How to Create the Ultimate Fantasy Football Team: David Zagata, Matthew Gastaldi, Brian Tredup, Jorge Rodarte.

The objective in which our team aims to achieve is enlightening, and giving individuals a better understanding of the whose and what’s in which goes into NFL Fantasy Football Draft. Our goal will be achieved by us providing the necessary information to help not only prepare one for the fantasy draft, but also to make you more than ready to enter one themselves, and possibly even operate a draft too! They way in which we will go about making this as easy as possible, we will be breaking down, giving you a step-by-step walk-thru on what to keep an eye out for. A lot comes into play when the NFL draft gets brought to the table, from trade prospects, injury reports, weekly subbing and also scouting potential prospects to help get you those extra few points you will need to end in victory.

What is the NFL Fantasy Football Draft?

The draft is when you and a group of people either close friends or complete stranger’s make your own football team. You will pick your line up every week during the football season and you will get points based on the performance of each player. Each week you can change your line up based on the players you drafted. At the end of the season whoever has the most points gained wins.

Types of Leagues

There are two types of leagues you can be in when you sing up for fantasy football. The first kind of league you can be in is an NFL managed league. This type of league has default scoring and the official league settings, you can only have the same amount of players as a real NFL team, regular players starting positions, and you can see how your competitors are doing and what their score is. When you join this type of league the owners are eligible to win prizes based on the performance of his team. A way to secure that this league is fair and fun for all players is that the NFL manages the leagues and won’t let anyone cheat or have an unfair advantage over everyone else and makes everyone happy. In this kind of league you can either have an auto pick draft where the computer drafts for you or you can draft on your own to make a better team.

The second type of league there is are custom leagues. This type of league is operated by one of the players who’s is in charge of setting all the rules all the settings and the way you make point, this position is called the League Manager. They have over 100 setting to

choose form the manager can customize many things like individual players, and keepers. The league manager is also in charge of advertising his league. He has to invite his friends or other interested in joining a league so the league can get bigger and more competitive.

Types of Drafts

Once you have picked your league and you are ready to draft you will have to know there are three types of drafts.

The first draft is a Live Online Draft. This type of draft is like being in a real NFL draft. You go round by round in an interactive environment. With this type of draft you are able to see all the players who are still able to be drafted and you can see their stats and analysis of how they did previous seasons and how the experts think the player will do this year. This type of draft is LIVE so it will let you know which players are being drafted each time someone else drafts. You are able to make a list of the players you are interested in and when it’s your turn if the players have not been drafted you are eligible to take the one that you want the most. A good tool in the LIVE draft is that you are able to search for specific players or filter out by the position you are looking for and this way it can make your draft go faster and easier. Once it’s your turn to draft and you have found the player you want all you have to do is click DRAFT NOW and the player you want will be in your team. If you are not able to make it to the start of the draft or you have leave before you are done you can select the AUTO PICK draft and it will automatically pick for you depending on the positions you need filled.

The second type of Draft is AUTO PICK. For this type of draft is operated by the NFL expert rankings or the rankings that you have picked depending on the setting you have chosen. This type of league is good for the type of people who are busy and don’t have time to sit at a computer and wit round by round until every pick has been made. This will start of the draft and when it’s your turn to draft you will draft either the best player or the position you need or depending on the pre-rankings you did prior to the draft. This type if faster and more convenient if this is the first time you use fantasy football draft.

For the LIVE and AUTO PICK drafts there are two types of drafting orders. The first order is called “snake” this type of order starts at the beginning but when the last player drafts it starts over again with the last player who drafted being the first one to draft in the second round and the first person who drafted in the first round drafts last on the second round. The second type of draft is Linear. With this type of draft the setup is established in the first round. The same order used in the first round will continue for all of the rounds of the draft. When you are in a LIVE draft it will appear on the top of you page to see what type of drafting order you have.

Another thing that is important in the draft is the draft format. There are two types the first one is the standard type. In this type of draft each team has a certain amount of time to draft the player they want once they are done the next team will draft. This is the more traditional regular NFL draft. The second type of draft format is Auction. With auction each team nominates a player, then when the player is nominated everyone bids on the player who ever has the highest bid on the player gets to keep him. The bad thing about this type of format is that every team has a budget on how much they can spend and bid on their players.

The third type of draft is OFFLINE draft. With this type of draft you don’t use the tools provided by the NFL and each team picks every round. This type of draft is done any where you want with the members of your league. Once the draft is done the League Manager has to enter the draft into the webpage by going to EDIT DRAFT RESULTS under the MANAGE tab and manually enter all the players for each team member. Once the League Manager has entered all of the information you are able to use the regular trade, drop, and lineup online.

Online Draft Steps

When the draft begins you will have your pick number. When it’s your turn to start drafting your team name and logo will appear on your screen on your top left corner you will see a timer with the time you have left to make a selection of a player you wish to draft. Also you will see on your screen the round number and the pick number that the draft is on. IF you are in AUTO PICK mode the computer will select your player, but if you are drafting in a standard league you have 90 seconds to make your choice, or if you are in an auction league you have 45 seconds to make your nomination. If you don’t make a pick within your specified time frame a player will be picked automatically for you depending on your roster needs. During the time of selection you can see a player’s information card. On that card you can find players last season’s statistics, see his projected stats for this season, or even go to the players NFL page. Another thing you can do during your turn to draft is search a player. Click on the box where it says search player by name and click on the player when you found the one you wanted.

While you are waiting to be your draft turn you can make a draft list. Here you can select players you re interested in drafting and make a list of them. If some else drafts them before you have a chance to it will take the player of the list and inform you that the player has been drafted. When you are looking for player to put on your list you can refine your searches by just looking up a certain position you want to fill. If you need a quarterback just see all of the quarterbacks and it will make it easier and faster for you to make your list.

To keep track of the draft, which is important because you don’t want to miss your turn, you can always look at the top of the draft order and it will let you know which team is currently picking and what the prior team picked. If you missed a couple of draft picks you can you can select which team you want to view and it will let you see what team has drafted which player so you can see who drafted the player you wanted or check the competition you will have during the season.

Another way that a LIVE draft is more interactive is by letting you chat with the people in the draft. On the bottom of your screen you can chat whit any person in the draft to talk about draft picks and make the time go faster.

When the draft is complete and done you will be taken to a screen where it will let you see your complete roster and the roster of everyone else in your league. Once you are done looking at the roster you are ready to begin your season. You are able to trade and drop/add players. You want to keep track of all that’s going on with your specific player’s during the whole NFL season to see the points they have given you. You want to check on injuries and real live trades and signings by the real NFL teams which could impact the performance of your NFL Fantasy Football League.

To have a successful Fantasy Football Team you have to follow many webpages and watch a lot of ESPN. There are many factors to having a champion team not just throwing in any player for any given week. People don’t realize that it takes some effort to actually play in a fantasy league, you can’t just sit around thinking the program just runs itself, not like downloading a file where you just push download and you wait 30 minutes until it is done. No, the fantasy football world takes a lot more critical thinking then you might imagine, you have to keep up to date on all information and the websites provided in the following pages will help you conquer your opponents in ways you couldn’t even imagine.

www.nfl.com/injuries

Injuries are inevitable in the NFL. In order to have a successful fantasy football season you must always pay attention to injuries on a week to week basis. By paying attention to injury updates you will know if any of your players are probable, questionable, or doubtful for the next game. I recommend using www.nfl.com/injuries for all of your injury information. This site has 2 drop-down menus where you can select a Week and Team to see a full list of injuries including: Type of Injury, Practice Status, and Game Status.

www.fantasy.nfl.com

For a great fantasy football experience I recommend creating your fantasy football team at www.fantasy.nfl.com. At the top of the Home Page is a link to register to participate in fantasy football. If you click on the video located on the Home Page you will receive information that could be pivotal to having a successful fantasy football season. For example, one of the current videos offers advice from NFL analysts on the NFL draft. Below the video board you will see a list of the 10 most popular fantasy football players from last season. No less than 99.9% of fantasy football owners utilized each and every one of these players. Below the video board you will also see a leaderboard listing the 15 most successful fantasy football owners from last season. Once the new NFL season begins, the fantasy football leaderboard will be updated on a weekly basis.

Towards the bottom of the page you will find a link titled Important Dates. When you click this link you will find valuable information including: The Date Fantasy Football Registration Opens, the Date NFL Fantasy Drafts Begin, the Date the NFL Preseason Begins, the Date the NFL Regular Season Kicks Off, the Date the NFL Fantasy Drafts Close, and the Date of the Super Bowl in New York. Towards the bottom of the page you will find another link titled Official Game. When you click this link you will find an interactive approach to fantasy football including: Live Scoring, Player News, and Injury Updates. Towards the bottom of the page you will find another link titled Prizes. When you click on this link you will find a list of Grand Prizes that you could win by joining an NFL-managed Free Fantasy Football League including: Tickets to the upcoming Super Bowl, Tickets to an International football game, or a $4,000 NFL Shop Gift Card plus a 40” HDTV. So not only do you get to have fun playing fantasy football, but you also have a chance to win a variety of great prizes.

Towards the top of the page is a Research link. When you click on this link you will find a list organized by the number of fantasy points each NFL team allowed to each position, based on default NFL-managed scoring. This information could help you to determine what defense to select for your fantasy football team. You can choose from seasonal averages or review past weekly performances to help optimize your lineup. Advanced research data including targets, touches, and red zone opportunities are also available.

Below the Research link is a link titled Leaderboard. When you click on this link you will see an extended list of the top fantasy football owners from last season. As mentioned before, the leaderboard is updated week to week as the new fantasy football season begins.

Next to the Research link is a link titled Marketplace. When you click on this link you will find several marketing packages which appeal to the NFL fantasy football fan. There are 4 links located under the Marketplace link including: Live Preseason Football, Exclusive Sports Illustrated Offer, Watch NFL Games Online, and Apparel. The Live Preseason Football link gives the avid fantasy football fan the opportunity to watch every NFL

preseason game live. The Exclusive Sports Illustrated Offer link has an offer to subscribe to the Sports Illustrated magazine for practically nothing. The Watch NFL Games Online link allows you to replay every NFL game in HD with NFL game rewind. The Apparel link allows you to customize everything for your nfl.com fantasy league. You can create shirts with your favorite team logo as well as your fantasy team name.

At the very top of the Home Page are 4 links which will help to keep fantasy football owners updated during the NFL season including: Scores, Video, News, and Fantasy Football.

One of the greatest resources for staying on top of all current events in the NFL as well as staying one step ahead of your competitors during the fantasy football season is located at www.espn.com. The site features 5 columnists who offer their opinions regarding NFL scouting reports, opinions about the draft, and opinions regarding anything else relevant to the NFL football season.

The columnist provided by espn.com/nfl, can really help you get ahead of the competition in

your fantasy league whether its during the season or in the offseason, they will get you all of the best

information necessary on specific key players around the league and help you finalize and choose who

you are going to be putting into the game and who will be sitting on the bench. Matthew Berry one of

the top columnist for ESPN Sports Center will give the best information during the offseason by giving

you his top 200 picks for the upcoming NFL season as to who will be a great pick up and who will be a

big disappointment.

Now not everyone might think that this information provided by the columnists may be helpful,

but then again not all of us have the same players, that’s why not all content about the NFL can be seen

on TV, or all the big sports news stations like for example Sports Center and CBS Sports only give you the

big sports news on the main events happening around the league, but what about the little things

happening behind the scenes? , Like maybe a trade between 2 championship caliber teams that Sports

Center might have missed, Matthew Berry and his team are the people who will keep you up to date

with all of that giving you access to each team, and the rumors going on about trade talks, injury

updates or maybe stuff that has happened to a specific player. To be a key player in your fantasy league

you might want to think about signing up for ESPN Insider, to give you to latest on what everyone like

Mel Kiper Jr. and John Gruden are saying about this years draft picks, or the stats for tomorrows game

and who they think will be a key role player in that game to help their team win. A Key note to

remember is ESPN or CBS will not always be the ones keeping track of the games at the current state,

they will just bring you highlighted information, so that’s why having updates on your phone or social

media updates can help you keep track of play by play action so you never have to be left in the dark.

Log onto your social media networks like Facebook, Twitter for example and either go like

espn.com/NFLs page or follow them on Twitter if you don’t already so you can get constant updates on

the game. This way you can always know what is going and be alerted when they post something on

their newsfeed that you might find to be valuable in your pursuit to win. You can also download the

application on your phone if you have a smartphone so that you can make adjustments and moves while

you’re on the go and don’t have access to a computer network. The Divisions among the NFL each have

their own individual blogs where they talk about different talks among the teams within that division,

like for example in this years NFL draft they are talking about the Vikings, or Bears taking a look at Manti

Te’o as their future linebacker to help build their team around. All of this information I have now

discussed for just this one website should give you a great advantage over your competitors because the

little things like this will help you win your league even if you don’t have a major star on your team you

can still win just by using these tips.

There is one more website that can be used that many people may not be aware of that can give

you good insight to a teams happenings, prosportsdaily.com has all the important news on what players

are up to outside of work or the field to let you know if maybe one of your players on your roster has

gotten themselves into trouble and have to sit out a few games. You need to keep tabs on your star

players because now they are in the public eye and now if something happens to them in a good or bad

way this could either hurt or benefit you, this is why this website is so great because it can help you keep

tabs on your star player(s) or maybe someone else’s so that you now know that your competitors

player(s) are sitting out so maybe you should put all of your high scoring and high stats players so you

can gain more points. This site can also help you with the odds on betting, it gives you all the know

how’s, do’s and don’ts to help you win a bet you make with your friends or competitors.

sports.yahoo.com

This website is a very useful, well rounded website packed full of great information for anyone interested in pro football. The website provides the most relevant news, provided from very credible sources by some of the top NFL experts updated daily. Also, the yahoo sports gives previews and recaps of future games, what players are projected to do, as far as rush yards, and pass yards. This especially helps with the selection of who you want to put on your fantasy team, and who to stay away from. If you don’t know already, fantasy

football is a numbers game. If a player scores a touchdown, the person with that player actively on their roster scores a set amount of points. If that player rushes a specified amount of yards, that too gets them points. So the more that player is projected to score, the more likely you would want to put him on your roster, active for the week. If you are curious as to when your favorite team or teams play for the season and where, yahoo sports gives a very detailed and accurate schedule breakdown. It will show up to date rankings of teams and where they stand amongst other teams across the league as well.

The stats page is one of my favorite parts of the website. It is very detailed, always has the most accurate player ratings, and live statistical updates for the most involved football fans. Yahoo sports is very reliable for fantasy football fans, by giving a great second opinion on who to play or who to bench. This leads nicely into injuries, and happens to be a vital part of fantasy football. If you have a player that went high in the fantasy draft, chances are if he happens to get injured, that will impact your team greatly. So by tuning into yahoo sports, this will show immediately when and if a play gets injured and when he is projected to be back in playing condition.

Underneath the “players” heading, you are given detailed roster and statistics based upon the previous game the player had been in and also an overall, from the start of the season statistical analysis of that particular player. This helps with what a player is projected to do, so if your backup quarterback for instance isn’t projected to do so well, you would want to keep your first string starter in instead of swapping players in and out.

Another one of my favorite parts of the website are the video highlights. If you happen to miss anything from the following week, yahoo sports provides the top catches, top throws, top sacks and overall top plays, great to pass a bit of time and see how your players are doing! Right next to that heading is a tickets dropdown menu. Here you can purchase tickets to see your favorite team as well as players. Coming from such a credible site, you know these tickets won’t be fake or duplicates, they are guaranteed official tickets and no scamming will occur.

Overall, for a very informative site, a one stop shop if you will, yahoo sports is the site you are looking for.

Over the years, our partner David Zagata has gained a lot of experience and vast amounts of knowledge with Fantasy football, today he has decided to share some of those very helpful and beneficial tips on the subject.

Tips of failure:

#1: Drink a lot of alcohol at your draft: Drink some beer or any type of alcoholic beverage for that matter on draft day, and if you really want to draft a bad team I would definitely suggest showing up to the draft meeting several hours early with a cooler full of beer or liquor in tow.

#2: Don’t be prepared: Now if your drunk already and draft a bad team, that is understandable, but if you just draft a bad team that means you didn’t read anything online or in Fantasy football magazine about how to draft. I know one or two people have showed up last minute with a magazine in his/her hand that they just bought 20 minutes ago and uses the cheat sheet on the back. That’s not real drafting, that’s just a disgrace. Go home, your drunk.

#3: Draft a quarterback in Round 1: Now hold up, Ain’t nobody got time for that!, if your going to draft a quarterback in round 1 you just need to stop, drop what your drinking, and leave the room and go home, because taking a quarterback in the first rounds means you just wasted a pick that you SHOULD have used for a running back or receiver, positions that are clearly harder to fill with quality players, because all QBs are good for is calling “HIKE!” then they run into their own offensive linemen and fumble the ball like Mark Sanchez.

#4: Underestimate the importance of the late rounds: After you have filled up your starting lineups, you tend to lose focus and stop paying close attention on who you are drafting, you forget to record your draft picks, you are increasing your beer or liquor consumptions tenfold or just spill your beer over your cheat sheet. Now you unfortunately will spend the rest of the season in mediocrity.

#5: Draft all your favorite teams players: This is one of the biggest mistakes I see people making, If your team already sucks say for example the Green Bay Packers, then why are you bothering drafting players that have no skill on this team? You should be drafting a player from like the Kansas City Chiefs or something if you actually wanted to see some results.

Tips for Success:

#1: Prepare ahead of time: Make sure you have your big boy/big girl pants on because there is no goofing off when it comes to Fantasy football draft day, this could be bigger then you getting a huge promotion at work.

#2 Pay attention to others picks, by watching other drafters you can tell what you should do and not do. You can get better players than other members of your league.

#3: Be careful of bye weeks, make sure you don’t draft same position players on the same bye week or else t can impact you in your performance

#4: Always draft the best player available. The value of a player is determined by how much he outscores his peers at his particular position not by how many points they score.

#5 Consider trading players. If you want a better player try to trade for it. If you see someone is interested in a player you really want try trading to get him or for him.

If you don’t know how any of this works ask someone, it never hurts to ask questions if you are unsure about something, but with us providing you with all of this great information and tips you should have no problem winning the title in your Fantasy league. If any of this information that was provided to you were still confusing you can go to espn.com/NFL and there is a tab at the top right corner of the page that says RULES and Regulations. This tab will provide you with the tools and information necessary to play fairly and have a simple guideline so you can get started in reaching what we all wish to accomplish, VICTORY!