Nick Westby: Taking a Stateside slant on the fantasy game as deadline looms

Journalists loathe this day. It’s a long slog, a never-ending carousel of rumour, conjecture, denials and evolving stories, usually about nothing more exciting than a left-back from Peterborough that no-one else wants.

The only journalist I can think of who revels in it is Jim White on Sky Sports News, whose voice gets higher and higher, his action more animated, with every ground-breaking shot of a manager driving into a training ground.

Managers detest deadline day more than the reporters. It is a needlessly busy day when a phone never stops ringing.

Usually for the manager in Yorkshire, the ringing of the phone predominently brings bad news about a sale, rather than good news about that 20-goal a season striker who has shunned Jose Mourinho to sign with you for the rest of the season.

Every manager would do away with the transfer window if they had their way. If they have stopped saying so publically it is only because they know how futile it is to argue.

In fact, it is hard to think of any section of the footballing family who likes deadline day.

Is it supposed to be for the fans?

I can not see how, unless your team has a war chest the size of Real Madrid’s.

Buried deep within me there remains the element of a football fan who wants to know who my team has picked up; whether they have shown ambition or have been left without a chair when the music stops at 11pm tonight.

I fear the latter.

For something that only comes around twice a year, it seems to rear its head far too frequently.

Although dislike it as I do as a fan and a journalist, I have some measure of sympathy for the managers, because I have only recently found myself in a similar position to our footballing supremos.

If today is D-Day for the world of football – deadline day – then D-Day for me is draft day and that unfolded yesterday.

You still with me?

Where deadline day has consumed soccer on this side of the Pond, across the Atlantic the NFL season gets underway on Thursday night and for fans of the League that means, among other things, that it is fantasy football time.

As a long-standing NFL fan who was bewitched at an early age by images of Joe Montana, John Elway and Dan Marino, this year is my first foray into the world of fantasy.

In our football, I’ve dabbled before but other than partaking in a proper auction with my friends at University, I’ve never been one to keep a diligent enough eye on the fortunes of my team through a 38-game season.

However, if I want to succeed in my first season in an NFL Fantasy League, over a shorter 17-game campaign, such neglect of the men I choose will result in only one thing – defeat.

For fantasy NFL-style revolves around a mountain of stats with points awarded for such things as receptions, sacks, rushing touchdowns, yards after the catch and a whole myriad of other measuring sticks.

It is a test of knowledge, research and your ability to unearth a hidden gem in the lower rounds of the draft.

Where basic fantasy football in this country is against thousands of other people, in gridiron, it is you against other teams in small leagues.

To get involved, you have to enter a league ordinarily of between eight and 12 teams and then take part in a draft, which fantasy league organisers try to make as real as the official College draft, with participants ‘put on the clock’ as it were as they make their selections.

There is no money involved, unlike in a Premier League fantasy team where you buy Wayne Rooney for £15m of your £100m kitty, it is pure battling against the other players.

If you have the No 1 pick in the first round, then you have the last pick in the second round to make it as fair as possible. And so on.

What I have been struggling to get my head around as I prepared for my draft debut – and believe me, there is enough website articles and podcasts from experts who make a living out of this to keep you occupied for weeks – is that the star names do not go at the top of the draft.

Anyone who has only a passing interest in American football will at least know that a quarterback is the main man. Yet such is the depth of quality in that position, and the fact that fantasy teams have only one starting QB, leading lights such as Tom Brady and Peyton Manning – names most non-NFL fans will have heard of – are not taken until the third round, or later.

In a league that is becoming increasingly more passing orientated, with quarterbacks and their wide receivers the hot properties in an official College draft, in the world of fantasy, it is running backs who are gold dust.

Such is the paucity of talent in that position, measured against the amount of points they accumulate for a fantasy team, they are the men you need to acquire quickly and fill your roster with.

So last night as I did my draft, I was prioritising players like Kansas City’s running back Jamal Charles over San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, because the latter, the hottest talent in NFL right now, is not as productive a fantasy player as the every-down back that is Charles, or someone of his ilk.

And so I empathise with the real managers up and down the country today, who will have their sights set on this star striker from here, or this redoubtable centre-half from there, but will end up filling their squad with a cast-off from here, or a wantaway from there because manager X or manager Y had got their first.

Deadline day? Give me fantasy football any day.

and another thing...

The domestic rugby union season kicks off on Saturday with teams in the national and regional leagues embarking on their annual battles for promotion and survival.

The Championship commences the following week, with a double-header of northern fixtures at Doncaster’s Castle Park as Leeds Carnegie face Nottingham and Rotherham Titans tackle Moseley.

Doncaster is a great club with a great little stadium, but the Championship will be poorer without them this season as they look to book an instant return.

In terms of an overall picture, though, the division is looking as strong as ever.

The league has a sponsor at last in Greene King IPA and more televised matches scheduled on Sky Sports. That means more money coming in.

It has big personalities venturing beyond the Premiership. Dean Richards did it last year at Newcastle and Andy Robinson has followed suit at Bristol, while Josh Lewsey recently worked at Cornish Pirates. Sir Ian McGeechan is at Leeds.

The gap to the Premiership is closing, albeit slowly, but a more robust second tier can only help the development of the game and the strength of the senior England team.