The Ten Commandments of Fantasy Football James Terpening, Fantasy Football Guest Writer May 23, 2012 | More
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The Commandments are as follows:

I.   Thou shalt start your starters.

II.   Thou shalt draft your players from around the league.

III.   Thou shalt consider bye weeks when drafting.

IV.   Thou shalt scour the Waiver Wire and Free Agent market.

V.   Thou shalt not overdraft Wide Receivers.

VI.   Thou shalt know your scoring system and rules.

VII.   Thou shalt watch your players and monitor injuries.

VIII.   Thou shalt treat each of your teams as a separate entity.

IX.   Thou shalt check your teams and lineups at least weekly.

X.   Thou shalt take expert advice with a grain of salt.

Fantasy football seems to be one subject on which everybody and his brother is an expert. Everybody has an opinion, on everything. And they are right. Always. Every one of them.

Seriously, there has been much written about specific winning strategies, and endless hypothesizing about drafts and relative player ranks. Prior to the opening kickoff in the first game of the season, there will be hundreds of thousands of words written and spoken by experts about your draft strategy. All the experts will help you to draft the perfect team, one that you can just set and forget on your way to your league championship. Sure.

Barring that, each and every week during the season, you will find player rankings and advice on whom to start at each and every position. Subtle nuances in past performance and future worth are evaluated and players ranked as though they were perfectly quantifiable entities, rather than imperfect creatures with ups and downs, highs and lows, and variations in quality that, week after week, turn those rankings on their heads. The more sure and certain the advice, the more probable it is going to be wrong. But, next week, the same self-proclaimed experts will be back giving more advice. Predicting player performance in fantasy football means never having to say you’re sorry. Or say you’re wrong, for that matter.

However, there hasn’t been enough written to provide decent, quality, and general advice on building and maintaining a winning fantasy football team. If you are running a fantasy football team – you’re a team owner, in other words – you need to bear in mind some principles by which to manage your team. I’ve written this guide for you. It is not the final word. It is not intended to answer every question you have. And it is not supposed to tell you specifically to start Player X instead of Player Y in Week Z of the upcoming season. You’ll find that advice elsewhere on this site.

I’ve written “10 Commandments of Fantasy Football – Taking your Team from Chumps to Champs” to provide team owners with the help you need to take your teams to the next level. If you read this 100-part series and follow the advice contained therein, you will be in a much better position to make the day to day, week to week decisions that build powerhouse teams. And, who knows? You might just win your league championship.