Fantasy Football 2016

If you ever were curious about fantasy football, this may very well be the year, of all years, to dive in.

In my opinion, there has not yet been so significant a distribution of talent, particularly at quarterback and running back. It feels like nearly every NFL team is going to do running-back-by-committee this year, the Cowboys and Vikings excepted and even then those teams’ fortunes depend on an untested rookie and great player growing long in the tooth respectively, either situation of which could change in an instant. Under center, for the first time in recent memory there is only one Manning Brother at QB, and even the very elite quarterbacks from last year have all had vulnerabilities exposed. You can look at an Aaron Rodgers or an Andrew Luck and have confidence that they’ll be pretty good — but will that player be great? More important, great consistently? That’s a far different sort of proposition.

Which, for the new fantasy football player, is good: you have a greater chance of getting the player who turns out to be a great pick, passed over by the know-it-alls and so-called experts. And for the experienced player, this is also good, because it affords you the opportunity, if you can predict and prognosticate and forecast and otherwise use your skills, to jump out way ahead of the competition.

And playing the game, week by week, has never been more important either. In a volatile league, in a volatile year, working the waiver wire and negotiating trades and watching the injury rolls again offers tremendous opportunity for players who find themselves behind to catch up quickly, as well as tremendous opportunity for pressing an advantage.

So if you feel like you’d need to rely on luck to do well, your dartboard may serve you well. Yet at the same time, there is clearly the ability to distinguish yourself, if you’ve got The Stuff on draft day. Which will be the day before Labor Day. If you can’t make it live, program your list beforehand — although the live draft is quite a bit of fun to do.

Get in on the action! We’ve had fantasy football for four years in a row now, and I’m looking forward to the fifth.

Here’s the link to join:

https://yho.com/nfl?l=571717&k=ddc63c8a4408c2f5&soc_trk=lnk&ikey=ee8493cf207444cb

As usual, the winner of the league may request a post on the subject of their choice from me, and holds bragging rights for sports talk throughout the year. Rights which, unless I am mistaken, went effectively unexercised last year.

Draft day is September 4 (a Sunday), at noon Pacific time (3:00 p.m. eastern). I’ll remind players that I tweak the scoring just a bit from traditional fantasy football scoring rubrics to place greater weight on quarterbacks than you might be used to — but if experience is any guide, you will win or lose with your skill position picks, so don’t be too. You will need to register for a free Verizon Yahoo! account to join. See you on draft day!