Sorry, fellas.  If you thought this was an article to help you figure out when you’re supposed to walk in on Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Love Hewitt during a steam-room daydream, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.  Nope.  Sorry.  (Although for the record, it’s approximately two seconds after Jennifer says, “Ugh, it’s so hot in here and these towels are so stuffy…”)  As mini-camps get underway, this article is here merely to serve as a how-to guide to running a proper fantasy football league.  So, let’s get started…

League Set-Up

First things first: it’s 12 teams.  None of this 10-team crap.  If you don’t know 11 other people, kill yourself.  If you’ve got the stones (or are running a Bernie Madoff-style Ponzi scheme using the money your friends have paid you for the league fees) go for the 14-team league.  If you absolutely must have a 10-team league though, for the sake of your reputation, each team better start two quarterbacks at the very least.  For me though, 12 teams just feels right.  In the Goldilocks lexicon of analogies, 12 teams is the ‘middle bear’ equivalent for a fantasy football league: not too big, not too small, just right.

Rosters

Make it tough.  This is fantasy.  Your real life is dull and boring enough; give yourself a challenge.  If you can’t name the back-up slot receiver for the Seahawks, then – as the adorable Ben Affleck would say in Armageddon:  “What the hell are we trying to save?”  Personally, my preference is 2-QB, 2-RB, 3-WR, 1-RB/WR, 1-TE, 1-K, 1-DEF – enough talent to be spread around, yet enough no-names to make a difference.  It makes for better trading, more draft strategy, and a perfect balance of luck and skill when you’re setting your lineup.  And to anyone out there who still thinks 1-QB is better: well first of all – your skirt looks really cute; second – tell me how much fun a 1-QB league is when you’re looking to make a trade and all the teams have guys like Cutler, McNabb, and Eli Manning as their back-ups [Note: all three of those quarterbacks finished below the top twelve in QB rating last year, yet are quality starters on any team].

Scoring

Again guys, I’m sorry.  This part isn’t about when you’re supposed to take a girl you just met home from the bar.  (Although – what the hell – for the record one more time, it’s generally after you’ve bought her a fifth shot of Jaeger and she tells you how her ex-boyfriend didn’t let her drink because she gets “too wild.”  That one’s free, but seriously, what are you doing still reading this article?)  Anyway…  It’s four points for a passing touchdown, not six.  “Duhhhhh, but they get six points in real life!”  They sure do.  But once again, this is fantasy, not real life.  Need a reminder?  Just look down.  That isn’t magical GM powder sprinkled on your shirt; it’s Cheeto dust.  If passing touchdowns were worth the same amount as rushing and receiving touchdowns, then scoring-wise it would make Calvin Johnson and Larry Fitzgerald’s impressive league-leading 12 touchdown seasons last year as good as Gus Frerotte’s year and actually one shy of tying JaMarcus Russell’s masterful season.  (Exactly.)  After that, the only scoring topic worth discussing is the infamous Point-Per-Reception (PPR) category.  And to be honest, I could go either way because both sides have valid arguments.  Some people go zero points per reception and go heavy on yardage points, and some people go full point per reception and scale back the yardage.  Still others do a combination with only a half-point per reception.  It doesn’t matter which one you choose, as long as you don’t go heavy on receptions AND yardage.  The WR’s become god-like and too valuable (much like the QB’s in a 6-point per passing touchdown league).  You decide; I go for PPR.  After that, the basic scoring lays out as follows:

Ø      25 passing yards = 1 point.

Ø      1 passing touchdown = 4 points.

Ø      10 rushing yards = 1 point.

Ø      1 rushing touchdown = 6 points.

Ø      10 receiving yards = 1 point. (unless it’s a PPR, of course)

Ø      1 receiving touchdown = 6 points.

However, since this is your league after all, I’m going to leave the quirky scoring to you.  Favor precision over gunslinging?  Make interceptions 2 points.  Prefer the “Steel Curtain” to the “Greatest Show on Turf”?  Mix it up with the defensive scoring.  Still haunted from watching Tiki Barber as a little kid?  Make fumbles 3 points, who cares?  It’s up to you.  And as for kicking points…well honestly, who gives a crap?  If their owners, coaches, and families don’t care about them, then I’m not going start.  Oh and one last thing; go for partial points.  Who are you to round down?  A 103.6 to 103.5 match-up is a win and loss not a 103-103 tie.  Take off your crown.  If decimals are good enough for the NFL, they’re good enough for your league

Naming Your Team

Now this is an important one.  It’s got to be good.  That’s all I can say.  Don’t be lame about it.  Have some fun with it.  This is the name that’s going to be proudly emblazoned on your league’s trophy case for years – so make it good.  Referencing a TV show or movie line is certainly allowable and highly encouraged.  [Note: If this is the direction you choose to go in, you should know that for some reason - far beyond my understanding - there is an inverse relationship between these two categories.  When referencing a TV show, the further back in the 90s you go, the better.  However, when referencing a movie, the more current the movie, the funnier it is.  Go ahead.  Think about it.  I don't know why either.]  A clever play on words, combining a person’s name with something football related is acceptable, depending on how clever it is of course.  You could also go with something out of your childhood, say your championship little league team or high school football team name for example.  It may not be that funny or appreciated, but it’s definitely respectable.  Lastly, something current event-related is definitely a good way to go; more current = more funny.  To help get you going, here are the names of a few teams I was the proud owner of at some point in my life: The Bayside Tigers, The Lexington Steelers, The Cocksmen (it was right after Wedding Crashers came out; see, not funny now), and The Natalee Holloway Search and Rescue Squad (okay…not too “proud” of that one).

Although for every good team name, there are at least two awful ones.  So please, for the sake of your league, steer clear of these topics…

1. Nobody cares that you’re a fan.  Not one person.  If they know you, they already know anyway.  So for the love of God, no “BengalsAllTheWay09!” or “#1LIONSFAN!”  Every time I see a name like this, I set aside five minutes in my day to re-evaluate my friendship with that person.
2. No sentences.  Got something clever to say?  Save it for your stand-up act.  It barely happens anymore.  In fact it hasn’t happened in so long that I can’t even think of an example.  But all I know is when I see one, I smash my head against my keyboard until I pass out.
3. Stop mixing capital letters and lower-case letters.  This isn’t seventh-grade anymore and you’re not creating a screen name for AOL.  It doesn’t even matter if it’s a really good name.  As SoOn As It’S wRiTtEn LiKe ThIs, I iMmEdIaTeLy SnAp InTo A bLiNd RaGe AnD eVeRyThInG aRoUnD mE gOeS dArK.  (Last time it happened I woke up in a ditch with clown make-up on my face and a pound of hash browns in my pocket…no idea what happened.)
4. Leave your family and loved ones out of it.  No cutesy inside jokes about your girlfriend or your wife or your kids.  Remember, this is fantasy – where we come to escape our realities.  Nobody wants to see your team name and be reminded that their romantic life is colder than Walt Disney’s heart ever since they let the girl of their dreams slip away because they couldn’t commit to a relationship like she wanted, so instead they spend their days locked indoors writing articles about fantasy sports – hypothetically, of course.  But seriously, if you name your team based on something like this, every time I see your pathetic team name pop up in an email for a trade proposal, I’m deducting one man point.

League Members

Alright, so now that you’ve formatted this masterful league and found that perfect team name, perhaps ‘Shrute Farms,’ or one of a slew of references from The Hangover in hundreds of leagues, “Alan’s Wolfpack” (if you haven’t seen it yet, you should), it’s time to figure out who you’re going to invite to join your league.  “Duhhh, my bestest friends of course!”  No.  Don’t be a loser.  I’m sure your friends are great, but there’s a specific criteria for what kind of members a league must have in order to be successful.  You see the right fantasy football league is like a young child.  It has to be nurtured and taken care of.  You can’t just lock it in a basement for 20 years and hope it comes out all right – just ask my Cousin Joe how well that worked out for him.  So below is the collection of members each league must have:

• The Married Guy - you all know him, you all love him.  He’s one of you.  He just decided to take the plunge a lot earlier than everyone else.  And while his wife is a great girl and everyone loves her, his social life is slowly shrinking into a DVR box filled with “Dancing with the Stars” and “Grey’s Anatomy” episodes with the occasional sporting event sprinkled in (like I said, his wife is a cool girl, but she is still a girl).  As he continues to sink into that social abyss, fantasy sports is the last glimmer of hope he has to cling to.  Because as long as he’s not using the Internet to look at porn, he’s pretty much in the clear.  Every league must have one though.  (If you’re too young to have one married buddy, I’m sure you at least have an incredibly whipped friend with a serious girlfriend.)  The league is all he’s got and he’s going to spend more time on it than you thought was humanly possible/socially acceptable.  What this means for you is enduring countless trade offers (some decent, some downright awful) and tireless hours of negotiation because, well his wife is asleep and he’s got nothing else to do.  He may drive you crazy, even to a point where you don’t even want to hear his name, but trust me – he’s good for the league.  It’s like the Joker told Batman, “I don’t want to kill you!  What would I do without you?”

• The Little Brother - it doesn’t matter whose.  It’s usually the commissioner’s, but it’s irrelevant.  I’ve never been in a league without some type of brother tandem and in a few cases I’ve even been him.  He’s an interesting character though.  He’s generally there as an extra body, but he can surprise you sometimes.  Sometimes he really knows his stuff, sometimes he knows too much, and sometimes he’s clueless and gets pretty lucky.  His main purpose in the league though is simple.  He’s there to create suspicion – even if he gives you no reason for it.  It gnaws at you all season.  It starts out simple enough, “Why did he draft that guy?  Did his brother tell him to take him?”…  Then mid-season your thinking becomes, “Why does he want to do this trade?  Is he going to turn around and trade these guys to his brother?”…  Until finally your thoughts turn to, “Is he going to dump all his good players to his brother?  Are they colluding to win the league so they can split the $500 pool and buy a mansion in the Hamptons?!  OVER MY DEAD BODY!!”  (Hey, it could happen.)  The point is, he keeps things interesting.  Your job is to fight off your suspicions and focus on the good of your team to ensure that championship you’ve wanted since it was taken from you last December.

• The Friend of a Friend - who the hell is this guy?  Nobody knows.  He’s the Kaiser Sose of fantasy.  Nobody knows anything about him; where he lives, what he looks like, what he does – nothing.  All you have is a team name, e-mail, and sometimes a phone number.  And there’s something weird about him.  (Not in real life of course.  He’s actually a great guy and you’d hit it off under any other circumstances, but for fantasy purposes there’s something off about him.)  For some reason all of his e-mails come in at weird times, like four or five in the morning.  “Where the hell does this guy live?  Venezuela?”  You have no idea.  He could be anywhere.  He could be watching you read the e-mail from across the street.  Hell, he could be standing over you, watching you sleep, as he sends the e-mail.  You simply don’t know.  And he’s always calling to talk trades at the worst possible time, like he knows exactly what you’re doing.  (Oh my God, the call is coming from inside the house!)  Unlike the Little Brother though, who’s there as an extra body, make no mistake, this guy’s sole purpose is to round out the league and fill that last spot.  And let me be clear, you might not know it at first, but this person WILL be your nemesis.  I promise.  It’s not either of your faults.  It’s just the nature of competition.  Either you have to assume he’s retarded or he has to assume you are; either way you’re both just trying to win.  So it starts: a bad trade offer here, a blunt e-mail there, he picks up your QB’s back-up, you grab his RB handcuff, and so it goes…  Until one day you find yourself sitting at home, reading his latest trade offer, and screaming at your computer, “Why the hell would I want Chester Taylor?!  I don’t even have AP!”  And that’s it – the last straw!  Rather than ignore the offer; you counter-offer.  You find the best player on his team and propose a one-for-one trade: his best player for…Chris Chambers (eww).  It’s the fantasy equivalent of a slap in the face.  And that’s all she wrote.  You stop all communications with each other, you no longer care about winning as long as he doesn’t, and you write him off as an ***hole for the rest of his life – even though he could potentially be your hetero-soul mate, you’ll never know and you’ll never give each other the chance to find out…EVER.  If you still want to know why this guy is good for the league, then punch yourself in the face really hard.

• The Guy Who Knows NOTHING – a.k.a. the champion of the league.  He’s one of your closest friends.  You had to beg him to be in the league and convince him it’s fun.  He hasn’t watched a game since the Bills lost just their second Super Bowl.  He’s a simpleton – the fantasy equivalent of I am Sam.  You watched him draft the best players from 2004.  You laughed at his team when you saw the final roster.  You sat atop your stack of 50 fantasy magazines and draft kits and laughed down at your measly naïve friend, and at one point you even considered giving him his money back because you felt so bad.  Yet there you are in week 16 watching his ‘04 all-stars destroy your strategically drafted and masterfully managed team of fantasy studs with a look on your face like you just saw the kid in the Battlestar Galactica t-shirt go home with the prom queen.  I have absolutely no idea why this guy is good for the league, but he’s going to be in it and he’s going to win it.  It’s inevitable.

So there you have it, a five-page article on running the perfect fantasy football league.  I hope you enjoyed yourself and possibly learned a thing or two.  As for me, well I just wrote a five-page article on running the perfect fantasy football league, so I’m going to go look up when the next Star Trek convention is in town and then throw myself out my window.  Happy fantasizing.

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Dave Silverstein graduated from Emory University.  He’s a comedian, writer and obviously an avid sports fan.  He loves his teams much like a bad father loves his children: the Packers are his do-no-wrong prodigal son; the Mets are the chronically disappointing son who never misses a chance or opportunity to cause him pain and misery; and the Rangers are that distant artsy middle-child who hangs out in his room all day and is secretly rehearsing for the school play while dear old dad makes sure to be there on opening night (aka – the playoffs).

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