Here we go, as the NFL enters its 90th season, fantasy football begins its forty eighth.

As I often like to do we have to look back before we look ahead. With the original 8 AFL teams celebrating their 50th season, playing some games with throwback uniforms, including the Broncos with their vertical striped socks we should pay respect to our game’s roots.

Fantasy History

Fantasy football began on a prolonged east coast road trip by the Oakland Raiders in1962. Scott Stirling the beat writer for the Oakland Tribune and a minority owner of the Raiders Bill Winkenbach created fantasy football. A friend of Winkenbach and the Raiders public relations director rounded out the 4 man league. They choose just AFL players, one for each skill position and charted their scoring for the remainder of the year. For the record, Houston Oiler quarterback George Blanda was the first ever pick. The league expanded to other AFL beat writers over the next several years, but the game did not grow much until Street and Smith began publishing player rankings and scoring rules in the early 1980’s in their yearly football prediction book.

With the internet came the boom that molded our modern game. Although technology has changed the mechanics, it still comes down to who scores the most points. While Blanda was the first choice in that 1962 draft and threw for twenty seven touchdowns, eventual AFL champion Dallas Texan quarterback Len Dawson threw for 29 that season. So much for having the first over all pick. That said, the basics have and will remain the same.

2009  

For this season here are a few points that you may or may not have heard before.

• Know your league’s scoring rules

• All player rankings that you will see, whether it is on this site, any other site, magazine, radio or television show, local or national come down to being just another fantasy footballer’s opinion. Keep that in mind, use published rankings but do your own work with past statistics, player and coaching movements, and schedule strength. Create your own rankings based on your league’s scoring method.

• Make sure you get copies of your league’s statistics from the year before. Find out how many average points it took to win every week. With this you can better craft your team on draft day. You need to speculate how many points per week each player will score on average in 2009. That’s not an easy task, but that has to be a major part of your draft strategy. Our rankings will reflect our projected scoring consistency in 2009.

• The most important rule, keep in mind that last year statistics are just that, last year’s. In the past ten years, more than 50% on the top ten fantasy scoring quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, TE’s, and kickers change each season. If you want to win a championship, it is easy, just know who the 50% of the players that are going to drop from last year’s top ten are and then know the 50% that are taking their place. If you can do that punch your ticket to the playoffs.

• Of course that is the hard part, no one knows for sure, that is why you have to play your match ups carefully every week. Do not be hesitant to use lower round drafted players if the match up appears favorable. That is why we break down every game, every week for you here at Profootball24x7.com. We’ll look for those match ups that can create value for you and that can be the difference between winning losing each week.  

We will have our first rankings published over the next several weeks, and of course change them as needed.

Keep in mind all rankings and weekly match ups in my articles are based on the following scoring method:  

• Four points for a touchdown pass
• Six points for a scored touchdown
• One point for every 10 yards rushing or receiving
• One point for every 25 yards passing
• One point taken away for fumbles and interceptions
• One point bonus for a 50 yard or greater field goal
• One point for every defensive sack and turnover
• Six points for defensive touchdowns and special team returns
• Two points for a safety