If You Want To Make Your Fantasy Football Playoffs, Give FakeTeams a Chance

I've been playing fantasy football for about as long as the internet. That doesn't make me the longest-standing active fantasy football player, far from it. Did you know that there was a time before the internet? Historians say that ancient civilizations had to record fantasy points by themselves and then determine a winner based on that.

Yeah right, historians. As if anyone would have spent time recording all of those numbers and converting them to fantasy points. I suppose you believe in Chewbacca and Star Wars, too.

But me personally, I've been playing fantasy football on Yahoo! Sports for probably a little over twelve years. I am a football fanatic, a stats junky, a fan through and through. That doesn't make me a better fan that you, far from it. I think that if you are here reading this, we are probably a lot a like. Your story is probably similar to mine, you're a fan through and through. Maybe you've been playing longer, maybe you're brand new, but you've come here for a reason.

The reason that I tell you about how long I've been playing fantasy football isn't to show you how awesome I am, however. I am far from that. I had been playing for over 10 years, and I think when I lucked into a championship (which was not as often as I would have liked) that's all it was; luck. Hey, we see it every year, right? Someone who doesn't pay that much attention to fantasy football walks backwards to the championship game, because that's part of what makes the game so great. Anyone can play. Anyone.

I spent so much time playing, and a lot of time in the same keeper league with the same keepers, and yet I couldn't find enough wins often enough to make the playoffs. And that's really the only key, you have to make the playoffs and then it's up for grabs. When you're talking about winning 1, 2, or 3 games, it's too short of a sample to always make the best team win. However, the full fantasy season is enough to have the best managers usually come out on top. The full season is enough to separate the men from the boys (and the women from the girls, since the female population is probably the fastest growing demo in the NFL, h/t to fantasy football) and when you prepare yourself, I promise that you can give yourself the best regular season possible.

For years I struggled to win consistently. For years I found myself with losing records. Despite being a huge, huge fan of the NFL, knowing more players than most of my friends combined, I couldn't win. Until last year.

Last year I entered four leagues, all of which were highly competitive, and I was the high-scoring team in all four leagues. I didn't win four championships, because scoring the most points doesn't always give you the best record or mean anything in the playoffs, but I put myself in the best position that I could.

How did I do it?

Preparation.

Last year was the first time that I had written for FakeTeams. It was the first year I had consistently written on any website really, and consistently written about fantasy sports. I have spent collective months of my life obsessing over fantasy sports, but never delved as deep as I had when I started writing for FakeTeams.

When I switched from baseball to football last year, as Ray decided that it was time to up our football coverage, I did what I usually do: I over-obsessed. I did something that no sane person would do, by researching the full roster of every team. In my offensive evaluation previews, I went through all 32 teams and identified all the skill position players that I needed to know about and then deeper. Many of the guys I wrote about didn't perform. Many got cut. But I knew who they were, and that's the important thing. More than ever, I knew how many players were in the NFL and what they had done. What their chances were.

Beyond that, I also wrote the weekly recaps of every game and it gave me a newfound perspective on what happened every Sunday. Like most nerds, of course I used to always look over box scores. Now, I obsessed over them. I wrote about them. I recounted them to memory. This also helped me become more knowledgeable than the other guy.

I'm not a genius. Not close to it. I'm just a regular guy that likes fantasy football, who had all of a sudden taken on the task to write about it. By the end of it, I had benefited. I'd like to think that if we here at FakeTeams can be the avenue from what's happening in the NFL to you, it's going to help. It's not just me, of course. We have a number of writers here, new and old, that are equally as obsessed as I am. That will equally put in the effort to be the guy that obsesses over the numbers and facts and rankings and recaps just for you.

(Actually, I think for me personally, I do it for myself. I'd do this research even if no one was listening, and I had done that for a long time. The benefit is that other people can use me and the other writers here for their own gain. We're going to do it anyway, might as well give it a read. When's the last time you used somebody and not felt guilty about it? Never? You jerk!)

If you want help to make your fantasy football playoffs, I honestly think you've come to the right place. I can't promise anything beyond that, but I personally ran a friends team last year ($200 buy-in) and got him the most points in the league after he had finished in last the year before. I'm not a genius, I'm just a regular guy.

A regular guy that's going to abuse the next six months of his life by filling it with football. Join us?

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