I joined a 14 team fun league at the start of the NFL season, and immediately got hooked on the game when in week 1, down 25 going into the final game of the week with 1 player to go, who should turn up with 19 targets than Las Vegas Raiders' very own Darren Waller, scoring a touchdown with 4 minutes of regulation to win me the game. It got more crazy the next week as down 50 going into the last game between the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions with Aaron Jones and D'Andre Swift to play, Jones put 4 touchdowns on the board for 41.5 points and with some garbage time checkdowns, I was the most underserving 2 and 0 ever. But that thrill got my brain toiling. I'm now 9 and 2, top of my division and locked into the playoffs, turning a 125 point projected team into a 145 point projected team having been the most active player picking up players from free agency and waiver claims as well as trading pieces about.
All that thought of trying to construct the perfect team got me to thinking though. If the goal each week with a roster of 17 is to create the most perfect team possible and to go and win the league, why don't we do some experimenting and see how ESPN, the system I found fantasy football with, would play a season of fantasy football if every decision was based off of ESPN's projections?
We shall call it the League of Projections!
Of course, a league is no good without its teams and conferences and as such, we need to establish some. This will be a 16 team, 4 conference championship with a 15 week regular season and a 3 week playoff structure. I've based the divisions off of the 4 nations in rugby. (Normally 6 but France and Italy can sit this one out.) The Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England divisions will all have 1 automatic playoff spot and then the final 4 wildcard slots are determined based on record. The teams will look as follows:
The Scotland Division
Edinburgh Knights
Glasgow Pipers
Aberdeen Oilers
Dundee Spinners
The Wales Division
Cardiff Dragons
Newport Coal Miners
Swansea Smelters
Barry Islanders
The Ireland Division
Dublin Brewers
Belfast Giants
Cork City Rebels
Galway Tribesmen
The England Division
London Steelers
Birmingham Bulls
Nottingham Sheriffs
Bristol Buccaneers
Now that the teams are created, it will be a long wait before the drafting process will take place in august. But rest assured, we will be covering a bit of ground before then such as the rules, what to look for at each position as well as some other tidbits along the way.
All that is left to say as of right now is that ESPN Fantasy Football, just how they intend it to be played should be obe very interesting experiment.
