MyFantasyLeague.com

Can you believe we’re already approaching the midway point of the fantasy football season? Hopefully your team is still at or above .500 and doing well. But if not, we have a “second chance” opportunity for you. We’ve announced our FREE mid-season fantasy football league service. Click on the link for more details and to create your own league.

You can use the mid-season league to gather a bunch of your friends or co-workers and start a new league just like your old one. Or you can try a new league format if you want to experiment with other ideas for the 2nd half of the season. We offer various types of leagues:

Draft or Auction Leagues - You can conduct a draft, either live on-line or via email over the course of several days, or conduct an Ebay style auction, and then run the league as desired for the 2nd half of the season…

Head to Head - You can create your own weekly schedule, including double or triple headers if you want to squeeze more games into the shortened season.

Total Points - If the season is too short for your tastes to create a schedule, yo can just use the Total Points format to tally up the weekly points.

All Play - Another popular format is to have every team play against every other team each week. So if there are 10 teams in your league, the team with the highest weekly score will be 9-0 for that week, and the team with the 2nd highest score will be 8-1, and so on down to the worst scoring team which will be 0-9 for that week.

Best Lineup - Generally, fantasy football leagues require each owner to submit a starting lineup each week. For example, if the roster size is 16 players, they have to choose 8 of those 16 players to start. But we also have an option to automatically choose the best lineup each week. It’s a good option if you want to focus on the draft and then just let the season play out without having to worry about roster decisions and lineup changes each week.

No Draft or Rosters - You can also choose a “Tournament Style” format, where there is no draft and teams don’t have a roster. Instead, each owner selects a starting lineup from the entire pool of players each week. It’s a great option for a “no hassle” league if you don’t have time to organize a draft, and you just want to give every owner a chance to pick an awesome lineup each week. If you don’t want a totally “free-for-all” format, then there are options to make it harder and avoid duplicate lineups, such as the “Start ‘Em Once” format where each owner can select any lineup, but they can only use each player once per season. So if they start Brett Favre in Week 8, then they can’t use him at all for the remaining weeks.

The bottom line is that we have tons of options to allow you to run an exciting league for the 2nd half of the season, and it’s totally free. And of course, if you’re using a system other than MyFantasyLeague.com for your regular league, this is also a great opportunity to see what we have to offer compared to what you are currently using, with no obligation or commitment!

Another fun report you can use for trash talking and pondering your fantasy football fate even before the games start each week is found on the “Reports > Franchise > Projected Scores” screen.  This report will show the projected scores for each player for the upcoming week after a lineup is submitted by an owner.   So you can check it out after you submit your lineup to see how your starting lineup decisions compare to the Fantasy Sharks Lineup Coach, which is what is used to generate these projected scores.

Basically, what the system does is take your league’s scoring system and applies it to the weekly stat projections that Fantasy Sharks provides.  That allows it to calculate a projected score for each player on your roster, and then a projected score for your fantasy team based on your lineup.  It’s a great way to get a feel for how well your team should perform this week, and also a great way to compare your team to your opponent.

Bonus:  This week we’ve updated the report to include bench players as well as starters, so now you can quickly see if FantasySharks.com is predicting better scores for your bench players!  If yes, then you may want to dig deeper into your lineup decisions to see if you agree with their predictions.  Of course, it is all based on projections, so there aren’t any guarantees.  It’s intended for fun and enjoyment, but the guys at Fantasy Sharks do a great job with their weekly projected stats, so you’ll probably get a kick of out this report if you haven’t seen it yet.  Enjoy!

We’ve added another new chart for your viewing pleasure.  This one charts your scoring over the course of the weekend, with an updated comparison after each set of games.  So on a typical week, you’ll see a chart showing how your score compared to your fantasy opponent after the early games on Sunday, and then after the late afternoon game, and then after the Sunday night game, and finally after the Monday night game.  It’s a great way to see how your fantasy team fared throughout the day on Sunday and if/when there were any lead changes in your fantasy matchup.  You can view this new chart on the “Reports > Franchise > Fantasy Recaps” screen.  See an example below:

While trades in the NFL are not nearly as prominent as they are in the MLB or NBA, the NFL Trade Deadline can still produce a little bit of drama. The NFL trade deadline was yesterday. There were rumors aplenty surrounding players such as TE Tony Gonzalez. But in the end, the only significant trade was WR Roy Williams being sent to the Cowboys in exchange for a 1st, 2nd, and 6th round pick in 2009…

In fantasy football, there isn’t a predetermined trade deadline. Some fantasy football leagues don’t even allow trades at all. On MyFantasyLeague.com, we give you the option of how to handle trades. You can use weekly trade windows, or allow trading all the time. And you can also specify a trade deadline as needed. All of this can be done from the “For Commissioners > Setup > League Calendar Setup” screen.

You can also use the “For Commissioners > Setup > Trades Setup” screen to specify various other trade options. There are 3 main ways to handle trades. Most leagues just allow trades to be approved and processed immediately after one owner proposes a trade and the other owner agrees to it. Another option is to require commissioner approval of all trades. With this option, after the 2nd owner accepts a trade, it is up to the commissioner to approve it before it is processed. The final option is to have all of the league owners vote on the trade before it is approved.

Trades are a fun part of fantasy football leagues. Even though they can lead to “collusion” and/or hard feelings among owners when lopsided trades are made, it is still just part of the game for most leagues. Be sure to explore the above options to find the best fit for your league as far as allowing and encouraging trades between owners throughout the season!

There was one successful two-point conversion this weekend, when Derek Anderson threw a pass to Braylon Edwards after their last touchdown in the fourth quarter. For the record, this “event” is recorded as a successful passing 2-point conversion, and nothing else as far as the stats concerned. The Quarterback does not get credited with an extra completion or any passing yardage, and the receiver does not receive credit for a reception or for the 2 yards of receiving on the play. The same holds true for a successful rushing 2-point conversion. The player that runs it in does not receive 2 extra rushing yards in their stats for the game.

The bottom line is that a conversion is either successful or it fails. Even if the defense intercepts a 2-point passing attempt, they cannot advance it and return it the other way for their own points. The play is declared dead as soon as the rush or pass attempt is stopped.

To accommodate this from a fantasy perspective, we have rules for your Team Defense or Special Teams position, including “Successful 2-Point Conversions” and “Failed 2-Point Conversions“.  For individual player positions, such QB’s and RB’s and WR’s, we have rules for each type of conversion play, including “Passing 2 Pointers” and “Rushing 2 Pointers” and “Receiving 2 Pointers” in case you want to assign different point values to each type.

You can review the complete set of rules available for your league to use on this page.

This week had plenty of crazy plays, especially with some last minute heroics by a few teams.   Nothing particularly new happened this week that hasn’t already happened at some point earlier in the year, but it’s worth reinforcing a few situations one more time.  The Vikings scored a Safety but you should definitely have that covered in your rules now since it has happened several times in earlier weeks.

There were several Blocked Field Goals this week, and one resulted in a Blocked FG TD when Ray McDonald of the 49ers blocked it and then Donald Strickland of the 49ers recovered it and returned it for the TD.  Note that, as happened last week, one player can get credit for the block and a different player can get credit for the Blocked FG TD.  You can also penalize the kicker with the “Field Goals Had Blocked” rule if you want to award negative points for having a kick blocked in a situation like this.  Be aware that a blocked field goal is also considered to be a missed field goal, so you may already be penalizing the kicker enough if you give negative points for misses anyway.

Then there were not one but two Blocked Punt TDs this week.  One was in Overtime and resulted in the game winning touchdown when Sean Morey of the Cardinals blocked the punt and Monty Biesel picked it up and fell into the end zone.

So I think we’ve covered most every type of “Strange Play” here in the first 6 weeks of the NFL season, and we’ll continue to list them all in the “Help > Strange Plays” menu item in your league each week.  Starting next week, we’ll focus on other scoring rules and situations that you should be aware of, as well as unique scoring situations and new rules that we’ve recently made available.

If you haven’t discovered the “Reports > Franchise > Fantasy Recap” report for your league yet, then be sure to check it out for some entertaining recaps of your weekly fantasy football games.  We’ve put a trash-talking, fantasy spin on your fantasy match-up each week.  It’s easiest to explain with an example from our sample league here:

(MyFantasyLeague.com Fantasy Times Sources - Oct 6, 2008) In a week 5 MyFantasyLeague.com Fantasy Football intra-divisional matchup, Marooned beat a strong Deep Divot team by a score of 81 to 70, extending the winning streak for Marooned to 3 games.

Marooned were led to their 11 point victory by a 21 point effort from Clinton Portis, who beat the Philadelphia Eagles defense for 145 rushing yards and 1 rushing td in addition to 13 receiving yards. With this performance, Portis was the number 3 ranked running back for week 5. They also got help from a 19 point effort from Roddy White, who beat the Green Bay Packers defense for 132 receiving yards and 1 receiving td.

“We’re going to savor this victory,” Marooned coach Susan said.

Deep Divot were helped out in a losing cause by a 18 point effort from Ronnie Brown, who beat the San Diego Chargers defense for 125 rushing yards and 1 rushing td in addition to 8 receiving yards. With this performance, Brown was the number 5 ranked running back for week 5. They also got help from a 18 point effort from Peyton Manning, who got by the Houston Texans defense for 247 passing yards and 2 passing tds in addition to 8 rushing yards.

“They ate our lunch,” Deep Divot coach Joe said.

Compounding the issue, Deep Divot could have scored 91 points and gotten the win with their best lineup, but Joe left key players like Domenik Hixon and his corresponding 17 points on the bench.

This brings the record for Marooned to 3-2, and drops Deep Divot to a record of 2-3.

Coming up in week 6, Deep Divot are at the 2-3 Hindenberg, where Hindenberg are an early 1.2-point favorite, while Marooned are at the 1-4 Last Place, where Last Place are an early 25.0-point underdog.

We’ve thrown in some random quotes along with the computer generated analysis of your game.  And even better, all of the owners in the league can click on their random quote to type their own quote into the recap instead.  So each team can personalize their Fantasy Recap if desired.  Hopefully it will generate some buzz and trash talking each week!

There is also a Fantasy Recap Home Page Module, so you can add the Fantasy Recap Game of the Week to your league home page for quick and easy reference.  By default, the game of the week is the one with the closest score.  But the commissioner can select a different game of the week if desired while viewing the full report with all of the recaps.

This week was pretty calm from an unusual play perspective, at least until the Monday night game provided some chaos and highlights! As always, you can check the “Help > Strange Plays” menu item in your league for the complete run down each week.

On Monday night, Reggie Bush dazzled us with not one but two Punt Return TDs. That doesn’t happen very often, but it should have been scored properly for any league that had the rule set up, either for “Number of Punt Return TDs or for “Length of Punt Return TD”.

The really odd play of the night came when Martin Gramatica of the Saints had a 46 yard Field Attempt Blocked by the Vikings. But it didn’t end there. After Kevin Williams blocked it, the ball fell right into the hands of Antoine Winfield, and he proceeded to return it all the way to the end zone for a 59 yard Blocked Field Goal TD. This is the first time all season that a blocked field goal was returned for a TD, so make sure you have that rule set up for your league as needed. Note that there were a couple of Blocked Punt TDs in week #2, but there is a separate rule for Blocked Field Goal TDs.

Note that if you set up your Team Defense scoring to include the Number of Defensive TDs rule, it only includes Interception and Fumble Return TDs by default. So you’ll want to add the Blocked Field Goal TD rule (and Blocked Punt TD rule as well) if you want this TD to be included in your team defense scoring You can also add the Number of Defensive and Special Teams TD rule instead, which includes all of these types: Interception and Fumble Returns TDs, Blocked Punt and Field Goal TDs, and Punt and Kickoff Return TDs.

We recently announced a new look to the MyFantasyLeague.com Home Page, and now we’ve created a new default league skin to match this new appearance.  You can see an example of it here in our Sample League. As always, we’ll continue to add new skins and appearance options throughout the season.

If you want to select this new look for your league, you can use the “For Commissioners > Setup > Appearance Setup > Select a Skin” screen.  From there, you can select any of the 40+ skin appearance options that we have available.  Or if you prefer more of a pre-defined look for your league, you can use the “Select a Template” screen instead to choose one of the 4 template options that we have available.  We’ll talk more about the skins and templates and customizing the appearance of your league page in future posts.

We’re excited to announce a new charting option on the Player Pages, such as this example for Jay Cutler in our sample league. Any time you click on a link to a player name on any of the screens or reports in your league, you’ll be taken to the Player Page for that player. From there, by default, you’ll see a table with their weekly scores and stats. Now, as of today, you can click on the link above that table to select “Chart” instead of “Stats”:

After you click on the “Chart” option, you’ll see a comparison of that player’s weekly scores versus the highest weekly score from the player with the best score at that position each week. If you use the mouse to hover over a data point, it will give you details on who the highest scoring player was for that week, along with the exact score. This is a great way to see how your selected player compares at-a-glance to the best player in the league each week.

In addition, you can compare the selected player to any other player at that position by selecting another player in the pull down list at the bottom. The above chart example shows a comparison of Jay Cutler versus Drew Brees, and they are both compared to the best weekly QB score.