The start of NFL exhibition games bring about unrealistic, high hopes for Bengals fans, heart-breaking injuries and controversial signings, but most important of all, it opens the Pandora Box of choosing a Fantasy football league. Whether you are a Fantasy expert, you think you're an expert, you just love football or you still think Emmitt Smith is the starting running back for the Cowboys, chances are you will be playing in a Fantasy league this season.
While some of the brave have already started drafting their teams before the third preseason games are complete, the rest of us are still attempting to figure out what type of league we should select to help us procrastinate at work. And while I realize some of you are more interested in figuring out how many leagues you will be playing in since you can't turn down the opportunity to dabble in every type of league, let's take a look at what is available for those of us that have been dreaming about Week 1 of the NFL season.
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1. Family League
Whether or not your family league has a financial prize or a trophy that is awarded to the winner, it really doesn't matter. You have been playing in this league since you started playing Fantasy football, and you would be excommunicated from the family if you didn't participate. Every league has a certain level of trash talking, but surprisingly enough, this one seems to have as much if not more than any other league. Because even though you will end up telling your dad to shove it where the sun don't shine at some point during the season, you still know that he will love you on Monday morning.
The original purpose of the league is to bring the family closer together, but what you failed to realize is that not everyone actually likes each other. Even though forcing your uncle (Eagles fan) and brother-in-law (Giants fan) to spend four hours in the same room usually turns into a disaster, since each one shows up with a case of beer for themselves, you still decide to hold a live draft every year because it's tradition.
In family leagues trades never go through and always get vetoed no matter how fair they are because the brother you haven't talked to in years after the incident with your wife at the family reunion would do anything to prevent you from winning. And as agitating as all of this is, it's all worth it for one reason. No, not your fourth consecutive title, but that X-rated tirade that grandpa unleashes on the unexpected family friend every year when he is told to "pick already!"
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2. Drinking Buddies League
While some of these leagues are re-draft leagues, keeper leagues among friends are becoming more and more popular. Because of this, the turnover in buddy leagues is quite high since the guy whose team sucks worse than the 2008 Lions really doesn't want to come back for another season of torture. The personalities in this league are quite easy to spot as the guy who can't stop running his mouth has no clue what he is talking about, while the quiet guy sitting in the corner with his laptop will end up selecting all the players you want a pick before yours.
The drafts for these leagues are usually held in one guy's garage with cute little hors d'oeuvres set out by his mother that look more out of place than Brett Favre in a Vikings jersey. Recently, however, many of these drafts are moving to private rooms in sports bars with the advancement of Wi-Fi connections, not to mention the always-loved buckets of beer served by a waitress who drew the short straw and is forced to wait on all your cheap-ass friends. And the next time your buddy pulls a Coors Light out of the bucket and says, "Hey look, the mountains are blue," you are going to take the bottom of your empty beer bottle and make his eye lids turn blue.
The worst part about this league is that the scumbag commissioner spent the money from last year's league to pay off his bookie and still hasn't paid you for your winnings. Bud don't worry, because he said you don't have to pay for this season's entry fee. And all of a sudden, you think, "Why am I even playing in this league again?"
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3.Work League
This is the type of league that usually draws the newbies into the Fantasy football world as they have never played before and want to see what the hype is all about. For the most part, everyone possesses a solid knowledge of the players, aside from the one new girl your boss invited to play.
(I am in no way saying women can't be good at Fantasy football, but most of them don't understand draft strategy. That is unless you work for a company like CBSSports.com and your business is infested with more Fantasy football experts than stupid questions during a halftime interview.)
Work leagues are always interesting because who really wants to embarrass themselves in front of a group of people they spend eight hours a day with year-in-and-year-out? I most certainly don't, which is why most work leagues are conducted online, taking away the awkward situation of you turning Dos Equis into Doce Equis and being found passed out on your boss' kitchen floor.
The sole purpose for a work league is to network and get to know your fellow employees on a more personal basis. Basically, you want everyone that you work with to like you, but that is pretty hard to do when you decide to have your team autodrafted, make absolutely zero changes to your lineup until the playoffs and still end up winning the league. What's that you say? That's not possible? Oh but it is, because I have done it. And when you get your money, the commissioner doesn't say, "Congratulations, here are your winnings," he says, "Here's your money you lucky (insert inappropriate word here)!"
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4.Big Money National League
Once you play in one of these leagues, it's hard to play in one of the three above...that is if you are not broke. National leagues or acronym leagues as I like to call them (WCOFF, NFFC, FFPC, FFOC) require high entry fees, but offer astronomical prizes from $5,000 to $1,000,000. These companies do offer single leagues with high payouts, but their biggest draw is leagues that offer the chance of winning a spot in the big-money bracket. And as you can see, these leagues are catered toward the dreamers.
Entry fees usually run from $150 to $1,750 depending on the league and the prize money at stake, but either way you will have to survive disaster for 16 weeks in order to strike gold. The best part about these leagues is the excitement surrounding your national standings each week and the reality that anyone can win, but most important of all, you won't be out of the mix within the first four weeks like many other leagues. These big money leagues offer an opportunity for teams to hang around and then get hot when it counts toward the middle and end of the season, even though most of you will probably panic and bench your stud running back after he struggles in the first two weeks.
All of these nationally competitive leagues offer online drafts but they also place most of their focus on live drafts in cities like Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Whichever league you select, you better be more prepared than you ever thought possible because you would be an idiot to think anyone would spend about $2,500 on travel, hotel stay and a Fantasy team, only to show up with no idea what they are doing. And if you do opt for traveling to one of these live drafts stay focused, and don't let the scantily clad ladies walking around the convention center -- who are paid to be nice to you -- distract you from your goal of completing the perfect draft.
To win one of these leagues, you obviously need lady luck waking up next to you every Sunday morning and hopefully staying an extra night for Monday Night Football. Additionally, you also have to focus on your lineup and Fantasy gems on the waiver wire throughout the season, instead of thinking about what you would do with a million dollars (besides give 40 percent of it to Uncle Sam).
5.My First Draft
I actually signed up for a few teams in the Fantasy Football Open Championship (FFOC), and while those drafts haven't taken place, the league does offer what is called Q-school for $10 a team, which I used kind of like a mock draft. Here's a quick look of how my draft played out. Keep in mind that there are 10 teams in this league, and you can start two quarterbacks, which greatly alters the draft strategy.
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Round 1: WR Larry Fitzgerald
Round 2: WR Randy Moss
Round 3: QB Donovan McNabb
Round 4: QB Tony Romo
Round 5: RB Darren McFadden
Round 6: TE Tony Gonzalez
Round 7: RB Reggie Bush
Round 8: RB Joseph Addai
Round 9: WR Santana Moss
Round 10: RB Earnest Graham
Round 11: QB Trent Edwards
Round 12: TDSP Tennessee Titans
Round 13: RB Fred Taylor
Round 14: WR Josh Morgan
Round 15: TE Zach Miller
Round 16: WR Chris Henry
Round 17: RB Ricky Williams
Round 18: WR Muhsin Muhammad
Round 19: K David Akers
Round 20: TDSP Indianapolis Colts
Having the last pick in the round isn't an ideal situation, but it presents the opportunity to be creative, which I thought I was in the first four rounds. I thought my best pick was grabbing Darren McFadden in the fifth round, who would be a first- or second-round pick if he wasn't playing on such a terrible offense. My worst pick was grabbing a defense in the 12th round, but that's because I got up to grab a beer, and the computer decided to pick for me.
Good luck to everyone throughout the process of picking their Fantasy league and selecting a great Fantasy team. Those wishes obviously don't apply to anyone in any of the leagues I'm playin in.
