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Interest in fantasy football is growing by leaps and bounds. If you are interested in owning a fantasy football team, one of the most important decisions you will need to make will be in regards to the type of league you should join. There are many different types of fantasy football leagues and it is important to make the right decision. Read on for tips to help you understand the different types of teams and decide which one is right for you.

The most popular type of leagues are the standard draft leagues. These types of leagues are begun with teams in which the players are selected in a serpentine style of draft. Lineups can then be selected by the owners on a weekly basis. This is usually based on the number of players per position as allowed by league rules. There are actually two different types of standard draft leagues. These are total points and head to head. The difference between the two is that with a head to head league each team is matched up against a different team each week. The team that receives the most points is recorded as the winning team. Teams with the best records at the end of the season play in playoff games at the end of the season in order for a final champion to be determined. With a total points league, wins and losses are not tracked. Instead, points are accumulated on a continual basis. Standings are then determined according to the total points of the teams. At the end of the regular season, the teams with the highest number of total points meet for playoff games.

The auction draft league can also be comprised of either a total points system or a head to head system. Unlike the standard draft league; however, the auction draft league utilizes owners who have an amount of money that is predetermined that they can bid on for players to complete their rosters.

With the dynasty league, players are on the same roster from one season to the next unless they are released or they are traded. Drafts are held for rookies only after the first season.

Keeper leagues combine some of the features between dynasty leagues and standard draft leagues. A draft is held before the beginning of every regular season in order for many of the players to be drafted; however, owners can keep a select number of players from the prior season.

IDP leagues use defensive players in an individual manner rather than in defensive units. This type of league can be a bit harder to organize for the owners because it means more thought will usually need to be given to filling the other positions.

A survivor leagues uses just about any kind of draft you wish; however, they most commonly use auction or standard style drafts. The main difference between this type of league and all of the other leagues is that each week one team is eliminated based on who scores the least number of points.

Joe Kenny writes for the UK soccer forum site, FootballTalk.org. Join the football forum for free today and have your say!

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Draft day. Perhaps the most important day of your fantasy football season. This is when you build your team. This is when you laugh at your opponents when they pick an injured player. This is when you find gems in the 7th round who outperform players picked in the 3rd. In other words: don’t screw it up! Let’s go over some advice that you should follow on draft day:

1. Have your own cheat sheets! I can’t stress this enough. So many people use the rankings that their draft software uses (a la Yahoo), without noticing that they have not updated it to reflect recently injured players. Also, your scoring system is not reflected in pre-made rankings. If your receivers gain one point for each reception, that will have a huge effect on the placement of possession receivers. Use the given rankings as a basis, but alter them to reflect injuries and scoring systems.

2. In a local league? Don’t draft your local players. It’s a natural tendency for fans to overrate players on their favorite teams, so if your league is based in St. Louis, you would probably have to overpay to get guys like Bulger or Holt. Hype them up the weeks before your draft while conversing with the other owners, and then sit back and laugh when your favorite play gets picked three rounds too early.

3. Serve lots of alcohol at the draftand don’t touch it! Let your buddies confuse Luke Staley with Duce Staley, while you remain unimpaired. Although most will be fine after a couple drinks, it’s simply not worth the risk. Any slight advantage you can get is worth it, and if just one owner accidentally skips over a player because of the drinks, you’ve done your job. Remember kids, don’t drink and draft!

4. Keep track of everyone’s picks. Online, this shouldn’t be a problem, because your drafting service will likely do it for you, but it may be a difficult task in a live draft. However, it’s worth the troubles. You may be thinking, why bother? Simply, it gives you the ability to pass on certain players you know will be available later. For example, you’re picking 8th in a 10-man league, you are ready to take a kicker, but there’s also a deep-sleeper RB on the board. By looking at your notes, you notice that the guys with the 9th and 10th pick have already taken kickers, and would have no reason to pick another. Therefore, you can safely take the sleeper RB, confident that your kicker will be there when the draft swings back around.

Although this isn’t the complete guide to building a championship team, these simple tips will give you the edge, which might just score you a few key players that might eventually make a huge difference.

Mark G is a fantasy football veteran, who has played for many years and won his fair share of championships. He runs Fantasy Football Spiral, a free site that offers fantasy football strategies, rankings, predictions, a forum, and more. If you need even more resources to win your league, check out the site and you won’t be disappointed.

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A University of Mississippi report show there are around 15-18 million people playing fantasy sports - with many of them with a bachelors degree and a member of the “professional” work force.

Given the astounding stat, one would imagine much thought has been placed in winning fantasy football. Surprisingly I find people don’t really understand the numbers. Most people and most sites, such as Yahoo, talk about players points in terms of averages. The first definition of average according to Webster dictionary is:
1 a : a single value (as a mean, mode, or median) that summarizes or represents the general significance of a set of unequal values
Interesting to note are the words in parenthesis - mean,mode,or median.

What you will find the most common and most likely form of discussion of average is the arithmetic mean version. When people say average, they really mean the arithmetic mean. Example of this is sample of 2,15,20,60,60 the arithmetic mean is (2+15+20+60+60)/5=31.4. The mode is the most common occurring number in this case it would be 60. And finally, the median is the absolute middle of the sample string of numbers ordered from high to low in this case 20. The median is a little hard to explain so another example of median lets say the sample was only 4 numbers 2,15,20,60 - in this case the median is 17.5 - its exactly between 15 and 20.

Now that you understand the various “averages” - lets answer why the median makes more sense than the average (arithmetic mean) for Fantasy Football. Typically, fantasy football is about winning a single head to head game - meaning your players points combined versus another persons players points combined. After the real football games are done, points are tallied up and whoever has the most points win. You then get a win or loss. The next week you play again typically with someone else and you get a win or loss again. Eventually you have a whole season of wins and losses. Once you understand that you should understand it doesn’t matter how many points you score each week as long as you beat your opponent. Yes, it does matter to break ties but as long as you win every week, you won’t have that problem. Therefore, the key is to get players who are consistent. It really does no good to get a player who is hot one week and then not the other week unless you can predict that which is unlikely. These players will typically have a very good average. Alternatively, if you look at the MEDIAN you can spot a more consistent player over a streaky player.

To conclude, the examination of the median may give you the edge over the other fantasy football players.

David Bellman has worked extensively with numbers his entire career. He holds a degree in Chemical Engineer from the University of Texas at Austin. His latest endeavour he is combining his number skill and one of his favorite past time/hobbies (sports) - to see more visit http://www.ihavetheedge.com or http://www.statoracle.com.

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