To avoid the 10-yard penalty we switched to important topics like what age can a kid safely play football, the NFL’s domestic violence problem and why Tom Brady doesn’t eat eggplant.

But I knew I needed to give these lovely people a deeper reason to care, to actually watch football. My first advice to anyone wanting to learn about the NFL is always to play fantasy.  Catapulting into competition while having real human players to care about will offer a certain level of knowledge by osmosis with a heavy side of hoopla. So to prep my neighbors for the league they will now be starting next month, I introduced 10 players they need to know. Bear in mind, these are not necessarily the top 10 players in the NFL but players that are either uber talented and/or have some sliver of off the field relevance. This was a hard list to concoct and feel free to disagree with my selections. Just be nice.

1. Tom Brady (New England Patriots quarterback: Five-time Super Bowl winner. Possibly the greatest quarterback of all-time. Overlooked when drafted and not taken until the 6^th round. Still in his prime despite turning 40 this August. Says he wants to play until his mid-40’s. Eats a VERY strict mostly plant-based diet. And, of course, is married to Gisele.

2. Aaron Rodgers (Green Bay Packers quarterback): The best playmaker among quarterbacks. Has perfected the Hail Mary (a deep throw down the field into a crowd as time is winding down). Won the Super Bowl in 2011, most pundits believe he has the talent to lead the Packers to more. Dated and just broke up with Olivia Munn. His brother, Jordan, while a contestant on The Bachelor, revealed that Aaron stopped talking to his family in recent years.

3. Colin Kaepernick (Free agent quarterback): Not an NFL roster right now, many believe because of he kneeled during the national anthem last year (to protest societal injustice in America). Kaepernick led the 49ers to a Super Bowl berth in 2012 but has regressed a bit since though most consider him far more talented than many QBs who have jobs. Kaepernick is one of the most polarizing figures the game has ever seen.

4. Antonio Brown (Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver): Has had the most catches by a receiver in the past three years. Uber talented and superfast, Brown can dodge defenders on any part of the field. A bit of a troublemaker, though, he secretly filmed his coach speaking to the team (and calling the Patriots a**holes) during the playoffs last year.

5. J.J. Watt (Houston Texans defensive end): Has been most dominant defensive player of last five years. But injured back last year and only played 3 games. Larger than life character who is constantly promoting himself workout out, attending charity events and just being manly.

6. Russell Wilson (Seattle Seahawks quarterback): Scrappy quarterback who is dangerous with his feet. But lacks arm strength of other QBs. Notoriously focused on being a “brand” – he even gives his lineman holiday gifts that come from his sponsors. Big story over the summer about how members of Seattle’s defense resent Wilson.

7. Marshawn Lynch (Oakland Raiders running back): Was a dominant runner with Seattle, and then retired in 2015 for no apparent reason. Unretired to play for his hometown Raiders. He said it was because he wants to give memories to the local kids before the team relocates to Las Vegas in 3 years. Interesting cat that is famous for avoiding the media. But world traveler who toggles between being philosophical and incoherent. Known for his addiction to Skittles.

8. Odell Beckham Jr. (New York Giants wide receiver): While known for his amazing one-handed catch his rookie year (Google it), he has been a consistent touchdown machine. Beckham has at least 10 touchdowns in all three seasons in the NFL. Still maturing, though, and has run into issues picking fights with defenders (and sideline nets) and sulking on the sidelines.

9. Ezekiel Elliott (Dallas Cowboys running back): Had a phenomenal rookie season, leading the league in rushing yards (1631) and almost breaking a longstanding rookie record. Is a complete runner reminiscent of the great running backs of old. But… the NFL has been investigating a couple of sexual assault accusations for over a year and could hand down punishment at any time.

10. Cam Newton (Carolina Panthers quarterback): Known for his splashy attire and dabbing dance moves, Newton has had a topsy-turvy career. Was the NFL’s MVP in 2015, leading Carolina to the Super Bowl. But pouted and walked out of his press conference after the Super Bowl loss. Seems to always be embroiled in controversy, even when not warranted.

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Sean Payton, coach of last year’s Super Bowl-winning New Orleans–who (not coincidentally) beat Minnesota in the NFC Championship last year by doing just that– declared yesterday that the new overtime rules are so complicated that they would take 30 minutes to explain to his wife.  So, taking up the challenge, The Wise Guy put his crack research staff on the case (Google) and has set out to decipher the Di Goodeli code of the new overtime rules.  As it turns out, Sean Payton’s wife, Beth, must be some unholy offspring of Forrest Gump and Denise Richards because, guess what, they’re not that complicated.

Here’s a nice rule of thumb that should help us dim-witted fans: first team to score a touchdown wins.  That is, if you get the ball first and score a touchdown, you win.  If you only score a field goal, the second team has a chance to do the same to tie, or score a touchdown to win.   If there is a tie, the game reverts to the old sudden death rules.   Obviously, if the first team doesn’t score and the second team scores at all, the game is over too.

Any questions Mrs. Payton?

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To “kickoff” the excitement (get it?), we’ll be discussing byzantine rules of NFL free agency.

The basic rule is this: for the 2010 season, an NFL player not under contract must have at least 6 years of experience to be an unrestricted free agent, like, say, Conan O’Brien has no restrictions on choosing which second-tier cable station to offer his unique but off-putting brand of comedy to.  Because rookie contracts last a minimum of three years, this leaves players with 3-5 years of experience as restricted free agents.

So what does that mean?  As you might guess, it means you’re a highly paid serf.  Your former team still owns your services and can “tender” you a contract offer for the next year.   Tender offers range from $1 to $3 million.  Not chump change, but if you’re, for example, Brandon Marshall, you might want to seek out a better offer that’s consistent with your market value.  But it will likely be very hard for the Brandon Marshalls of the world to find a new, properly compensating home, for two reasons: (a) the original team has a right of first refusal to match any offer; and (b) if the original team doesn’t match, the new team has to compensate the original team with draft picks.  The higher the tender offer, the more draft picks you have to compensate the original team with, up to a maximum of a first and third-rounder.

The draft pick compensator is a real kicker because draft picks are valuable commodities in the NFL.  They represent hope.  Who knows where the next Brandon Marshall may lurk? And better yet, you can lock that guy up for another six years, whereas the veteran Marshall could bolt at any time.

And therein lies the great irony about all this hype regarding the “uncapped” 2010.  A casual observer might think, finally, we can have a system like baseball and have all the big market teams and stupid spenders dominate the poor and penny pinching!  But guess what, in previous years, unrestricted free agency began at a player’s 4th year, not his 6th.  Take a look at the unrestricted free agents out there.  They’re basically broken down running backs and kickers.  Meanwhile, the good players, who are actually in their prime, are subject to two more years of indentured servitude.

No wonder there’s talk of a lock out next year.

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ADP
A report that lists NFL players by the average slot they were drafted in fantasy football drafts. The source can be mock drafts or real ones. ADP is a useful draft preparation tool.

ADP – Average Draft Position
A report that lists NFL players by the position they were drafted in fantasy football drafts on average. The source can be mock drafts or real ones. ADP is a useful draft preparation tool.

Auction Draft
A type of fantasy draft in which owners are allotted a certain amount of fantasy cash to fill their roster spots by bidding on NFL players. Owners take turns introducing an opening bid for a player.

Basic Scoring
Fantasy points are only earned when your starters score touchdowns, field goals, and extra points.

Bench Players
Players which you choose not to start; you normally receive no points for their performances.

Bust
A player, usually drafted in the first three rounds of a fantasy draft, who is predicted to have a poor season. The player might be injury-prone, have a future star behind them in the depth chart, or just won’t be able to live up to their hype

Bye Week
Each NFL team plays 16 games out of 17 weeks in the NFL schedule. The game that they don’t play is called their bye week. It is important in fantasy football to make sure that your starters and backups do not have the same bye week since one of the primary reasons for drafting backup players is to have coverage during the bye week of your starter.

Cheat Sheet
A drafting tool that lists NFL players ranked in order of predicted fantasy points; however there are no accompanying stats, so it is possible that it isn’t accurate for a league’s scoring system.

Commissioner
The person who is responsible for maintaining the league, reporting the results of the fantasy games, running the draft, collecting entrance fees (if any), and generally keeping things running smoothly. It is important for the commissioner to be unbiased (fair) and honest.

Cut or Drop
To remove a player from your roster.

Deep league
A league with more than 12 owners and/or large team sizes. There are more players on fantasy rosters in deep leagues than in a ‘normal’ league of 12 owners with total rosters of 16 to 18 players (total of 192-216 players drafted).
 

Depth Chart
An NFL team roster with players classified as 1st, 2nd, or 3rd string.

Draft
The meeting of owners and commissioner before the NFL season where owners select the players for their team. It can be done by auction or serpentine method. Some leagues give the top spots in the draft to the teams with the poorest records from the previous season. Most leagues only allow one fantasy team to own a particular NFL player.

Dynasty League
A league in which you keep your entire roster from year to year. The next season a draft is held to improve your team. Usually the draft order is based on the previous year’s finish. Dynasty leagues are a long term commitment.

Fantasy Football
A game which the players (owners) earn fantasy points for the statistical performances of the NFL players on their fantasy team. In most leagues, NFL players are assigned to teams via a draft. Usually, each player can only be on one team at a time and there are limits to the total number of players per team. The object of the game is to outscore your fantasy opponent (other owners) on a weekly basis, so that at the end of the fantasy season (depending on the league) you have the most points or the most wins (in a head to head league).

FF or FFB
Short for Fantasy Football

Flier (or Flyer)
An ambiguous term meaning either taking a chance or picking a player off the waiver wire.

Free Agent
A player who is not currently on any team’s roster. If the league has a waiver system, free agents are players who have cleared waivers.

Gamble
A player with both high potential and high risk. Players in this category are usually injury-prone, have a high probability for being suspended, or are approaching the end of their career.

General Manager
See Owner

Handcuffing
Drafting your stud RBs’ backup to mitigate the risk if the stud gets injured. Example: drafting Michael Turner after drafting LaDainian Tomlinson

IDP (Individual Defensive Player)
Rather than a team defense approach, some leagues decide to have starters for defensive linemen (DL), linebackers (LB) and defensive backs (DB). The number of starters and scoring systems for these positions varies widely.

Injured Reserve (IR)
An option in some leagues, an injured player can be sent to the IR for a certain number of weeks. The player cannot return to the active lineup and does not earn the owner any points until that number of weeks passed; however another player can be added to the team since the IR player doesn’t count against the player limit. Injured Reserve is also an NFL label for players who will not play during the current season due to injury.

Keeper League
A league in which a certain number of players can be retained from the previous season by each owner, so that their whole team does not have to be redrafted. The number of players can vary. If you retain your whole team it is called a dynasty league.

League
A collection of owners who play against each other, it is run by the commissioner.

Lineup
See starters

Mock Draft
A fake draft that is used to practice drafting strategy and gauge where players will be drafted in actual fantasy football drafts. Some require the drafters to post a rationale behind their picks for additional insight for viewers.

Owner
The person who makes decisions about a fantasy football team. This includes drafting, cutting, and starters.

Performance Scoring
A system where you receive points for yardage (as in 1 point for every 20 passing yards) in addition to the points scored in a basic scoring system.

Pickup
To add a player to your roster.

Projections
Similar to a cheat sheet, projections rank players in terms of fantasy value, but predicted statistics are also assigned to players. Since many leagues’ scoring methods greatly differ, this is more useful than a cheat sheet because you can apply your own scoring system to determine their fantasy value in your league. Our customized cheat sheets display fantasy value automatically after you store your scoring system.

QBBC (Quarterback by Committee)
A relatively new strategy in fantasy football, the QBBC strategy directs owners to pass on the big name QBs (Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, Daunte Culpepper, etc) and instead draft multiple QBs in the 7th, 8th and 9th rounds. Instead of drafting a big name QB in the early rounds you fill your roster with RBs and WRs. “With some careful planning, you can draft 2 (or preferably 3) QBs who have complimentary schedules, and greatly increase the likelihood that one of your QBs will be facing a pretty attractive pass defense for the majority of the weeks of the season.” — source: TheFantasyPoint.com

RBBC (Running Back by Committee)
A relatively recent phenomenon, running back by committee is used by more NFL teams each year. Teams are having success using a fast, small back between the 20-yard lines and a large power back near the goal line (a.k.a. TD Vulture). Other NFL teams seem to rotate their RBs to keep them fresh (example: Mike Anderson and Tatum Bell in DEN in 2005). However, this creates difficulties in fantasy football since points are awarded for both yardage and touchdowns. Running backs that get the bulk of both a team’s yardage and touchdowns are becoming more valuable.

Roster
See Team

Scoring
Abbreviations include: TD = Touchdown, FG = Field Goal, XP = Extra Point, INT = Interception and Pts = Points. Also see Basic Scoring and Performance Scoring.

Serpentine Draft or Snake Draft
The type of draft in which the commissioner draws teams names from a hat to determine the order in which teams will select players in the first round and then reverses the order in the second. For example, in a 12 team league #1 would draft first in round 1 & #12 would draft last. But in Round 2 #12 would draft first and #1 would draft last. The teams would be in normal order in odd rounds and reversed in even rounds.

Sleeper
A draft term for a NFL player that an owner believes is going to have a breakout season. These are usually players who are not rookies, but they can be. For the most part they are not well known NFL players. For example, Edgerrin James would not have been a sleeper for the 1999 season, because many people knew he was going to have a good to very good season. However, Kurt Warner would have been because very few people expected much performance from him, yet he was the leading player in most leagues in 1999. Usually sleepers are drafted in the middle to late rounds of a draft.

Starters or Starting Lineup
The players that you select for a particular week that you will receive points for. A typical starting lineup would include one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, one tight end, one kicker, and one team defense. Some leagues include individual defensive players (IDPs) in lieu of a team defense.

Stats
A player’s numerical accomplishments for a given week. For example, “Randy Moss’s stats for week 14 are 3 TD’s and 258 receiving yards.”

Stud
A NFL player who has proved himself to be a top scoring player at his position. These players should be started each week regardless of match-up and should only be benched during bye weeks and significant injuries.

Team
The collection of players that a fantasy owner has.

Team Defense
Drafting an entire team’s defense (rather than individual defensive players), you earn points when any player on the defense records a sack, interception, fumble recovery, safety or touchdown. Most leagues include special teams with the team defense, so if the team scores a touchdown when returning a punt or kickoff you will also earn points.

Team Position
An idea that is used in some leagues in which you select a team instead of a specific player for a position. For example, if you start Philadelphia for Team QB you would get credit for stats from Donovan McNabb, Jeff Garcia and anyone else that played the QB position in that game.

Team QB
See Team Position

Trade
Switching certain players from Team A to Team B. For Example Team A gives Team B Curtis Martin in exchange for Onterrio Smith and Keyshawn Johnson. In almost all leagues, including money in a trade is strictly against the rules. For example, Daunte Culpepper for Keyshawn Johnson and $10.

Transaction
A roster change. Some leagues have a transaction fee. Also see Cut, Pickup, and Trade

Waiver
Some leagues have players recently dropped by teams to go into a “waiver” status for one or more days. When in this status, owners cannot immediately add the player. Instead they make a waiver claim for the player. When the commissioner processes waivers, usually the team with the least wins get first claim on players, then the team with the second least wins, etc.

Source: http://www.thefantasypoint.com/

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