Fantasy Football Noob with question

[albatross]

I understand the basics of Fantasy Football and I've played in casual leagues for several years. I was thinking of joining a bigger money league this year.  Some friends have a well established league set up and a spot finally opened. You start with a new team every year.

I was ready to take the plunge until I saw that they don't do waivers on game day.  Meaning, you can pick free agents up during the games on Sunday, and there is no waiver period involved.  It basically rewards the guys sitting on their couch, watching every game while hovering over their laptop.  I called my buddies out and said that I feel like most leagues don't work like that.  I'm a big NFL fan, but I'm not going to spend every waking hour watching every game and worrying that someone else is snagging players when there's an injury and I don't have a chance to make moves.

They use waivers for dropped players, but they do not lock players in on gameday.

Am I way off here?  Thoughts?

[saevel25]

The waiver wire rule is strange. The league I am in have weekly deadlines to put in waivers. From there the website handles the transaction by who is highest on the waiver list.

As for lineup changes, our league locks in players as soon as their game starts. So if you have a guy on Thursday, who has a game. He is locked in as soon as the game starts. Until the other players games start on Sunday or Monday, they can be switched in and out. I've swapped out players before in between games on Sunday.

Yea, the waiver thing is pretty crazy. Changing lineups not so much. Depends on the league set up.

[Spyder]

I understand the basics of Fantasy Football and I've played in casual leagues for several years. I was thinking of joining a bigger money league this year.  Some friends have a well established league set up and a spot finally opened. You start with a new team every year.

I was ready to take the plunge until I saw that they don't do waivers on game day.  Meaning, you can pick free agents up during the games on Sunday, and there is no waiver period involved.  It basically rewards the guys sitting on their couch, watching every game while hovering over their laptop.  I called my buddies out and said that I feel like most leagues don't work like that.  I'm a big NFL fan, but I'm not going to spend every waking hour watching every game and worrying that someone else is snagging players when there's an injury and I don't have a chance to make moves.

They use waivers for dropped players, but they do not lock players in on gameday.

Am I way off here?  Thoughts?

You're not way off and that is the benefit of doing DFS (Daily Fantasy Sports). You can either play for free, or you can wager cash. If you haven't done so, check out one of the DFS sites. I personally play DFS NFL and NBA on FanDuel and I love it. It does take some grinding if you're going to step up and take it seriously, so daily research could be necessary. For the most part, I know who I like and which matchups are favorable so my research time is limited to about 1-2 hours tops. Then, I simply start hawking the sports outlets (like RotoGrinders and RotoWorld) checking for injury updates during the last 30-40 minutes before tip off/kickoff. After that, you get to sit back and watch the action.

Sorry I didn't help you with your dilemma at all, but this is one of the reasons I quit season-long fantasy sports. It's such a long, drawn-out process with inconsistencies between leagues and people you play with. DFS is constant in that the rules are the rules and it's very straight forward. Enter a tournament for $2, have the potential to pull $2K. If you don't like tournaments, do a 50/50 where the top half of the field profits. Or, simply go head-to-head. You also do not have any idea who your opponent is playing until the game starts and you're both picking from the same pool of players (no drafts involved, which is also nice).