Fantasy Football is a fantasy sports game in which participants (called "owners") are arranged into a competitive league, earning “fantasy points” by using the statistics of real football players. The owners of each league draft real-life American football players, typically from either the NFL or NCAA, filling a roster containing the various offense or defensive positions on a team, such as Quarterback, Running Back, Wide Receiver, and Tight End. Depending on how well the players on an Owner’s team do in a given week, the team earns Fantasy Points to compete against the other owners in the league. If a running back rushes for a touchdown, for instance, the running back earned a pre-determined amount of points for that running back’s owner. At the end of the season, win-loss records determine league rankings or qualifications into a playoff bracket. Most leagues set aside the last weekends of the regular season for their own playoffs, which determines the league’s champion for that season.
Fantasy football has become an incredibly popular phenomenon. Just prior to the 2009 NFL season, Colin Cowherd of ESPN said "more than 27 million players play fantasy football. They spend an average of nine hours a week (during football season... playing fantasy football)."
History
The game originated in 1962 from an idea of Bill Winkenbach, then a limited partner in the Oakland Raiders, with assistance from Bill Tunnell, the Raiders' public relations man, Scotty Stirling, the beat writer from the Oakland Tribune, and George Ross, the Tribune's sports editor, as well as Philip Carmona, Winkenbach's friend. The idea emerged during a three-week road trip the Raiders took to the East Coast. Winkenbach and the others fleshed out the idea during the trip, and upon their return, formed the first fantasy football league, the GOPPPL (Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League).. With the rise of personal computers and the Internet in the late 1990s, the participation in and popularity of fantasy football increased to the level of prominence it holds today. Most leagues are now hosted online through providers such as CBS, ESPN, NFL.com, and Yahoo!, typically at no charge, making the game extremely accessible.
Competition format
The two main types of competition formats are Head-to-head , with weekly games played against specific opponents (much like in the NFL), and Total Points , in which cumulative points during the season determine winners (or playoff teams).
League types
Leagues can consist of anywhere from 4 to as many as 20 teams. There are three major types: redraft, "keeper" leagues, and dynasty leagues. In a redraft, each owner starts with no players at the beginning of each season and drafts an entire fantasy team. Each owner in a keeper league is allowed to retain a small number of players they owned during the previous season, eliminating these players from the draft, while each owner in a dynasty league is allowed to retain as many players as desired from the previous season, with the draft encompassing only rookies and other unowned (or un-retained) players.
Draft formats
Players are drafted on a team in three main formats. One of these is the serpentine/snake draft, in which the draft order from the first round is reversed in the second round, then reversed again in every round thereafter, thus creating a snakelike progression. Another is the "standard" draft system, in which draft order is maintained throughout. The last is an auction system, in which owners bid on players using a predetermined budget. Budgets will differ depending on league settings and number of participants. An auction league allows team owners to have the ability to buy any player at any time.
Salary cap leagues
The salary cap football league is a particular type of dynasty league which adds another factor of realism similar to the NFL: the salary cap. Just like in the NFL, this means each player has an associated salary and the total spent on all the players on a team has a maximum - the "salary cap." This can have many levels of complexity, e.g. a player may be signed for multiple years, etc.
New league types
A new style of fantasy football is modeled after the popular "survivor pool" or "knock out pool" style of weekly NFL wagering that allows each pool member to pick one NFL team to win each week, but he or she can only pick that team once all year.
Similarly, survivor fantasy leagues allow owners to draft a fresh team of seven players each week, with each player only available to each owner one week per year. This added level of strategy places an emphasis on weekly NFL match ups, while at the same time diminishing the negative consequences of injuries.
Another type of league, that allows for year round fantasy football is called Simulation Football. Simulation Football uses a computer to simulate the games with simulated players, instead of relying on the NFL for its players and stats. The most basic type is a GM league, where all the player has to do is put together a team and the computer does most of the work. A much more involved type of simulation football is called a "Create-a-Player" or CAP league. In a CAP league, top players vie for the chance to be a GM and put together a team using players that are created by other people. There are different types of scoring for determining who is a "top player" but the people are charged with making their player as good as possible using the league's scoring system.
The popularity of fantasy football has filtered down into the collegiate level as well. Fantasy College Football is gaining in popularity as diehard fantasy players and college football fanatics combine two of their favorite passions into one. The most popular leagues involve the BCS only schools while other leagues incorporate all Football Championship Series schools or even just the "non-BCS" schools.
The draft
Just like in real football, each year fantasy football leagues have a draft (note: in dynasty leagues, this normally consists of NFL rookies only), in which each team drafts NFL players. These players are kept unless "dropped" (aka become free agents) or are traded. In most leagues, no player may be owned by more than one team, (although some leagues do allow for this).
There are essentially two types of drafts. In a traditional "serpentine" (aka "snake") draft, owners take turns drafting players in a "serpentine" method, i.e. the owner who picks 1st in the odd rounds picks last in the even rounds, in the interests of fairness. In an auction draft, each owner has an (imaginary) budget which he must use to purchase all his players in an auction format, ie players are nominated and bid on, and the owner who bids the highest on each player receives that player (reducing their remaining budget accordingly).
Free agents and trades
Free agents and trades are integral components to maintaining a competitive roster throughout the duration of a season. Free agents exist in fantasy leagues that do not allow multiple teams to have any one professional athlete. In these leagues, free agents are professional players that are not currently on any league members' rosters. You can add, or claim, players anytime during the season.
At the beginning of every week, after the Monday night football game, team owners can claim free agents. The waiver claims are processed later on in the week. If more than one team owner claims a player, a team's waiver wire position determines who gets the player. A team's wavier wire ranking is determined by things like team record and the number of free agents already added. The better a team's ranking, the more likely they will get the best free agents. This helps competitiveness as the season wears on. Usually there are several surprise players that are not drafted by any team but are become one of the best fantasy players.
Some leagues have trade deadlines that are set, and others have a waiver period before free agents can be picked up. This really depends as to how the league is set up. When a trade is proposed and accepted in some leagues there can be a voting period which will allow the league to decide if the trade is acceptable or not.
Fantasy trade referees
Often within fantasy football leagues trades are made that cause controversy and are considered unfair by many other members of the league. These disputes are often settled by fantasy football trade referees. These third party sites feature experienced fantasy players who rule on trades and offer an objective third party opinion.
You may not need to use trade referees if your league uses the voting system in which the league can approve or decline the trade that has been placed. In some leagues if there is a voting period and a trade referee in place, the trade referee can overrule the league voting and this can cause controversy as well.
Team rosters
Each team is allowed a pre-determined number of players on its team, as well as a specified number at each position that can or must be used in each game (the "starters"). Owners for each team then determine each week which players will start (within the rules) and which will be "benched". Just like in real football, bench players can become starters for various reasons: due to other players' injury, poor performance, or if another player's team has a bye.
Each week, owners choose their starters for a game before a certain dea
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