The Legend’s preferred and recommended league manager is CBS Sports’ Fantasy Football Commissioner. If there are still any stragglers out there still looking to put their league together, put their offline league online, or move to a new provider this year due to unhappiness with your existing league management site then CBS is offering 50% off new leagues by clicking on this link.

With a great draft room, solid user interface, and reliable online scoring CBS Sports is a solid choice for your league management needs.

Fantasy football at its heart is a way to have fun. It is first and foremost a game even though those of us who take it seriously go further and derive additional enjoyment from serious competition and prize pools. Over the past week, the fantasy football chatter has been high around here, and some of what we started brainstorming were super enhancements to fantasy leagues and whether they would be fun or not. Some of my favorites with short comments are below. These would be interesting features of a league no doubt.

First, my favorite. Add a “supplemental” draft each year that drafted players in college who would become seniors the next year, and then enter the NFL draft after that. The idea was that this would be a very short, say 3 round draft which would allow all the promising potential rookie prospects to be drafted while still in college. This would only work in a keeper league, but would add a nice bump to the strategy and research required for long term league success.

Add more starting roster spots to key positions. It was all debated, four RB’s, four WR’s, two TE’s, two Defenses, but adding two QB’s wins my vote for most radical new idea to change the shape of a league and a draft. If two QB’s were required just like two RB’s are, then my don’t draft a QB early strategy may have to be modified.

Increase league size by 4 or more teams. Imagine the scarcity of talent in a 16 team league. The waiver wire action would be fast and furious for third string WR’s and backup RB’s in that league.

Closely following the above, increase the league size, but also put every player in the draft pool twice. This one is interesting and has potential to make for interesting matchups when two teams have a couple of crossover players in common on their teams. I really like this idea in a way.

Add a “bench” player rule so that anyone can be substituted in for any of the players who have already started, but whose games haven’t finished. Just getting a low performance game out of a stud while your opponent is rolling? Just sub him out and see if the afternoon games help you instead. This one felt a little too shady for my taste, but if it is in the rules, then it would be ok I guess.

So, that is just a quick fun post as we build up to the fantasy draft and start of the fantasy regular season. Don’t forget that it isn’t all about ADP, sleepers, and who to take #1. Make sure that some of the fun stuff about fantasy football is also being discussed. Propose one of the changes above, and get some chatter going in your league!

Do you have any ideas or experiences with extremely non-standard fantasy football leagues? If so, please share in the comments.

One of the most common and in my opinion worst reasons given for not playing fantasy football is the excuse that “I don’t have time.” When trying to add new owners to an existing league, build a new league, or even keep existing owners from leaving, this will be the number one excuse that will be heard.

This is what I called it, an excuse. With personal experience of playing through weddings, relocations, and birth of children in all of the leagues I have played in, it is clear that fantasy football can be played through almost all circumstances.

If people just don’t want to play, then that is their choice, but some people really think it is a good reason for not playing and don’t understand that it isn’t, and it is for them I want to address the topic. For those who are just using it as a copout, if you are close enough to them then you can call them on it or if not, just let it slide, but for anyone really concerned about it, then try to make sure they understand.

This doesn’t mean that real life will never interfere, as it surely will, but just play through that one week setback and keep going.

To play fantasy football, there will be time needed for draft preparation and setting your lineup each week. At its most basic, that is it. While it isn’t as hardcore as serious fantasy owners like myself spending few hours with a fantasy football magazine can give you a starting point, then read some news on the internet (like this site for example ) and you can make at least an average showing in your draft. Try to avoid drafting a player who is injured and that will cover the most egregious of errors that can be committed.

As to the weekly lineup submission, if using an online league management tool, then it takes less than five minutes a week to actually set your lineup. Of course, I recommend doing some basic analysis of each of your player’s matchups that week to see who to start, and make sure to replace anyone on a bye week and that covers what you need to do there at a minimum. With less than 30 minutes a week, an average team can be fielded every week.

It is recommended to do more research than this each week as you select a starting lineup, and once again using sites such as this one can be helpful there, but with between an hour to two hours each week, an owner can be well prepared and ready to do battle with confidence.

Build a routine each week and follow it and it will make it easier to manage time.

Key things to check are status of your players (injuries?, depth chart moves?) their weekly matchups, and don’t forget to scout the free agent pool and the waiver wire for strategic pickups.

The Legend will be posting weekly analysis of players to start and sit and will be looking to answer reader questions made via blog comments, Twitter, or email. This can be another resource to aid the decision making process.

Today, we discuss a sad event for any fantasy footballer. No fantasy football advice today, no draft strategy, just talking about an event that can be most properly addressed with a eulogy.
It isn’t final yet, but one of The Legend’s leagues looks like it will fold this season. With the loss of two owners, and a third teetering on the brink, things aren’t looking good for a continuation this season. No really good replacement owners have been found, and as a “friends and acquaintances” league we aren’t really looking to fill with just any random owner we can get to join.
This league has been a good league, with good owners, but for many owners (myself included) it was a secondary league that had [...]

Since we are in a pre-season stage in the NFL season, the Fantasy Football Advice being offered at present is going to be focused primarily on draft strategy as can be seen by the most recent posts on drafting for the playoffs, QB by committee,top rookie running backs,mock draft strategy, rookie mistakes,and league startup.
I look forward to continuing to provide valuable draft advice up until the start of the regular season. Then we will move to the “Who to Start and Who to Sit” discussions which are almost more fun than who to draft.
If you have a fantasy football question, or want some draft advice, follow me on Twitter and send me a tweet about it. Follow TheLegendFFL on Twitter by clicking the [...]

The scoring systems for Fantasy Football can be extremely varied, and customized and tweaked in almost any style you choose.
Some key questions to look at here beyond the “standard” rules are to consider what, if any, options you want to add into your scoring system.
For example:
Will special teams players yards and TD’s count?
Will any points be awarded on a per reception, carry, or completion basis?
Will any points be awarded based on length of the touchdown run, catch, or pass? ie bonus points
Are players penalized for fumbles or interceptions?
The list can continue endlessly, but this should give some general ideas about the questions to consider. I am including a link to a page below on this site that will detail examples of custom scoring  that have [...]

This is one of my favorite questions about Fantasy Football. The type of league chosen here can have a huge impact on the league in the long term.
In a redraft league, players re-enter the draft pool each season and are available to be drafted the next season by anyone. In a keeper league, some number of players from 1 to the entire roster size can be protected from re-entering the draft pool and can be kept for the next season. The amount of players protected if a keeper league is chosen is defined in the league rules.
Redraft leagues are popular because they give everyone a chance to get any player each year based on draft position, and don’t allow the top players to [...]

Someone has to be the go to person for the league. Someone has to set it up online, collect the dues and league fees, make any prize payouts, arbitrate disputes, and interpret rules. The Commissioner (Commish) is that person in your Fantasy Football league.  Being the Commish can be a thankless job, but someone must do it, and having a good person doing it can make or break a league in the long run.
Attributes that must be present to be the Commish include honesty, integrity, and a strong sense of ethics. Someone who cannot judge a situation objectively and fairly will not be a good Commish.
While most leagues operate in a semi-democracy with majority rule in most disputes, the Commish has a fair amount of [...]

The Legend recommends CBS Sportsline to host your league. I love this site. The league management and player management options are fantastic and the live scoring is accurate, fast, and reliable. The downtime on this site seems to be minimal and it is operational when you need it most – while watching the games and tracking the live scores. One nice feature that has always been a hit is that the live scoring page also has a chat box which can be used to talk trash to your opponents! They also have an Iphone app for live scoring if you have an Iphone.
Other sites that I am familiar with from past usage include Fanball, Yahoo, and ESPN. Fanball has been less than desirable in some [...]

There are two basic types of draft, traditional and auction.
In a traditional draft, teams are assigned a draft position based on either random drawing or the prior year’s finish for existing leagues. Traditional drafts follow a “snake” style format. What this means is that if a league has 10 teams and a team picks in 10th position, then they also get the 11th pick (or first pick in the second round). As another example, the team with the 8th pick also then would get the 13th pick. This continues on until each team has drafted a full roster of players as defined by the league rules.
In an auction draft, teams are given a “salary cap” that defines the maximum amount of available funds to use [...]