Letting someone else do my fantasy football homework

By Ryan Cracknell | Hobby Editor

I’m not a fantasy football expert. I’m a relative newbie to all of this. How can I expect to find greatness without a little bit of help from those that do know?

From an early age, that’s what we do. We go to school and learn from teachers who either know more than us or they’re great at helping us find answers.

When we learn a new skill, it’s usually with the guidance of someone who has been at it for a while. Even if that means watching a YouTube video on how to play the guitar or how to change an oil filter.

Why would it be any different for fantasy football? It’s time to see what happens when I let someone else do most of the work. At least then if I lose, I have someone else to blame, right?

Finally, last week I did some damage. After disappointing finishes for a couple of weeks, I was able to contend. I didn’t win, but I was in that top tier and not far out of first place. For me, that’s a big step in the right direction.

But I can only go so far looking at stats and going with hunches. There’s a lot more to fantasy football. Match-ups, history, even weather play factors in a player being a bust or a bargain. I don’t have the experience or depth of knowledge to sort that stuff out.

So I’m letting someone else do most of the work for me — at least when it comes to rankings.

I’m not at the point of desperation where I got my cat to randomly fill out my lineup. It might make for a cute picture, but I want to learn stuff and not go strictly off of luck.

I went to Sports Illustrated and used their weekly rankings to help me make my picks. This week’s game is a standard salary cap-style game so there was some strategy required on my end as I couldn’t just take the top players in each position. But it gave me a framework to go with.

And why Sports Illustrated versus the many other sites out there? It came up in my Twitter feed earlier today. Over the next little bit, I’m going to try a few different places out and see how they stack up for newcomers to fantasy like me.

If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

Throughout the course of the season, I’ll be taking part in a weekly free game on Beckett Fantasy. It doesn’t cost anything so there’s no risk. These custom games don’t have any prizes either. It’s intended to give you a chance to try things out, maybe even for the first time. This week’s game has a couple of spots left (at least as I write this), so feel free to join me.