Fantasy Football
You have landed in a world of all things fantasy football. Our team brings in-depth fantasy analysis, covering everything from waiver wire pickups to draft help. With various leagues like dynasty, auctions, IDP, and best ball, there is a lot to cover, and we do just that. Each article will bring clear and in-depth advice weekly to help you bring home a fantasy championship. With our analysts playing for years, there is nothing they haven’t seen before. Starting with the draft season, we can help you draft the best team possible, whether it is a snake or auction draft. Once the season gets going, we assess the best waiver wire pickups and weekly streaming options to help you get through a long 16 weeks of fantasy football fun. When you’re prepping for your fantasy football draft, make sure to lock into our fantasy football rankings. We rank the top players in every position including defense.
If you’re playing daily fantasy football, check out our DraftKings Promo Code & FanDuel Promo Code articles and picks. If you’re lucky enough to be in a state that allows legal online sports betting like Pennsylvania, we have all the information you need to be on the NFL this season as well.
Fantasy Football 2022: Overvalued Players to Avoid Drafting Too High
The NFL preseason is underway, which means fantasy football draft season is upon us. Your fantasy draft is the single…
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Fantasy Football Breakout Candidates 2022: Six High-Upside Players
As we get further into the NFL offseason, fantasy football analysis is beginning to heat up. With training camp just…
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2022 NFL Best Ball: Five Undervalued Stacks to Draft
As we get deeper into the doldrums of the NFL offseason, best ball drafting is at a fever pitch. Underdog…
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In an offseason that has seen the top 2 Fantasy WR’s from 2021 join new teams and a third of…
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The NFL Draft has come and gone, which means it’s time to start analyzing the incoming rookie class for dynasty…
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For the vast majority of the fantasy football world, Week 17 represents championship week – the one for all the…
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If you’re still competing in your fantasy football playoffs, congratulations on being one week closer to winning a championship. With…
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This is the most challenging week I’ve had with creating the fantasy football rankings as COVID-19 has surged across the…
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Every week, I’ll have my updated fantasy football rankings on this page for your convenience. You can compare different players…
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Lately, it’s seemed like fantasy football has gone the way of the NFL this season with plenty of solid options…
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How To Operate On The NFL Waiver Wire
Be sure to check your league rules, but the consensus rules for the waiver wire are pretty standard. Tuesday morning is when the player pool for unclaimed players opens up. This differs from the free agent market. Players that can be claimed on waivers meant that they were previously on another owner’s team. Some leagues will set rules to where any unclaimed player free agent or not is configured as a player to be claimed. This gives a fair chance for the league to put their claim in.
Now waiver wire priority usually depends on standings. For the opening weeks, it might be based on the draft order, but usually, the worst teams in the league will have a higher priority on the waiver wire. If you are looking to claim multiple players, you will need to rank them in the order you want them. This is required because of other league owners will be submitting waiver claims as well, and it will go in a snake order of priority. Our waiver wire articles will help identify the top targets.
What Is Streaming In Fantasy Football?
Streaming has been a popular strategy in fantasy football for a while now, and likely won’t be going away. Two positions that are popular to stream are tight ends and defenses, but you can stream other positions as well. Quarterbacks are also streaming options, but they can dry up a bit quicker, given about 24 are going to be off the waivers. Streaming defenses is about picking up defenses weekly, or over a few weeks. It is all about seeing who their opponents are, and if a middle of the road defense has a stretch of weak opponents, they are firmly in play for streaming.
If you miss out on a quarterback or tight end that you love in drafts or auctions, you can plan on rotating around different players at the position based on matchup. Alex Smith might not have been the most glaring fantasy quarterback, but scoring 15-20 fantasy points regularly put him in a streaming position against average to below-average defenses. Planning is key here, and our team here will be helping you out with making sure you have the best streaming options for the week.
The Next Decade In Fantasy Football
We have seen a lot of changes to the fantasy football game over the last decade, and starting a new decade, we have to see what is coming. Over the last few seasons, more unique formats, both roster and scoring, have come about. We have seen things like Best Ball leagues emerge, where you have no in-season moves and rely on drafting your complete team to compete throughout the season. Two-QB leagues have become more popular, we have seen Tight End Premium scoring leagues. The SuperFlex is beginning to grow as well. The biggest growth over the last ten years has been daily fantasy football.
Best Ball has more room to grow, and Yahoo just recently picked it up for the 2019 season and will offer it further. Best Ball makes the process of drafting very important because there are no changes. You will be setting up an overall roster, where your best set of players each week will be selected for you based on their score. So you don’t have to worry about having a bench player outscore your fantasy starter. This takes away the in-season maintenance that might be a turn off for some.
We should see a lot of changes when it comes to the way fantasy football rosters are set up. There continues to be a movement in getting rid of defenses and kickers. This would likely require adding in some FLEX spots or specific position slots. The FLEX and SuperFlex positions should increase as increasing lineup building, and draft strategies will be encouraged to change things up. Two-QB leagues continue to grow, but the SuperFlex should be the main style of fantasy football to emerge of the two. Making fantasy football a bit position-less is a possibility, as we have already seen leagues use more FLEX positions than actual specific position spots. We see this in other fantasy sports leagues like adding utility spots, and more multi-position spots. Because football players don’t have multiple designated positions like other sports, we have to create versatility ourselves.
Differences In Scoring Formats
Scoring formats can range from extremely low scoring to scores well into the hundreds. This is going to all be because of how the scoring is set up before your league even begins. Now while your home league could look a lot different in scoring, but three scoring systems are considered to be the more popular. This is what you will get as far as default scoring when starting or joining a public league on various fantasy football sites. You have your PPR, Half-PPR, and Standard scoring formats. The change between the three comes from just one stat, and that is receptions.
Standard scoring was the way of the world up until recently when PPR began to take over. Standard scoring had its pros and cons, like just narrowing down fantasy points come from yards and touchdowns. However, it made touchdowns weighted heavily, and you were dependent on touchdowns. Standard scoring makes things a bit easier to adjust, where you are only researching two stats and looking at players who just rack up yards and touchdowns. Half-PPR and PPR scoring formats changed things quite a bit.
The advantage of PPR is that it opened up the player pool. Pass-catching backs and smaller reception based receivers have so much more value in these scoring formats. In standard scoring leagues, they don’t have much value. Every week, when you are checking in on waiver wire, adds, or free agents to fill an injury or bye week, it is nice to have options. PPR and Half-PPR also open up the scoring a bit more and change the weights of yardage and touchdowns. Now those things still reign king, but a wide receiver who has six catches for 50 yards has a much better line in PPR leagues in comparison to standard.
If you have been playing standard, and don’t want to make the full jump yet, Half-PPR was created as a nice balance between the two. A receiver having a 12 catch game can be tilting in PPR leagues when they have done little elsewhere, but in Half-PPR, it evens things out. Overall all these scores are covered within our site because all three are widely used. There is no wrong or right scoring format.
Fantasy Football Draft Prep
There is no right or wrong time to start prepping for fantasy football drafts. This can be the night before, to a month after the Super Bowl has ended. There are endless amounts of fantasy football content out there, and it can be a bit overwhelming. It is best to divide your draft prep into sections. Getting the basic research out of the way is a good way to start. In 2020 it is easier than ever to accumulate information from various sources and get up to date information more quickly. There will be a lot of moving pieces over the offseason, and getting familiar with their new surroundings and how teams are going to operate is an important way to gauge value.
If you are new to fantasy football, understanding the scoring system and league settings are going to be very important. Players are going to have different values in different scoring and roster formats. It is also going to dictate how you draft, especially league size. If you have a larger league, that means running backs will dwindle very early. You will also need to plan for adding the right amount of depth at each position because the waiver wire will be thinner as well.
Getting more draft based information into your life, you are going to find bust articles that suggest a player should be avoided. You will see late-round sleeper articles and other various pages, such as rankings and mock draft reviews. Getting this knowledge can be helpful, but making your own decisions and building your string of players you like and dislike is the way to go. Draft strategies have become a popular way of offering advice, but no two drafts are going to be the same, and every draft is going to be dependent on the league scoring and size.
Going into a draft, have multiple strategies and players you like in case things don’t go to plan. Let the draft come to you, as you might not get the running backs you wanted in your first round to start the draft with a running back. Look down the road and at what the best plan is for maximizing safety early on. You can take more risky shots for upside later in the draft. Also, it is key to draft players before there is a massive drop off in production. Each position has tiers, and they can be significant. Keep an eye on players that are out there and see if there is a steep drop off after that in terms of production. If there is, you might want to sure things up. If the position is still deep, analyze what your other options are.
There are a few things to not get caught up in when drafting. Strength of schedule is one of them. It is fine to value it to a degree, but it shouldn’t have a massive impact on your draft day decisions. The reason for this is we are looking at prior history numbers for most of these strength of schedule stats, which are very volatile from year to year. It is also volatile from week to week during the season. A 5th rated pass defense in Week 1 could be 25th come Week 10 when your quarterback finally plays them. There are going to be good and bad matchups for every player. Bye weeks are the next thing that you shouldn’t plan around in drafting. If you have four players with a bye for Week 8, then that week is going to be your one weak link. You much rather be strong for the rest of the season compared to being weak for one week.
FAQ
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How Does Fantasy Football Work?
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How Do I Join A Fantasy Football League?
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What Is A Snake Draft?
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What Is An Auction Draft?
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What Is A Fantasy Football Mock Draft?
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When Does Fantasy Football Start?
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What Is Best Ball Fantasy Football?
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What Is Dynasty League Fantasy Football?
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What Is A SuperFlex Fantasy Football League?
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What Is An IDP Football League?
Frequently Asked Questions
Fantasy football is a group of teams that consist of a roster of players drafted via a snake or auction draft. Every week you will compete against one of your league members, as your fantasy starting lineup will accumulate points with how they do.
Find a sports site of your preference, and find a public or private league to join before the draft starts. You can choose the scoring formats, league size, and other various choices before you select the league to be in. There are free and entry fee leagues.
A snake draft is when a fantasy league drafts in order of one through the number of teams within the league. The draft order will reverse each time it goes around, so one through ten will go, and ten through one will follow after until all rosters have filled.
An auction draft is when a fantasy league sets up an order to nominate players to bid on. Each team will have a set amount of money to build a roster. Once nominated, the bidding begins, and the highest bid at the end wins the player for their team.
A fantasy football mock draft is a draft that helps you prepare for the real thing. It is a fake draft, but you act in real-time, making your picks against other users, or a computer-based algorithm. This helps prepare some draft strategies.
Fantasy Football is now a year-round conversation. Even after a season ends, you will see prep for the next year. Drafts will go all year round, but the most popular time for fantasy football drafts is about a month before the season starts.
Best Ball is a growing fantasy football format, where you draft a team and let the season play out without any in-season moves. Your best scores each week will be the ones calculated, and after all the weeks, the leading points getter wins the league.
A dynasty fantasy football league is the ultimate keeper league. Each year you will keep the same roster, as there are no changes like season-long. Changes can be made through trades and the new incoming rookies draft. It is to model running an actual football team.
SuperFlex is a bit different from a two-quarterback league. SuperFlex is a spot on the roster where you can play any skill position player, including a quarterback. So it is not mandatory but plays a part in roster building and lineup decision making.
An IDP (Individual Defensive Player) fantasy football league is a league that has defensive players required to start in your lineup. These are in addition to your normal roster settings; it is adding a defensive player presence that creates their unique scoring.
