Jock Itch A fantasy primer that doesn’t involve elves

Someone blew me away the other night by mentioning that he had never played fantasy football. I’m sure there are millions of you out there, but to find a football fan who had never partaken in the vicarious thrill of earning points and besting his friends from the exploits of actual athletes was truly amazing. I mean—everyone plays fantasy football, right? Apparently not. If you haven’t yet, it can be confusing to get started. 

First and foremost, you need a good team name. You’ll be asked fairly quickly what the name is upon registering. You could get hung up on that for a while, so choose beforehand and enter it with confidence. A good team name won’t earn you any more points on the fake gridiron, but it will with the rest of the players. And if you’re in a league with people you know well, be as funny or offensive as possible. Probably both. Maybe try something regional like the Cheesman Park Cruisers, or go with something a little subtler, like Lady Gaga’s Vagina. This team name could be inscribed on a cheap trophy at the end of the season, so choose wisely.

Once that’s out of the way, you need to figure out whom you want on your team. Do a little research and get an idea of who’d you like to draft. If you have no idea how a fantasy football draft is run, you might want to pre-select a team and run an auto-draft. This is an easy way to get started and you don’t have to navigate the pitfalls of selecting while being timed, like in a regular live draft. Auto-draft is fine, but you’ll get stuck with some weird picks and ultimately you don’t have control over your team. A live draft—whether in-person or online—allows you to make changes on the fly and make decisions based on who’s left and not what you’ve pre-selected. I prefer to be left alone while drafting; sitting in front of my computer as my well-laid draft plans go up in flames is how I do it.

If you do participate in a live draft, choosing whom to select is pretty simple, but it depends on how your league is set up. With a basic scoring system, you probably should take a running back first. These are your workhorses, and if you’re picking early on, you can get one of the marquee players. If you’re not picking early and the Chris Johnsons and Adrian Petersons have already been snatched up, it might benefit you to wait a little on the running back. Why not grab one of those top-tiered quarterbacks? QBs are pretty important, and you can keep them out of the hands of the guys who got the best running backs. You’ll need receivers at some point, and in PPR (point per reception) leagues, you have a large selection of wide outs and running backs who will catch a lot of balls. After that, it’s a matter of what you need and who the best player available is.

But please, for the love of Tim Tebow, don’t take a kicker or a defense until your other positions are looking pretty well filled out. A kicker can bring you some points every week, but it’s madness to select one when there are still some bigger fish to reel in. A defense is important, but someone will always take the supposed best one way too early. If a good D is still out there late in the draft, by all means grab it. But don’t waste a pick. 

After you’ve drafted a team and the season starts, as long as you update your roster and make sure players aren’t hurt or suspended for sexual assault, you can do pretty well. If that’s not motivation enough, why not join up just to bum out fantasy geeks? Winning the whole thing with little or no football knowledge would be a great place to start. People take their fantasy football very seriously and there’s nothing like a novice (possibly football-hating) first-timer taking down the nerds who gobble up massive amounts of fantasy stats. It may be fantasy, but the glory of winning will be all real.