What I Learned From Fantasy Football 2011

I’ve been doing fantasy football for the past two years now. I did one league last year. This year, I had three leagues.

I have to say NFL.com has the best fantasy football I’ve seen. Its interface is very easy to understand and does a great job of doing head-to-head matchup analysis. However, their estimations aren’t as accurate. Their predictions update throughout the game, which is really nice.

Yahoo has a good one as well. Though, the estimations don’t update throughout the game. There’s also not a graph like NFL has. But they do a good job. The interface as a commissioner is kind of confusing.

ESPN is the worst. It does head-to-head matchup but it’s hard to find. Their point system counts in whole numbers (at least the league I was in), which doesn’t make any sense. The interface is hard to follow. It’s just generally hard to find what you’re looking for.

Anyway, I wanted to blog about some of the things I’ve learned from fantasy football over these past two years:

1. It may be worth NOT downloading the apps for your phone. It might be worth for you to use the online interfaces for your league. I say this because the apps make it really easy to make last minute changes. I did that a lot last year. Since the app was right there and it was so easy, I switched them last minute and it turns out the player I benched did better than the player I put in.
2. Don’t listen to blogs as much. Do your own research but don’t get too carried away with it. A lot of the time the blogs are wrong. Your best bet is always to guess. Fantasy is about gambling on which player you think will do well. I benched Cruz for Moss since a blog said the Vikings had a bad secondary thinking Moss is going to have an awesome game. Cruz got 25 points where Moss had 8.
3. Running backs, running backs, running backs (most of the time). Though if you’re in a PPR (points per reception league), wide receivers.
4. Be weary about last minute “reports” on players. They may have a “Q” or “P” right next to their names, but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to have an awesome game. Make sure you know the player isn’t going that Sunday before you bench them.
5. Don’t put up players who have huge projections. Take the projections with a grain of salt. If a top running back is out and his backup is only projected to get 3 points, put in the backup. Where are they getting those numbers?

Fantasy is just a game of luck. And most of it’s dumb luck.

I’ve had a blast these last two years with fantasy and I can’t wait for next year. And by the way, go RAVENS!