Canon Fodder – Sports Blog

With fantasy baseball season winding down, football in full-swing, and both hockey and basketball about to get started, Canon Fodder would like to offer up six ways to improve your fantasy sports experience.

Bigger leagues are better – Eight- and ten-team leagues are for wussies. The NFL has thirty-two teams but there isn’t enough talent for sixteen to twenty fantasy teams? The thinner the talent pool, the more opportunity there is for shrewd owners to separate themselves from the pack. Any fantasy league hack can listen to a local talk radio show to sort out whether to start Donovan McNabb or Matt Hasselbeck. In reality, the whole effort is a waste of time because both QBs will likely produce near identical numbers. In bigger leagues, those two would be on separate teams and the challenge comes in figuring which platoon running back or third-tier wide receiver is poised for a breakout game. Much like the professional leagues (you know, the ones you’re supposed to emulating), games aren’t always won by the elite players. Top players put their teams in a position to win and allow “lesser” players the opportunity to succeed. Thin the talent pool and you’ll increase the distance between good fantasy owners and those that are merely lucky.

Everything should count – Whether you’re in a free Yahoo league or paying a major provider like SportsLine, there are plenty of options available on the scoring tables to add layers of depth. “Simple” and “standard” scoring systems are exactly what their names imply and little more. Most anyone interested in participating in a fantasy sport is likely to be divining the inner secrets of the game. Why should the league’s scoring system retard thinking to only a single path to success? The more ways there are to score, the more ways there are to succeed. (There’s a joke in my football league that players are awarded a point for getting a drink from a water bottle. In reality, the only plays that don’t score in my league are fair catches on punts and kickoff touchbacks. And when I can figure a way to tack on points for those situations, we’ll have them covered too.) Gleaning from the gumption of Gordon Gecko…

The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that more scoring – for lack of a better word – is good. Scoring is right. Scoring works. Scoring clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the fantasy spirit. Scoring, in all of its forms – scoring for offense, for defense, for special teams – has marked the upward surge of fantasy sports. And additional scoring – you mark my words – will not only save your fantasy league, but those other malfunctioning tables called “simple” and “standard”.

Find balance – One of the key aspects of every sport is the balance between offense and defense. It’s not just about scoring the most points; it’s also about preventing opponents from scoring at will. The same goes for fantasy sports. In baseball, it’s all about hitters and a handful of elite pitchers. In hockey there are the scorers and a few goaltenders. Sure there will always be inequities (a dozen skaters for every starting goaltender and batters playing daily versus a starting pitcher on the bump once a week) but those can be smoothed out with weighted scoring. The objective should be to make any position worthy of the first pick overall.

Embrace the unloved – Give me your wide receivers, your tight ends, your loogies and set-up men, your NHL penalty killer yearning to be relevant. The wretched filler with which you reluctantly round out your draft. Send these, the insignificant, the overlooked to me and I will show you the way to give them import.

(Emma Lazarus just died a second death.)

Allow me to tell you how your last fantasy football draft went. Some combination of LaDainian Tomlinson, Larry Johnson and Peyton Manning were followed by another dozen running backs then a quarterback or two. Sound formulaic? Well, it’s because your scoring system stinks. While you’re tinkering with it, why not pump up the peripheral players a bit? Isn’t a reception harder to get than simply being handed the ball? Score it as such. Why should a possession receiver with a penchant for moving the chains and catching ten balls be punished for not scoring touchdowns or sprinting for 150 yards? How many first downs does it take to equal a touchdown? What about the minute-eating penalty-killing defenseman or the low-WHIP/high strikeout middle reliever? Isn’t the timely shorthanded goal or inherited runner stranded just as important as the power play goal and the home run? With the myriad of scoring possibilities allowed league commissioners, it’s almost criminal the way these contributing athletes are overlooked in their respective sports. Find ways to accentuate what these role players bring to the game.

Encourage participation – Sit in a bar and ask the average guy what he thinks about the local team and the hours will melt away. Take a spin down the AM dial and you’ll find “experts” espousing endlessly while a full rack of callers await the chance to share their thoughts on their favorite team’s ills. Fans love talking about their teams. Fantasy owners are no different (except for the fact nobody wants to hear about your fantasy team if they’re not involved in your league).

Most commissioners and owners probably don’t even realize the story posting options available on sites like SportsLine. It’s an amateur sportswriter’s dream. Write up some copy, toss in some statistics, Google a funny picture and slap on a caption. Suddenly you’re the next David Halberstam. I’ve never seen anything except positive responses to articles of this nature. As a matter of fact, the only criticism I’ve ever experienced occurs when you happen to miss posting an article. Between the voracious appetite for league-centric material and the suppressed urge every sports fan feels for being a sports journalist, there lies the perfect environment for getting more than just the commissioner involved in accentuating the fantasy experience.

Toilet bowls rule! – Taking a page from the local Gus Macker tourney, my league “borrowed” the concept of a loser’s competition for the post-season. What’s up for grabs? The first overall pick in the following year’s draft. Nobody wants their season to end no matter how unsuccessful the campaign. Toilet bowl competitions encourage continued play even if it’s only to deny a rival from obtaining the first pick. Keeping fantasy players involved throughout the season regardless of their record is always a daunting task. With the right incentives, even the lowliest of teams have one last carrot to chase after their regular season has circled the drain.

So there you are; half-a-dozen ways to improve your fantasy life (or lack there of a real one). Take the ideas and run with them. Have a few suggestions of your own? Send them my way to jeff@canon-fodder.com. Otherwise, keep passing Canon Fodder to anyone with a pair of functioning eyes. (Our gracious sponsor is too cheap to spring for a potent word processing program for this writer let alone anything to aid our throngs of visually-impaired readers in their quest for sports comedy.)