All’s fair in love and Fantasy Football I like a challenge and I’m probably a bit more competitive than is actually healthy, so playing NFL Fantasy Football is right up my street. I am currently juggling several teams, in different types of leagues and with varying degrees of success. For the uninitiated, there are two main types of league:- Draft-based league Team owners take turns in selecting players (often whilst consuming copious amounts of beer, although this is not mandatory in all leagues) and can then adjust their rosters by trading with other owners or by picking up free agents. Regular visitors to BUCPOWER.COM will have noticed a long-running thread on the Discussion Forum for the official Bucs UK Fantasy League – this is a strange world, inhabited by the ‘Elders’ and they are the hardcore fantasy players, where rivalries are intense and the team owners have become bitter and twisted by the years of misfortune which they’ve suffered. They even speak their own peculiar language, although it appears to be a dialect of Bullshit. Salary Cap League Here, each NFL player is given a monetary value, which can fluctuate on a weekly basis depending on performances, injuries and whether or not they are currently serving any jail time. Team owners pick their line-ups each week within an overall Salary Cap (this may be one of the few occasions where you get to spend a hundred million dollars). I tend to favour this type of league, because I at least like to feel that I am in control of my team’s destiny – if the players don’t perform, I can start again from scratch the following week. Again, details of the Bucs UK Salary Cap League can be found on the BUCPOWER.COM message board and you may believe that it’s still not too late to join the league, given that some of the current scores are so pitifully low. Getting started Once you have joined a league, your first major dilemma is picking a name for your team - there are a few absolute rules here:- (a) Witty team names are good but don’t go for anything too intellectual, nobody will understand it; (b) Don’t go for anything which is Star Trek-related, as people will just think that you’re a geek; (c) Don’t choose anything like “Vick’s canine electrocution service”, as it just lacks class. Strategy Here are my top ten tips to becoming a successful team owner:- (1) Befriend each of the thirty-two NFL Head Coaches and get a run-down of their plans ahead of every game. It’s always handy to know if Jack Del Rio is planning to get Dennis Northcutt more involved; (2) Get up at 4.00am each day and study game tape. If it’s good enough for Gruden, it’s good enough for you; (3) Use covert video surveillance to check what your opponents are doing. If it’s good enough for Belichick, it’s good enough for you; (4) Don’t let your heart rule your head: as much as you may admire Ike Hilliard, he’s unlikely to get you fifteen touchdowns in a season. Equally, don’t let an irrational hatred of the Carolina Panthers stop you from acquiring Steve Smith when he’s hot – swallow your pride and improve your chances; (5) Don’t gloat *. Or, if you are going to gloat, do it properly and really rub their noses in it. There are no half-measures here! * I’m in a Salary Cap League with a couple of friends at work: Phil is a long-time Broncos fan, so he has become accustomed to years of disappointment and has equally low expectations of his fantasy team. Neil is a relative newcomer to the NFL and I didn’t think he paid too much attention to the fantasy game until one day recently when, whilst discussing a work project, he happened to mention Plaxico Burress’ lingering ankle injury (note to self: must sabotage Neil’s team. See point (6) below). Neil has been struggling with his quarterbacks recently, to say the least – John Kitna scored him minus 1.83 points in week 5 and Brett Favre scored 0.16 points in week 6. In circumstances such as these, it would just be too cruel to gloat, especially when I’ve got Tom Brady. (6) Do peddle mis-information to your opponents, especially if you are playing in a League with your mates: This can take the form of a blatant lie, particularly if your opponent is a novice (“I hear that Cadillac is feeling much better, he’s hoping to be back next week””), or it can be a much more subtle way of undermining confidence in their picks (“That’s a brave decision, especially with his poor record against the Patriots”). (7) Always be prepared for the inevitable crushing disappointment. You plan your line-up meticulously during the week, checking on injury reports and Travis Henry’s hair sample analysis, then you have the last-minute, or should I say last-second injuries that no fantasy owner could possibly prepare for. Recently, with Hines Ward out of action, I thought that it would be a good idea to plug-in his Pittsburgh team-mate, Santonio Holmes. However, the 100-percent healthy Holmes injured his hamstring during warm-ups right before the opening kick-off. No fantasy owner could have predicted that, nor could they have discovered that it happened until it was too late. All you can do is curse loudly and protest at the injustice of the world; (8) Never, ever, let important family events interfere with either your weekly team selection process or monitoring the performance of your players via your laptop – your children will have plenty more birthdays and everyone will understand why you couldn’t attend Aunt Mary’s funeral; (9) Don’t agree to trades when you are on top. It’s simple - he’s desperate, don’t throw him a lifeline! (10) Above all, remember that it is only a game. Or at least that’s what the people languishing near the foot of your league would have you believe! Mike Davidson, October 2007