Fantasy Fundamentals From The Factory

In most formats this is the final week of Fantasy Football. Champions will be crowned come Monday and for many participants it will mark the end of Fantasy Sports until the NFL returns. For most of us here at the 64/60 Football is just something that eases the withdrawal as we wait until the MLB season starts back up. Without a doubt Fantasy Football is much more mainstream than Fantasy Baseball just as the NFL has surpassed MLB as the American Pastime. Regardless, we here at the 64/60 prefer the marathon that is a Fantasy Baseball season. We know you can't half-ass your way to glory. Fantasy Baseball weeds out the contenders from the pretenders. Fantasy Baseball is about Draft Prep and trend watching it is about what players are going to do and not about what they have done. To win a Fantasy Baseball Championship you have to be committed, you have to be a step ahead of your competition, and over the course of a season you must have more successes than failures. These methods of success don't apply to Fantasy Football. The key to success in Fantasy Football is quite simple have three really good players and simply plug in a lineup. So how do you land those players that will guide you to the promise land?

In the NFL of yesteryear this was quite simple. Grab a high draft pick out of a hat and select a one man show type player such as Emmitt Smith, Marshall Faulk, or Priest Holmes. It would be interesting to see the actual numbers but I would suggest with confidence that owners of these players in their prime won their league 70% of the time or more. Today's NFL isn't that easy to figure out. Most teams now employee two back systems and the passing game is more of the NFL's base offense than the 40+ attempt Running attacks of the 80's-mid 90's thus only a handful of one man wrecking balls are available. So with less stud type players may I suggest a different approach for the 2011 season. How about just bypass your draft entirely. While other owners are filling their 15-20 roster spots with three Cowboy RB's and two Packer WR's you will just kick back drink a cold beverage and let things simply come to you. Now since you are bypassing your draft you should stipulate that you have the rights to everyone on the Waiver Wire for the first 3-4 weeks. Just long enough to get a feel for who may or may not be productive during the season. Using the 64/60 Format (15 draft picks) Starting Lineup: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, TE, FLEX, K, DEF here is how your team could have looked this season.

QB- Vick
RB- Peyton Hillis
RB- Arian Foster
WR- Brandon Lloyd
WR- Stevie Johnson
WR- Dieon Branch
TE- Mercedes Lewis
FLEX- Mike Tolbert
K- Dan Carpenter
DEF- Patriots

If that isn't a good enough roster for you check out this bench: Mike Williams, Derrick Mason, Ben Watson, Ben Jarvis Green-Ellis, Kyle Orton.

To put it in perspective the highest scoring team in the 64/60 scored 1654 points on the season. This starting group I posted above totaled 1790.

So all that time you invested scrolling through Mock Drafts and the latest fantasy news gave you what? How about the 40 bucks you spent of Fantasy Preview Magazines. I suppose their wasn't many out there promoting Peyton Hillis or Arian Foster. How many times did Michael Vick appear on a Sleeper list? Not often I would guess. I'm not criticizing these writers it's obvious they invest plenty of time on evaluating players. It's one thing to miss a breakout player here and there but to miss something like 8 players who were amongst their positions Top 5 suggest that theres no secret to the art. I realize this exercises allows me to look back and hand pick my team retroactively but I feel it does get my point across. You were successful because you landed a Top 10 overall player and likely three within the Top 25. It's not because you filled a 25 Man roster with 22 really solid players and went over it with a fine-tooth comb time and time again month after month. They say it's better to be lucky than good in Fantasy Football they go hand and hand.