I personally enjoy (and respect) baseball itself as a sport more than any other sport and FBL keep me in the game from day to day. Since the season is longer than football's, I have the leeway to recover from my "learning curve" during the course of the season.
FFL is a too short and even though it may be easier to play, I feel it's harder to win.
I'm not a big FFB fan. 1 game a week for a whopping 16 weeks. Technically, it's 2 games if you include Monday night and 17 weeks if you include the bye week, but you get the idea. Too short and it seems one guy can carry the entire team.
Give me the daily action for months on end. I love it.
Yes doctor, I am sick. Sick of those who are spineless. Sick of those who feel self-entitled. Sick of those who are hypocrites. Yes doctor, an army is forming. Yes doctor, there will be a war. Yes doctor, there will be blood.....
by Absolutely Adequate » Fri Apr 16, 2004 11:26 am
To me it's like comparing checkers to chess. No, strike that. It's like comparing nose-picking to chess. One is incredibly complicated and nuanced while the other can be done by anyone with a hand.
I really love them both. In fact, I realyl didn't like baseball at all prior to fantasy baseball. But FLB gave me an "in" to get interested. For me football is far and away my favorite pro sport.
That said, FLB is waaaay better.
I hate how the scoring systems in most leagues favor the backs to sucha degree is is just stupid. The best running backs are scarce to begin with -- much liek closers are. There is basically one feature back per team, unless it is a dreaded comittee. Throw out the below average ones, and there are like 15 that you really want.
So far, so good. Except a lot of the scoring rules seem tilted to backs too. Quarterbacks are typcially devalued and wr's are too hard to predict. So you have to draft backs first, and you almost always have to get two. Most leagues you start two, and in many you can start three if you have a flex position. So it is so imperative to get backs, it is really boring come draft day.
I think the scarcity of backs, combined with favored scoring AND the unrealistic nature of it -- baseball is much closer to real life values than football. In real life the QB is more important (for the most part) but in fantasy, the drafts of people in the know look like everyone drafts two backs, than a wr, then a qb (if that early).
Combine all this with a huge element of luck, and it is fun -- but it is only fun because you can play your friends head to head. not because of the "strategy" because the strategy is too simple.
you usually need to fill:
qb, rb, rb, te, wr, wr, kicker, defense, flex wr/rb/te. or some combination thereof.
but kicker and te are kinda like catcher. kicker you almost don't even need to draft, too hard to know in advance what offense will explode, and the difference between the top and bottom is not that great. TE is definitely like catcher, there are like three of four great ones, then it is a crap shoot. wr's are kinda like OF's in that there are a lot of good ones, a fair amount of great ones.
defenses remind me a little of starting pitching. can be a good points generator, but they are hard to predict -- better to invest in offense first.
the only problem is rb's are like closers in scarcity, but also the biggest scorers on the team, so it is unbalanced and makes things more the result of good draft position and making it through the season without injuries.
giants8307 wrote:Interesting. So RB's would be the first picks off the board then if they are scarce and big scorers?
In my most competitive draft last year 21 of the first 24 picks were RBs. Because most NFL teams play one running back and a fullback used strictly for blocking, but fantasy teams have 2 running back spots to fill, the scarcity is incredible.
This is why I prefer fantasy baseball - different strategies can work. You can go for hitting over pitching, speed over power, thin positions over big bats, closers over starters, whatever. Lots of different ways to build a winner. In a good fantasy football league, you really have minimal choices and the type of team you get is pretty much dictated by draft position.
Fantasy Football isn't easy IMO and if you want a little more complication than play in a league with individual defense. FBB and FFB are two of my favorite hobbies and I'd choose FBB if I had to choose one.
They are different animals and hard to compare but part of FFB's charm is that it's so short and sweet whereas FBB can be a grind some seasons. Granted it is more difficult to recover from a bad start or a bad draft in FFB.
I also think it is an easier game to start with for the beginner to fantasy sports but I disagree with the person above who said it was difficult to seperate yourself from the pack. It may be an easy game to start but not so easy to become good at.
Maine has a good swing for a pitcher but on anything that moves, he has no chance. And if it's a fastball, it has to be up in the zone. Basically, the pitcher has to hit his bat. - Mike Pelfrey
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by Rkiivs » Fri Apr 16, 2004 10:45 am 
