whole lot of luck to have a winning fantasy football team.

But let’s face it: a little luck is required, too.