OK, here goes. In this game, each week you'll play against somebody else from the league. Each of you has a team of real-life NFL players (that you choose during the draft), and you get points based on how well the players on your team do in their real-life games that week. The scoring system is up on the page somewhere, but the basic idea is that a touchdown scored or thrown gives you 6 points, while 30 yards passing get you a point and 15 yards rushing or recieving get you a point. There are a lot of other little ways to score, and you can see 'em all in the "League Settings" section, but these will be your biggest sources of points.
So, a simple sample game. Spidey plays against Jigglypuff. Puff's team has Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, and Isaac Bruce. Spidey's team has Tim Couch, Jamel White, and Kevin Johnson (in the real game, you'll have many more players than this, including defense). In their actual games that week, Puff's players do the following:
Warner: 250 yards passing, 2 touchdowns
Faulk: 125 yards rushing, 1 recieving touchdown
Bruce: 85 yards recieving
This translates to 20.3 points for Warner (250/30 + 2*6), 14.3 points for Faulk (125/15 + 6*1), and 5.7 points for Bruce (85/15). Puff has a total of 40.3 points.
Spidey's players do the following:
Couch: 300 yards passing, 1 touchdown
White: 90 yards rushing, 1 touchdown
Johnson: 110 yards recieving, 1 touchdown
This translates to 16 points for Couch (300/30 + 6*1), 12 points for White (90/15 +6*1), and 13.3 points for Johnson (110/15 + 6*1). Spidey has a total of 41.3 points, which is more than Puff, so he wins that week. He is now 1-0, and Puff is 0-1.
Now, that scoring seems really complicated, and it's actually
more complicated with all of the other categories, but the computer takes care of all of the scoring itself. Your goal as the owner is just to put in the players that you think will do the best that week.
Now, for the draft. The pool of possible players to draft is anybody that is currently on an NFL team (excluding a couple that didn't allow themselves to be used). Say it's a 3-person league, with Apollo, Spidey, and Puff. We signed up in that order, so we draft in that order.
Apollo picks Marshall Faulk
Spidey picks Robert Fick
Puff picks Trent Dilfer
Now, we go back through in reverse order.
Puff picks Kurt Warner
Spidey picks Jeff Garcia
Apollo picks Warren Sapp
Then it would be my turn again, then Spideys, and we continue drafting until our teams are filled. The players you have at the end of the draft are your team. At any time you can drop a player on your team and pick up a player that is not currently on anybody else's team. You'd want to do this if one of your players gets hurt, or isn't playing as well as you thought he would, or if some other guy is playing really well and you'd like to have him on your team. You can also trade any number of players with anybody else in the league if you both agree on it.
As for weekly stuff, you'll have your starting lineup and a bench. You have 19 starting players, but you'll draft 25. The ones that don't start are on your bench, and you can rotate them in instead of a starter if you think the bench guy will perform better than the starter that week, or if your starter isn't playing. Most weeks, this is all you have to do; just visit the league once and set your starting lineup, taking out injured players and players with bye weeks and putting in replacements.
OK, that's the huge, scary intro to fantasy football. Got questions? Go ahead and ask, that's what the commish is here for.
