Fantasy Football articles - Sports Grumblings.com

As with any thing you try in life it is best to master the basics before you move on to those things more complicated. Fantasy football is no different.

If this is your first attempt at fantasy football it will be a much more pleasurable experience for you to begin with a basic scoring league than to jump into a league that uses some of the more complex scoring formulae.

This holds true if you are starting your first league as well.

A basic scoring system is exactly what it's name implies. You get the same basic points for scoring that the NFL awards their players – with one minor exception. The NFL does not award points for passing TDs but a fantasy league will.

One must know the positions his league will use prior to developing a scoring system, but for the sake of simplicity (hence the term Basic in this lesson) we will assume the league will score QBs, RBs, WRs, TEs, PKs, and DFs.

Since this lesson is geared toward the fantasy rookie, someone who has never participated in any fantasy league at all, we recommend that you keep things as simple as possible. Complexity may be added as you become more advanced and more passionate about the game.

To accomplish this simplicity, we recommend you score all TDs at six points per score. All FGs should be three points per score. Two point conversions should be two points and PATs should be one point. Defensively award any defensive or special teams TD six points. Reward safeties two points.

This type of Basic Scoring system will allow all of your owners to focus in on actual scoring plays and keep things simple enough they can track their teams, and their opponents on a simple piece of paper.

It should be understood that this type of Basic Scoring tends to maintain it's allure for a very short duration. When the owner of a player that gains 1500 yards and scores three TDs becomes less valuable than a player that is utilized only as a goal line back, but scores five TDs, you can expect the complaints to start.

And that is the time that you should expect to begin the search for added complexity to your scoring system as well as other features of your leagues.

The one thing to keep always in mind is that the Fantasy League is not a stagnant beast. It is a growing, evolving monster that will develop at the speed you allow it to. We recommend keeping things simple at first, but you will find that as the years go by most will seek more complex rules and tougher competition than they find in most basic leagues.