A Rookie's Fantasy: getting stuck in
Our venture into the Fantasy world is just beginning and in the first instalment I gave an outline introduction to fantasy football. Now time for the heavy petting of how players score points and how to change your line-up. Plus I will tell you how to get involved with our very own League of Gridiron Gentlemen.
How to score in fantasy
This may sound confusing but it is possible to set up your own way players score points. And there are other types of leagues that score slightly differently (PPR for example but we won’t worry our heads about this). But we are not venturing into those strange rooms and stick to the vanilla scoring system most commonly used, and the one used by the Gridiron Gentlemen League.
And here it is (as provided here http://www.nfl.com/fantasyfootball/help/nfl-scoringsettings)
OFFENSE (QB, RB, WR and TE)
- Passing Yards: 1 point per 25 yards passing (QB)
- Passing Touchdowns: 4 points (QB)
- Interceptions: -2 points (QB)
- Rushing Yards: 1 point per 10 yards (All above)
- Rushing Touchdowns: 6 points (All above)
- Receiving Yards: 1 point per 10 yards (RB, WR, TE)
- Receiving Touchdowns: 6 points (RB, WR, TE)
- Fumble Recovered for a Touchdown: 6 points (All above)
- 2-Point Conversions: 2 points
- Fumbles Lost: -2 points (All Above)
DEFENSE TEAM (Def: here the other team refers to the team the Def are playing)
- Sacks: 1 point (tackling opposing QB)
- Interceptions: 2 points (intercepting a pass from opposing QB)
- Fumbles Recovered: 2 points (picking up the ball the other team dropped)
- Safeties: 2 points (when the ball carrier is tackled in their own endzone)
- Defensive Touchdowns: 6 points
- Kick and Punt Return Touchdowns: 6 points (scoring right after the other team kicks off)
- Points Allowed (0): 10 points
- Points Allowed (1-6): 7 points
- Points Allowed (7-13): 4 points
- Points Allowed (14-20): 1 points
- Points Allowed (21-27): 0 points
- Points Allowed (28-34): -1 points
- Points Allowed (35+): -4 points
KICKING (K)
- PAT Made: 1 point (just the extra point kick after a touchdown)
- FG Made (0-49 yards): 3 points
- FG Made (50+ yards): 5 points
Your Def team will start initially with 10points, which gives a lovely little boost during your game. But this will decrease as they allow points to be scored against them and so you just hope they get a good number of interceptions and sacks with maybe the odd touchdown.
As an example of a fantasy match-up and the scoring system, let’s use the Dolphins vs Cowboys game, though the QB scores will be quite low as many quarterbacks were used. The points for each type of play (Play break down) will be shown along with initially how the points are calculated. Do not worry, in the real league this is done automatically. This is purely a demonstration.
|
Dolphins |
Cowboys |
||||
| Player | Play break down (pts) | Fantasy pts | Player | Point break down (pts) | Fantasy pts |
| QB – Matt Moore | Passed 238yds (238/25 = 9.52); 1 pass td (4); 1 Interception (-2) | 11.52 | QB – Alex Tanney | Passed 58 yds (58/25 = 2.32)Rushed 5yds(5/10 = 0.5) | 2.82 |
| RB – Lamar Miller | Rushed 21yds (21/10 =2.1) | 2.1 | RB – Philip Tanner | Rushed 59yds (59/10=5.90; Rush TD (6); Received -2yds (-0.2) | 11.7 |
| RB – Jonas Gray | Rushed 41yds (41/10=4.1); Received 35yds (3.5) | 7.6 | RB – Kyle Lawrence | Rushed 14yds (1.4); Rushed 1 TD (6) | 7.4 |
| WR – Chad Bumphis | Received 85yds (8.5) | 8.5 | WR – Anthony Armstrong | Received 18yds (1.8) | 1.8 |
| WR – Keenan Davis | Received 48yds (4.8); Received 1 TD (6) | 10.8 | WR – Jared Green | Received 32yds (3.2) | 3.2 |
| TE – Michael Egnew | Received 52yds (5.2) | 5.2 | TE – Dante Rosario | Receive 18yds (1.8) | 1.8 |
| Flex RB/TE/WR – TE Kyle Miller | Received 35yds (3.5); Received 1 TD (6) | 9.5 | Flex RB/TE/WR – RB Joseph Randle | Rushed 70yds (7) | 7 |
| K- Dan Carpenter | 2 FG 0-49yds (2×3 = 6); 2 PAT (1×2 = 2) | 8 | K – Dan Bailey | 1 FG 0-49yds (3); 3 PAT (3) | 6 |
| Def | 3 Sacks (3×1 =3); points allowed 24 (0) | 3 | Def | 3 Sacks (3×1 = 3); 1 Intercept (2); 1 Intercept TD (6); Points allowed 20 (1) | 12 |
|
Total |
66.22 |
Total |
53.72 | ||
O.K so the selection was post game and I was trying to pick a range of players and scores. So in this instance even though in the actual game the Cowboys won, in fantasy terms the Dolphins won (incidentally possibly a good measure of how well the respective defenses did: the Cowboys defense was certainly better).
So when looking for players, you’re looking for the best fantasy points scorers and the most consistent scorers. This will be covered in another post (or series of posts) prior to the draft and after a few pre-season games.
The pre-season in reality will only tell us so much and once our season starts you will want to change your line-up as good scorers become apparent (flexible line up is one of the tips of doing well). In the last post I mentioned the two places you can get new players, the waiver wire and trading.
The waiver wire can sound confusing but all it is is a list of unpicked available players. When you drop a player from your team, they will go on the waiver wire. There will be date limit of when the player will become available for any team interested. And so if you like the look of a player that has ww and a date next to their name, just put in a request and you may be lucky enough to get the player. Thing is each week, each team will have a waiver wire rank which will determine where in line they are in getting a player. If the team ranked 1 decides they don’t want the player, that player will go to the team next in line. There will be players who have FA appearing next to their name. This means they are a free agent and can be picked up any time and with ease. So it is sometimes worth keeping a space on your bench just so you can pick up any players that are suddenly available and you like the look of. If you haven’t got space on your bench you will have to drop a player before you can add another.
Trading players is as simple as it sounds, you look at another teams roster, see a player you want and trade one of your players (or two of your players) for that player. The trade can be vetoed by other teams and/ or the league manager if they feel the trade is unfair in some way (such as trading an middle of the road kicker for a top flight WR). Always think before you agree to a switch. Never agree to trade for a kicker.
Thank you for bearing with me through this Rookie Fantasy post. Next time I will give you a few tips on how to do well (from my rookie season perspective) and I will discuss the draft.
Now for the big news. Yes there is the League of Gridiron Gentlemen on www.nfl.com/fantasy. If you wish to get involved, send an email to hellochaps@gridirongentlemen.com with the subject of Gridiron League and your name. You will then be sent details for accessing the league.
Draft date is the 27th of August so get your requests in by the 20th!
Keeping checking www.gridirongentlemen.com for news, comment and our wonderful podcasts. If you haven’t done so like our facebook page www.facebook.com/GridironGentlemen and follow us on Twitter @GridironGents