Is Anyone Else Old Enough To Remember... (1 Viewer)

[zamboni]

I know a guy who quit playing FF because his league refused to change away from TDs only. He got angry every time his Barry Sanders would run the ball 50 yards down to the 5 only to see the fullback vulture his TD.

I remember that same scenario owning Cadillac Williams in his rookie year and seeing him constantly vultured by Mike Alstott. Didn't want to make me quit, but that was a tough indoctrination to between-the-20s guys.

 

[Gatorman]

1. Bringing 15 self-addresses, stamped envelopes to the draft do the commissioner can mail out weekly standings.
2. Bringing a magazine that was printed 2 months prior to your draft
3. Calling the commissioner on a land line for adds/drops
4. Looking at the Monday newspaper to see how many points your team scored
5. Being able to watch one game/week, plus the Monday Night/Cowboys game, and not having any idea how your guys performed.

Ah, the good old days.

1) No, Fax machine on Wednesday
2) yes, but remember getting a weekly preseason newsletter (Curtis Martin and Terrell Davis were the big gets that year)
3) I have some owners who still do this. 50+ year old men don't understand the CBS app. We've only been on CBS for 20 years.
4) Yep, also old commish had a rule that you could sow him a different paper if there was a discrepancy, so it was USA today and the Miami Herald for me.
5) Sunday Ticket/Red Zone is the bomb-diggity.

 

[Biabreakable]

A lot of good nostalgia in here. How about the tone on fox doo da loo doo da LOO that meant they were going to start showing the scores in a scroll at the bottom of the screen. With no other way to find out how the other games were going you'd cut off mid pee and run out to the living room to see it start with some garbage game like Cleveland Cincinnati and they'd show you the score, and maybe you'd get the top performers of the day but you'd never get their complete stat line. And you'd see that there has been a touchdown since the last update 10 minutes ago but they'd still show you some other guy's numbers so you didn't even get a little new information. Then the ticker would go away and you could see the whole TV screen again for the one game that was on.

By the time USA today came out you would know how about some of your touchdowns and maybe know how many yards a guy got but you weren't even close to knowing the whole box score.

And back then, we didn't get points for every yard or any points for receptions. We got 3 points for 100 yards rushing, and a bonus for 150 or 175 that only happened once or twice a year. Barry was completely under valued except for 1996 iirc, and people didn't realize what a beast Faulk was in indy because he wasn't getting 100 yard rushing games he was just getting 120 total yards and that didn't get a bonus.

Yup.

After the first season of playing FF I strongly argued for yards to matter (we were TD only my first year) and I thought the yardage bonuses were dumb also although I think it took a few years before everyone agreed to actually count every 10 yards. Decimal scoring was the next hurdle. I think the internet existed before that change actually happened.

My first league was TD only for 5-6 years, no yards or PPR. It was terrible as your RB would get 100 yards rushing 40 receiving and zero points. A RB that was have 5 carries for 10 yards and 2 TDs would have 12 points. Same with WRs, 10 receptions 150 yards and no TDs was zero points. Passing TDs at the time were 3 points.

If you scored 30-35 points that was a good week.

I know a guy who quit playing FF because his league refused to change away from TDs only. He got angry every time his Barry Sanders would run the ball 50 yards down to the 5 only to see the fullback vulture his TD.

Yeah come to think of it I guess we played TD only for 2 or 3 years before I got everyone to agree to start counting yardage.

The clincher for me was in 1988 I had Thurman Thomas but my cousin picked up Robb Riddick off of waivers who scored 13 TD that year compared to Thurman Thomas 2 TD.

Looking back on it Riddick actually had pretty good yards as well. Not as many as Thomas did, but the disparity wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was at the time. This was actually just a case of Thomas being a rookie and the Bills used Riddick in all their goal line packages.

Anyhow it was bad enough that everyone agreed to start counting yards in part because of this example.

After the 1988 season Riddick never played again and Thomas was a perennial all star for his career.

 

[TommyKramer9]

1. Bringing 15 self-addresses, stamped envelopes to the draft do the commissioner can mail out weekly standings.
2. Bringing a magazine that was printed 2 months prior to your draft
3. Calling the commissioner on a land line for adds/drops
4. Looking at the Monday newspaper to see how many points your team scored
5. Being able to watch one game/week, plus the Monday Night/Cowboys game, and not having any idea how your guys performed.

Ah, the good old days.

I am. My first year playing was 1991 not having a clue of what I was doing. My first pick was Flipper Anderson My buddy and I would get up early Monday morning and run to the gas station to get the newspaper and check the box scores

 

[socrates]

1. Bringing 15 self-addresses, stamped envelopes to the draft do the commissioner can mail out weekly standings.
2. Bringing a magazine that was printed 2 months prior to your draft
3. Calling the commissioner on a land line for adds/drops
4. Looking at the Monday newspaper to see how many points your team scored
5. Being able to watch one game/week, plus the Monday Night/Cowboys game, and not having any idea how your guys performed.

Ah, the good old days.

I am. My first year playing was 1991 not having a clue of what I was doing. My first pick was Flipper Anderson My buddy and I would get up early Monday morning and run to the gas station to get the newspaper and check the box scores

I recall Flipper Anderson having an incredible game one year, although I think that game may have even pre-dated my fantasy days (not entirely sure about that part). He and Henry Ellard were solid fantasy players for a while catching passes from Jim ("Chris") Everett, although perhaps a first-round pick was pushing it.

In my first season, I loaded up on QBs in the early rounds with Dan Marino and Randall Cunningham! What was I thinking?!

 

[TommyKramer9]

1. Bringing 15 self-addresses, stamped envelopes to the draft do the commissioner can mail out weekly standings.
2. Bringing a magazine that was printed 2 months prior to your draft
3. Calling the commissioner on a land line for adds/drops
4. Looking at the Monday newspaper to see how many points your team scored
5. Being able to watch one game/week, plus the Monday Night/Cowboys game, and not having any idea how your guys performed.

Ah, the good old days.

I am. My first year playing was 1991 not having a clue of what I was doing. My first pick was Flipper Anderson My buddy and I would get up early Monday morning and run to the gas station to get the newspaper and check the box scores

I recall Flipper Anderson having an incredible game one year, although I think that game may have even pre-dated my fantasy days (not entirely sure about that part). He and Henry Ellard were solid fantasy players for a while catching passes from Jim ("Chris") Everett, although perhaps a first-round pick was pushing it.

In my first season, I loaded up on QBs in the early rounds with Dan Marino and Randall Cunningham! What was I thinking?!

Yeah, I think it was the season before that he set the record for most receiving yards in a game with 336 or something like that. That record still stands today

 

[Joe Bryant]

Does anyone remember the Usenet group rec.sports.football.fantasy?

In 1997, leading up to the 1998 season I got a home computer (Compaq Presario) , discovered Usenet and the crazy world of the chat rooms.

rec.sports.football.fantasy

That was like the 'Holy College' of fantasy experts, and in that flux started the Fan-EX leagues, Cheatsheets.net (the precursor to FootballGuys) and begat the godfathers of fantasy football.

A magazine printed in June no longer made the cut.

I was now swimming with the best and the brightest and their advise and opinions were so far ahead of where my home league was, it truly felt like a cheat code.

Just to see other drafts and where players were going, the first inklings of an ADP, was invaluable.
I knew my way around the game a little bit, but now I knew which players I could wait on and which players were at a premium.

My 1998 team was so gross.....

QB - Steve Young
RB - Terrell Davis
RB - Jamal Anderson
WR - Antonio Freeman
WR - Randy Moss
Flex - Fred Taylor


…that it almost fed-back on itself, where guys didn't want to play in a league that was over by Thanksgiving.

I had to persuade guys to stay and I had to bad-mouth my own team.

"It's just a fluke, I don't really know what I'm doing"

You're right. rec.sports was where much of Footballguys was originally formed.