49 Fun Facts About Fantasy Football

Bill Winkenbach, who devised fantasy football on a 1962 road trip, had what real-life tie to the Oakland Raiders?

Part-owner Bill Winkenbach sketched the rules in a New York hotel with a Raiders PR man and an Oakland Tribune reporter, so the game of pretend owners was invented by a real one.

What word fills the blank in the first fantasy football league, the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin ___ League?

Prognosticators gave the league its triple-P acronym, GOPPPL, and in 2015 it was still playing under its original scoring system.

Which quarterback and kicker was the first pick in fantasy football's first draft in 1963?

George Blanda was then a Houston Oiler, so a league founded by Raiders insiders opened with a rival's star; Oakland signed him itself four years later.

In the first fantasy football league, a touchdown pass scored the same 25 points as what?

Field goal: a kick was worth as much as a touchdown pass, while any kickoff, punt or interception run back for a score paid 200, eight times as much.

Fantasy football first went public in 1969, when an original league member started a league at what kind of business?

A sports bar, the King's X in Oakland, hosted it, and patrons who crossed the bay for its trivia contests soon started leagues in their own bars.

Before he turned to football, fantasy football's inventor devised a 1950s fantasy game for which sport?

Golf came first: each player drafted a team of pros, and the lowest combined score at the week's tournament won.

Rotisserie leagues are named for La Rotisserie Francaise, a Manhattan restaurant where writers planned the first one for which sport?

Baseball: Daniel Okrent and friends planned their league over lunch there, and the restaurant's name became a label for fantasy leagues in any sport.

Which site broke from its pay-to-play rivals by launching free fantasy football in July 1999?

Yahoo went free while its big rivals charged every league, and living on ad money instead made it the most visited fantasy host on the web.

Which network launched online fantasy football in 1997, while shut out of NFL broadcasts for a fourth straight season?

CBS lost the NFL to Fox after the 1993 season and got games back only in 1998, so its SportsLine fantasy leagues returned it to football a year before its cameras did.

Which Eagles running back entered fantasy football infamy in 2007 by dropping at the 1-yard line instead of scoring?

Brian Westbrook had a clear path to the end zone against Dallas but went down so the Eagles, leading 10-6, could simply run out the clock.

A job-placement firm that prices fantasy football's cost in lost work time still tells employers to do what?

Embrace office leagues: the firm put the 2019 cost at about $9 billion, yet argued that playing together lifts morale and helps companies hold on to staff.

What won fantasy sports an exemption from the 2006 federal ban on online gambling payments?

Managers' skill: the law exempts contests whose winners reflect knowledge and skill across many real games, while it defines gambling as staking money on a game subject to chance.

After an insider-information scandal in 2015, DraftKings and FanDuel both banned whom from playing daily fantasy for money?

Their own employees were barred after a DraftKings staffer won $350,000 on FanDuel, sparking claims he had seen inside data on which players rivals were picking.

A PPR league awards one bonus point for every what?

Catch: PPR stands for point per reception, a format that lifts the value of pass-catching running backs and high-volume receivers.

Under default ESPN and Yahoo scoring, which kind of touchdown is worth only four points instead of six?

Passing touchdowns pay four while rushing and receiving scores pay six, so a quarterback needs three scoring throws to match two touchdowns by a running back.

ESPN and Yahoo kickers earn bonus points for which kind of kick?

Long-distance kicks pay extra: both sites give three points inside 40 yards, four from 40 to 49 and at least five from 50 out, so leg strength shows up in the score.

In default ESPN, Yahoo and NFL.com lineups, the flex spot takes a running back, wide receiver or which other position?

Tight end is the third option, yet few are ever flexed: only a handful of tight ends score well enough, so the spot usually goes to a running back or receiver.

A 'superflex' league lets teams start which position in the flex slot, where it is normally not allowed?

Quarterback: because a team can start two of them, passers fly off the board far earlier in superflex drafts than in one-QB leagues.

In a snake draft, the owner who opens round one picks where in round two?

Last: the order reverses every round in the interest of fairness, so whoever picks last in round one also opens round two with back-to-back picks.

In an auction draft, who chooses which player goes up for bidding next?

Each owner in turn names a player and the highest bid wins him, so everyone has a shot at any star, unlike a snake draft where a target can vanish before your pick.

In a 'best ball' league, what does a team's weekly point total automatically reflect?

The highest-scoring players at each position count automatically, so nobody sets a lineup, and since most contests also drop trades and waiver pickups, the draft decides almost everything.

What happens each week in a 'guillotine' league?

The lowest-scoring team is eliminated and its whole roster hits the waiver wire, so the surviving teams bid for its stars and grow stronger each week until one is left.

After a dynasty league's first season, the yearly draft centers on which group of players?

NFL rookies are the prize because dynasty teams keep most or all of their players from year to year, so the yearly draft is the main way to add fresh talent.

In fantasy football, what does IDP stand for?

Individual Defensive Player leagues lean on tackles for points, so every-down linebackers, who pile them up weekly, are the foundation of most lineups.

In fantasy football, what does the acronym FAAB stand for?

Free Agent Acquisition Budget: each manager gets a fixed season-long pool for blind bids on waiver players, so a desperate owner can blow the lot on a single pickup.

In fantasy jargon, what is a 'sleeper'?

A player expected to outperform his draft position comes cheap, which is why managers hunt sleepers: a late-round pick who produces like an early one is a draft's best value.

The 'Zero-RB' draft strategy means passing on running backs during which part of the draft?

The first four or five rounds go to receivers and other positions, on the theory that running backs get hurt most often, so cheap backups can turn into starters by midseason.

Adding a new defense each week to face the weakest offense is a waiver tactic known as what?

Streaming works because defenses score on the other side's mistakes, so even an ordinary unit can thrive against a weak offense and many managers never draft one early.

The FX comedy 'The League' followed six fantasy football friends living in which city?

Chicago is home to the six friends; after four seasons FX moved the comedy to its new channel FXX to help launch it, and the show ran three more seasons there.

A fantasy manager who drafts a 'handcuff' is picking the real-life understudy to whom?

Their own star running back: the handcuff is an insurance policy, a backup whose value soars only if the starter gets hurt, so the manager keeps that team's carries either way.

On 'The League', what is the name of the booby-prize trophy handed to the last-place finisher?

The Sacko arrives in season two, when Pete needs a name for a new last-place trophy, and whoever 'wins' it must also carry out punishments the rest of the league devises.

Before he became ESPN's fantasy football guru, Matthew Berry worked in Hollywood as what?

A screenwriter: Berry shared the writing credit on Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, but he soured on Hollywood and began writing the fantasy columns that eventually took him to ESPN.

DraftKings and FanDuel dropped their planned 2017 merger after which agency moved to block it on antitrust grounds?

Federal Trade Commission lawyers argued the two were each other's biggest rivals and together would control more than 90 percent of paid daily fantasy contests in the US.

FanDuel, the American fantasy sports giant, was actually founded in 2009 in which Scottish city?

Edinburgh was home to Hubdub, a news-prediction site whose founders switched to fantasy contests in 2009 and aimed the new product at American players from Scotland.

Which running back set the NFL single-season record with 31 total touchdowns in 2006?

LaDainian Tomlinson came to San Diego only after the Chargers traded away the top pick of the 2001 draft and chose him fifth; five years on he was the league's MVP.

Which Chiefs running back set a then-record with 27 total touchdowns in 2003?

Priest Holmes was coming back from a hip injury that had cut short his 2002 season, and he ran in every one of the 27 scores himself.

Who became the first Seattle Seahawk to win NFL MVP after scoring 28 touchdowns in 2005?

Shaun Alexander also carried Seattle to its first Super Bowl that season and landed a huge new contract, yet the Seahawks released him barely two years later.

Whose 1999 record of 2,429 yards from scrimmage stood for a decade before being broken in 2009?

Marshall Faulk had just arrived in St. Louis in a trade for second- and fifth-round draft picks, and he helped the Rams win the Super Bowl in his first season there.

Which Tennessee Titan set the single-season record for yards from scrimmage with 2,509 in 2009?

Chris Johnson broke a ten-year-old mark for a team that lost its first six games, then won eight of the next ten to finish 8-8.

Peyton Manning opened 2013 with seven touchdown passes against which reigning champion?

Baltimore Ravens players had knocked Denver out of the playoffs that January and led 17-14 at halftime, before Manning threw seven scoring passes without an interception to win 49-27.

Which receiver caught an NFL-record 23 touchdown passes in 2007?

Randy Moss had cost New England only a fourth-round draft pick that spring, and his 23 scoring catches helped the Patriots win all 16 regular-season games.

Whose brand-new tight end yardage record did Rob Gronkowski take for good on New Year's Day 2012?

Jimmy Graham and Gronkowski both passed Kellen Winslow's 31-year-old mark that afternoon, and their coaches sent each back into decided games as the record changed hands four times.

Cooper Kupp's 2021 receiving triple crown was the first since which player achieved it in 2005?

Steve Smith Sr. led the league in catches, yards and touchdowns for Carolina just one season after breaking his leg in the 2004 opener and needing surgery.

Which former LSU teammate broke Justin Jefferson's Super Bowl-era rookie receiving-yards record the very next season?

Ja'Marr Chase had sat out his final college season, then piled up 1,455 yards for Cincinnati to pass Jefferson's 1,400; only Bill Groman's 1,473 from 1960 still stood above them.

Which running back is the only player to rush for 2,000 yards in a season in high school, college and the NFL?

Derrick Henry had topped 2,000 yards at Yulee High and Alabama, yet managed only 1,234 across his first two NFL seasons before reaching 2,027 in 2020.

Who skipped 2023's regular-season finale rather than chase an eighth straight 1,000-yard season?

Travis Kelce told coach Andy Reid it felt wrong to force his way into the lineup just for a statistic, so his tight-end record run of 1,000-yard seasons ended at seven.

Which 1980s 49ers back had a 1,000-yard rushing and receiving season before Christian McCaffrey did in 2019?

Roger Craig was the first player ever to do it, in 1985, and that year the running back also led the entire league in catches with 92.

Lamar Jackson's 2019 MVP season made him the first signal-caller since whom to rush for 1,000 yards?

Michael Vick's 1,039 yards for Atlanta in 2006 fell against the Jets on a night Jackson also threw five touchdown passes.

Which MLB outfielder was suspended in 2022 for slapping Joc Pederson over fantasy football?

Tommy Pham accused Pederson of bending their league's injured-reserve rules and of mocking his Padres teammates in the group chat, and the pregame slap cost him a three-game suspension.