Fantasy Football Overview Daily Fantasy Football vs. Season Long
What is fantasy football?
Unless you have been living under a rock, you have heard of fantasy football. You most likely know someone who plays fantasy sports in one form or another. About one in every four Americans will play fantasy sports this year and the number is growing. Fantasy is poised to be a $5B industry in 2016. So what is fantasy football?
Fantasy football is a game in which participants build an imaginary team comprised of real NFL players. As NFL players accumulate real-game statistics, those statistics are assigned corresponding point values. Scoring formats and point values can vary form league to league. Here is an example of typical fantasy scoring structure for a quarterback, running back and wide receiver:
Fantasy Scoring Structure
Quarterback (QB)
- Every 25 passing yards a QB gains, he will receive 1 point.
- Every passing touchdown is worth 6 points.
- Every interception is -2 points.
If you have Drew Brees on your fantasy team and he throws for 350 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception, that would mean he scored 24 points for your team.
Running Back (RB)
- Every 10 yards rushing will gain 1 point.
- Every touchdown is worth 6 points.
- Every fumble is -2 points.
If Jamal Charles is playing for you and he rushes for 120 yards, one touchdown and one fumble, he scored 16 points for your team.
Wide Receiver (WR)
- Every 10 receiving yards will gain 1 point.
- Every touchdown is worth 6 points.
- Every fumble is -2 points
If Dez Bryant is on your team and he has 8 receptions for 80 yards and a touchdown, he scored 14 points for your team.
Fantasy leagues are easily customizable so it’s not one size fits all, but most fantasy team rosters are structured something like this:
- 1 QB (quarterback)
- 2 RB (running back)
- 2 WR (wide receiver)
- 1 TE (tight end)
- 1 Flex (in the flex position you have the option of playing a RB, WR, or TE)
- 1 K (kicker)
- 1 D/ST (This spot is for a team defense and special teams (punt and kick return teams))
- 6 Bench (bench spots are for players that are on your team, but not on your active roster. They cannot score points.)
There will be a pool of players that are not assigned to a team. This pool is called the waiver wire. Players on the waiver wire are free agents and are available for any team to pick them up. If you want to add a player from the waiver wire, you will need to make room on your roster by dropping one of your existing players.
Each week NFL players will play their games and their statistics will be given point values. Fantasy host sites like DraftKings and ESPN will tally the points and display them for you. Whoever’s team has the most points, wins. Now, there are two major forms of fantasy football: Daily and Season Long.
Season Long Fantasy Football
Season long fantasy football is a lot of fun and does a good job of mimicking the NFL. A group of individuals will get together and form a league. A league is usually comprised of 10-12 players. The players (called managers) have a draft before the beginning of the NFL season. During the draft the managers, one by one and in turn, select (draft) the players that they want for their team. Any NFL players can be selected from any NFL team. Once the teams are picked the managers operate their fantasy teams just like a NFL team throughout the entire season. Managers play each other in head to head match-ups and whoever’s team scores the most points for that week wins that week’s match-up. Throughout the season players can be traded, waived and in some leagues be put on injured reserve (IR) if they get hurt. The managers play a 12-14 week schedule with a playoff structure for the top seeded teams. At the end of the playoffs a champion is crowned and the champ is entitled to bragging rights for the rest of the year- and it is glorious!
Daily Fantasy Football (DraftKings)
Daily fantasy sports (DFS) has only been around for a couple of years and is the fastest growing fantasy sport. It’s easy to get started in DFS and it is a lot of fun to play. In daily fantasy football the roster and scoring structures are similar to season long but instead of drafting a team for the whole season, you assemble a team on a weekly basis. There is no draft, instead you have a standardized budget (salary cap) and each player has an assigned dollar value. The goal is to use your budget wisely and build the best team you can. Daily fantasy football sites like DraftKings and FanDuel offer a multitude of games and tournaments to choose from. And if your team in any given week sucks, no biggie, you just assemble a different one next week. No season long commitment means you’re never stuck with a crappy team as the result of a poor draft. There are many different types of games and tournaments offered by DFS sites. Daily fantasy is not only fun, if you’re good at it you can make some serious $$$.
That is fantasy football in a nutshell. If you haven’t played before I would highly encourage you to do so. If you need some help getting started or you’re already playing and you need an edge, DK Legends is here to help. Daily fantasy football is what we do.
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