Check Out the Rules

Our series on the basics of getting started in Fantasy Football continues. So far we have looked at game providers and types of leagues. Next up will be a discussion on the rules of the game.

Each game provider will post the specific rules of their game in some location on their site. Now it may not be in some obvious spot so you may have to look for it a bit, but it will be will worth your effort.

When you find the rules they will usually contain a lot of wording worthy of a high priced big city lawyer. Hidden in all these words, however, are some valuable pieces of information. Information on things such as adding and dropping players, the trading process, scoring systems (to be examined in our next post), playoffs, prizes, eligibility requirements, and so on.

It is important to have at least a basic understanding of how all these work and doing so will give you a distinct advantage over the rest of the league who, with the possible exception of the Commissioner, have never looked at nor ever will look at the rules.

lets look at one small example. If you read the rules for elligibility for Best Buy's Fantasy Football Challenge, it states that there is a limit of "one account per person/email address". It further states that "Any attempt by any person to create more than one Account by using multiple/different e-mail addresses, or any other methods will void all of that person's Accounts and that person will be disqualified."

Wow, pretty tuff wording. So what do you do the get around this if you want multiple accounts? Simple, you create multiple e-mail addresses (very easy to do) and open a Best Buy account in your spouse's name as well as the names of any other family members (18 or older). This way you could submit 2, 3, 4 or more rosters, depending on the size and ages of your household, while staying within the rules.

Again, it can be painful, but is distinctly to your advantage to know the rules.

In our next post we will look at two specific areas of the rules, roster composition and scoring systems. Be sure and check back.