I've been playing in a Fantasy Football league for the last couple of months. It's a casual league so I only spend about 30 minutes a week working on it. Like many fantasy leagues, offensive statistics are more important than defensive statistics. Before the start of the season there was a draft, I just used the default draft list which just tries to draft the best people based on last year's stats.

There are two basic types of fantasy leagues. Rotisserie leagues have been around longer and come from the first fantasy leagues which were based on baseball. Since baseball has so many games, it becomes a basically continuous season, making it less suited for simulating head-to-head competition. So Rotisserie leagues are based on player statistics throughout a season (or for as long as the player is on your roster). At the end of the season there are various ways of scoring for total home runs, RBIs, innings, and a host of other statistics. And the league champion is the team that can amass the most points.

The fantasy league I'm in is head-to-head, so my team plays another team each week. I have a roster of twenty players and I pick 14 of them to play each week. Scoring is based on points scored, yardage gained, tackles and turnovers, etc. You have to pick one each of quaterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end, and kicker. You also pick 3 offensive flex players which must be running backs, wide receivers, and/or tight ends. Finally you pick three defensive flex players who can play any position (defensive line, linebacker, and defensive back).

The defensive players you pick can affect the other team's points. If you pick three defensive backs then the wide receivers of the other team will have their points modified by a -10 to -30 percent, depending on how well your defensive players perform. It's kind of neat since it allows you to try to stack up against the other team's strength.

Quaterbacks score the most. Kickers are consistent scorers. Good running backs and wide receivers score a lot. Tight ends don't score much. For the defense, linebackers score the most, then defensive backs, with defensive linemen scoring the least. This I learn after a few weeks of play. My team started out with too many defensive players, since most of the players each week are offensive, I was stretched thin on the offensive end.

So my team started out losing the first two games. I dropped a couple of players and replaced them with other players. And then I won two close games. After four weeks I had a pretty good team and have gone on to win another four games, leaving my team at 6-2, second in the league of ten teams. A couple of weeks ago I totally revamped the team, waiving a half dozen players and replacing them with hopefully better performers. Probably something I should not have done since thrashing around with your players doesn't do much good.

There are nine games left in the season. One team is 7-1, two are 5-3. I believe my team can win another six games and probably come in second. The key game is in next week against the top team in the league, which somehow has a top 10 player in every position. My team still has weak points, especially at wide receiver. It's been a fun season so far and I've done far better than I thought I would.