I make a living by creating (and selling) fantasy football rankings and I have been doing this professionally for 11 years now. What I've discovered is that you'll do a hell of a lot better when you actually have a rationale for your rankings. And the only way you can do that is by creating projections.

Yes, it'll take a lot of thought and research. But when you're done, you'll have a pride of ownership in your work. And my guess is that you'll have a lot of fun doing it. After all, if you play fantasy football, it's for love of the hobby. Doing your own fantasy football rankings and projections should be part of that love!

To help you out, let me offer you a handful of quick tips. Here we go.

Fantasy Football Rankings Tip #1: Last Year's Stats Don't Equal This Year's Stats. Check out most 2010 fantasy football rankings and you'll see that they look a whole lot like 2009's final player stats. No forward thinking. The guys doing these rankings just figure that players will basically finish as they did in 2009. But the truth is that most of the players who finish in the top-10 in any given year will NOT finish in the top-10 the following year. That is true for nearly every position, every year. As one example, among the top-10 RBs from 2008, only Adrian Peterson, Maurice Jones-Drew, and Thomas repeated their top-10 performance in 2009. That's a lowly 30%. If you think I'm cherry picking to make a point, please go look for yourself. Research the turnover rate among the fantasy elite from year-to-year. You'll see that more than half the players fail to repeat their elite performance the following year.

Fantasy Football Rankings Tip #2: Last Year's Stats Don't Equal This Year's Stats but they Make a Good Starting Point. Ok, now that you're ready to purge your player rankings of anyone who finished in the top-10 last year let's slow down. After all, we need some baseline from which we can adjust player projections either upward or downward. The logical place to start is with each player's stat line from 2009. Begin with last year's stats as your baseline and then try to guesstimate as to what will make a player better or worse this year. The remaining 5 tips will help you decide whether a player should be credited with projections that are better or worse than what the finished with in 2009.

Fantasy Football Rankings Tip #3: For the times they-are-a-changin'. The one factor that will impact how a fantasy player will perform in 2009 is "change." But change has dozens of variables. Here are just a few examples for your consideration: There were 3 NFL head coaching changes and 7 offensive coordinator changes this offseason. How will that impact a player who plays for one of those teams? Will the new coaching staff run more? Pass more?... Did any teams improve their offensive line dramatically? Are there any teams that play a soft schedule vs. run defenses? Every player got a year older... for some young players that means another year of valuable NFL experience. For other older players, that means another year of physical pounding. Free agent signings are always an impact. Some teams lost good players while others added those players. What will be the effect of rookies on any given team? In doing your own 2010 fantasy football projections, it's your job to research and think about these changes.

Fantasy Football Rankings Tip #4: Load up on Fantasy Football News. You can find loads of free fantasy football news all over the internet. After all, NFL news is a commodity, so you won't have a shortage of places from which to collect and analyze that news. The real trick is not in finding the news. The hard part is to figure out how that news applies to NFL players. More specifically, how will the changes we noted in Tip #3 affect the projections and rankings you have for each player. That's where the real fun begins!

Fantasy Football Rankings Tip #5: Read Till Your Eyes Bleed. As you begin to digest the news, you'll start to form opinions about players for the 2010 season. Opinions about some players will be stronger than others. And some of your opinions will be more daring than others. But I would encourage you to dig deeper as you start to formulate your opinions into projections. There is a verse in the Bible that says "iron sharpens iron." If that seems a bit to heady for an article on creating your own 2010 fantasy football projections, here is the point: Search the internet for differing opinions on players. In fact, if you think a particular player is a first-round fantasy bust, or maybe a breakout player you should spend a good deal of time reading opinions about that player that differ from yours. One of two things will happen. You will either change your mind (or at least temper your opinion) which is not a bad thing. Or you will become greater in your original conviction about that player. In other words, you will have a stronger sense of why you love or hate a particular player.

Fantasy Football Rankings Tip #6: Do Projections for Every Draftable Player. Now that you've done your research and you've put hours of thought into it it's time to commit your opinions to paper. Using a spreadsheet, do projections for every player that you think is draftable. As a rule of thumb, it should be about 250 players for a basic 12-team league. That includes team defenses, but not IDPs. Putting a basic scoring system to the player projections should give you player rankings for each position. Simple enough. If you want to turn those player rankings into a 2010 customized cheat sheet, I can show you how to do that as well.

Fantasy Football Rankings Tip #7: Gut Check An Exercise in Thinking Outside the Box. As you look at your final projections and rankings, it might make you a little nervous to see some funny looking projections and rankings. Congratulations you did them correctly. You have to think outside the box you gotta zig when everyone else zags to be successful in fantasy football.

I hope you put these tips to good use this year in doing your 2010 fantasy football rankings. Please feel free to drop me a line at info@draftsharks.com and let me know how you made out. Good luck this year!

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About the Author:
Lenny Pappano | Executive DirectorLenny Pappano is co-founder of Draft Sharks. In his 10 years of experience in the fantasy football business Pappano has won many awards including several Fantasy Expert leagues and polls since 1999. He also took the FSWA's award for "Best Fantasy Football Article" with his acclaimed piece, "Confessions of a Fantasy Expert." Pappano has written articles for countless FF magazines and he's one of the biggest names in this industry.
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In the world of fantasy sports fantasy football, tied to real NFL players and stats, is more popular than other fantasy games on the World Wide Web today. Fans say they enjoy the virtual sport because their knowledge of the NFL is deepened by the experience of playing. This web-based game is gaining in popularity.

Who Plays on Fantasy Football Leagues?

What motivates fantasy football players to engage in the online sport? According to a study commissioned by the Fantasy Sports Trade Association and conducted by Dr. Kim Beason, a Fantasy Sports Research Specialist, the pay for play group of fantasy football consumers are more involved with the competition and may even engage in workplace contests. This group is more likely to play with friends and form private leagues. The pay for play group is more competitive than free fantasy football, and they demand the design of the game is fun and easy to use.

Pay for Play Fantasy Football Sites

An example of a widely known pay for play site is also a company that is well represented in airing and promoting games in professional sports: Fox Fantasy Sports. Pay for play Fantasy Football site fees vary. One website might charge a monthly fee while another may require a per game fee. Some fans spend large amounts of money on the game. Fantasy Football enthusiasts who want to play in the World Championship of Fantasy Football (WCOFF) are willing to pay $7,000 for this privilege.

The advantages of joining pay for play fantasy football sites are numerous. Most paid sites will provide an array of information on players and statistics at no additional charge. Another benefit is that pay for play participants tend to take the sport more seriously than those who play on the free sites. Since pay for play participants are often eligible for cash prizes when their team wins, the award of prize money is a motivational factor.

Free Online Fantasy Football

Dr. Kim Beasons analysis of fantasy football participants highlights several characteristics of those who choose to play on the free Fantasy Football sites. Many are invited to enter fantasy football sites by friends. Social interaction during the game, rather than competition, is a key reason for playing. Many of the players who utilize free websites say relaxation is a main reason for spending time playing fantasy football.

According to Jason McCoy, CEO of Stinkball.com, the free fantasy football sites are a great entry level way to enter the Fantasy Football arena. Yahoo is a good example of a free website for players. Though participants may play for free, Yahoo charges additional fees for stats and performance reports, and tacks another fee on for stat tracking. Often the paid fantasy sports websites will try to entice new players by offering free play time or free sign ups for the season. Yet to truly enter the game and be competitive the player will find it is easier to pay for membership.

According to Dr. Kim Beason, free fantasy football participants are a much larger group than the pay for play football players. Though not all players are in a position to pay to play, it seems that inspiration, camaraderie and competition are some of the defining motivations for players who choose to join fantasy footballs paid websites.

Steve Jones is a diehard sports enthusiast and has been his entire life. Football, basketball, baseball-he loves it all. Naturally, he also loves fantasy sports and is currently writes for the fantasy football web site http://www.Stinkball.com.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/football-articles/fantasy-football-free-versus-paid-websites-953994.html

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Tired of having to go out and do research on the internet to find out who would be a better start on your fantasy football squad? Tired of having to go find all the information yourself and complile it together? Well, then why don't you let the information come to you?eCouchCoach.com has taken care of that problem. Follow @ecouchcoach on twitter here: http:www.twitter.comecouchcoach.

By doing so you will get all the latest news headlines from around the NFL as well as the latest injuries, stats, scores, and rumors. Also, you can interact with the twitter account and find out information on certain players.

To get player information on Twitter.com twitter @ecouchcoach #[NFL Player's firstname] [NFL player's lastname]
Ex: @ecouchcoach #Peyton Manning To get player overall stats on Twitter.com

twitter @ecouchcoach #[NFL Player's firstname] [NFL player's lastname] Stats
Ex: @ecouchcoach #Peyton Manning Stats source: FPR To get player weekly stats on Twitter.com

twitter @ecouchcoach #[NFL Player's firstname] [NFL player's lastname] Stats [Week #]
Ex: @ecouchcoach #Peyton Manning Stats 1

Once you are on ecouchcoach.com there are other features offered completely free to any user. There are free fantasy football leagues, forums, news, articles, injury updates, stats, player bio's and much much more. eCouchCoach is a very accommodating site as well that allows users to request customizations to their leagues by emailing commish@ecouchcoach.com. Their customer support works very quickly to try to get any problems resolved and love constructive criticism. The users are what makes eCouchCoach.com what it is today.

So if you are a true fantasy football player, I would highly recommend taking advantage of everything that eCouchCoach and Twitter have to offer!

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/football-articles/want-an-edge-this-fantasy-football-season-check-out-fantasy-football-on-twitter-960006.html

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Is it possible to get the latest fantasy football news in just five minutes a day? It is now with the "Fastest Five Minutes in Fantasy Football" podcasts from Xtreme Fantasy Football.com.

Responding to the ever increasing demand for fantasy football information, Xtreme Fantasy Football.com has announced the addition of free fantasy football podcasts for the 2007 season.

The podcast feature, known as the "Fastest Five Minutes in Fantasy Football", will be updated regularly and will be available to all visitors to www.xtremefantasyfootball.com beginning July 16th, 2007.

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