Just need to ask fantasy super veterans, ive been curious. (1 Viewer)

[by_the_sea_wannabe]

I sat in a bar with my dad when he drafted Boomer Esiason and Dalton Hilliard in 89.

 

[Mark Wimer]

I sat in a bar with my dad when he drafted Boomer Esiason and Dalton Hilliard in 89.

LOL I, unfortunately, drafted Hilliard in 1990 and not 1989 ...From 344/1,263/13 rushing and 52/514/5 receiving in '89 to six games for 90/284/0 rushing and 14/125/1 receiving in '90. The memory of that miserable fantasy season still stings a bit...

 

[Go deep]

Ive been playing since Junior Seaus rookie year. Not exactly sure when that was(92 maybe?), but me and 5 friends did our first league then and used IDP. I first heard of fantasy football from my uncle. He and 7 friends would get together every Saturday and do a weekly draft that only scored TD's. Each one would throw in 10 bucks each week and the winner wins 80 bucks weekly. I dont remember how long ago it was, had to be 30 years ago, since im 37 and i was probably 7-8 at the time. I do remember names like Joe Montana and Kellen Winslow, Wes Chandler, Dan Fouts etc, being drafted(I loved the Chargers back then)

 

[cobalt_27]

Ive been playing since 99 when i used the nfl.com/cbs game most of that time. I consider myself a veteran but I hear chatter every so often about people who played a lot longer. Are these people lying just to sound old and wise? It seems to me that no one played ff until the internet became widespread. Did you keep track by pen and pad? Looking at the newspaper for the stats? I never heard of it till around when I started playing.

1988 was our first season. Pen, paper, and newspaper dictated life for a while. Was a TD-only league in its inception, but as soon as Excel became available--and later the internet--we experienced greater expansion of the league and rules.

 

[Hooper31]

I can only assume that "RSFF" stands for "Rotisserie Sports Fantasy Football"

rec.sport.football.fantasyIt was the first ever internet message board for fantasy football. Back then the collection of all newsgroups was called USENET. This was before internet browsers and images. It was all text. Actually, I may be wrong as I think the RSFF was born shortly after the first graphics based webpages and browers, but USENET was still text based at that point.

A large portion of the guys in the internet based fantasy football business got their start and connected through RSFF. The old posts are still archived in Google groups.

LINK

Its all just spam now, but if you search you can find some VERY old stuff. I was able to find a thread I started back in 1995 concerning RB Chris Warren's legals issues after a teammate was messed up in a car crash.

EDIT: Just noticed that nobody was freaked out by using their real names back then. Its a different world now.

 

[Tyrion]

You know you are old school fantasy football when....

- you remember getting the Fantasy Index updates and TFL report from Bob Harris via fax BY MAIL

- you know what RSFF stands for.

- you had a special relationship with the Monday morning newspaper.

- you remember how Randall Cunningham changed the game long before Michael Vick.

- submitting lineups via phone call.

Feel free to add your own.

"Yep" to all of the bolded. I can only assume that "RSFF" stands for "Rotisserie Sports Fantasy Football"....

As many have mentioned, the Internet has levelled the FF playing field a ton. It used to be that most owners scored their own teams from the newspaper, but looked no further. For a while, you could gain a real advantage by scouring the small print and seeing where an unknown guy, for example, had a bubbling-under performance -- and that guy was your brilliant WW pickup.

Here's an actual example, using the actual boxscore from a 1994 Wk 2 game between the Chargers & Bengals (GB profootballreference.com). Mark Seay (remember that guy?) was a popular sleeper pick and was predicted to be the Chargers' top WR that year ... and Seay did have some decent performances early. I was constantly churning the bottom of my FF roster, and saw in the agate type that that undrafted (in FF) Charger wideout Tony Martin had a 61-yd grab in the Bengals game (his only catch of the game). Since it cost nothing to pick Martin up, I did so. In Wk 3, Martin had 152 yds and a TD ... and ONLY THEN did anyone else in my FF league think about picking him up. Too late -- and Martin went on to lead SD's wideouts that year in yards & TDs, and afterwards remained a legit starting fantasy WR for another five seasons.

These days, Martin's catch would've been all over the post-game shows, and 50 FF website would post articles touting Martin as a WW gem. These kinds of guys NEVER fall through the cracks any more.

I see your point and like many of the others on this thread I agree that the internet has really leveled the playing field.

I tend to disagree with the bolded statement however. I mean sure people are going to see the performance but the trick now is recognizing it for what it is. Was it a fluke or a sign of a breakout player? Every website wants to predict the next breakout player so you actually get an information overload. There is lots of fools gold out there.

People become so cynical that you can have a guy totally breakout like Miles Austin did last year against the Chiefs and people will not believe what they are being told.

The Sunday Ticket was a big game changer in Fantasy Football. It's one thing to read a box score or have some guy online tell you how great a performance was but it is quite another to actually see the thing unfold. Sure you get the highlights but it's something different to actually see the performance in the scheme of the game.

Sirius NFL Radio is another. I can't tell you how many gems I pick up by listening to Moving the Chains.

The Sunday Ticket and Sirius are still two good tools that seperate the men from the boys when it comes to Fantasy Football.

 

[OrangeCurtain]

1993 we started, or 1994, whichever was the year the chargers went to the SB.

Users of Terry Bradshaw FF DOS software REPRESENT!

You had to enter all the stats by hand from the paper, but once you did it put out some nice reports.

 

[JohnnyU]

Been playing since 1836. We used to gather at Chief Runs With Buffalo Hide's teepee for the draft. Could barely fit everyone. Once the season began we would smoke signal free agent moves in. Scout Laughs at Pick would always send up a signal about picking up Shaman Sits on Bench. If you ever saw Shaman's skills that would be funny. What a card.

classic !!

 

[benbadman]

Ive been playing since 99 when i used the nfl.com/cbs game most of that time. I consider myself a veteran but I hear chatter every so often about people who played a lot longer. Are these people lying just to sound old and wise? It seems to me that no one played ff until the internet became widespread. Did you keep track by pen and pad? Looking at the newspaper for the stats? I never heard of it till around when I started playing.

I've been playing since 1991. Back then, we used the newspaper to score the games, we actually called or mailed in our weekly lineups and free agent bids.

This. Since 93. You called in your lineups. You drafted with guys in the neighborhood or coworkers. League was TD only back then to make it easy to score by hand.

 

[NOONAN]

My first draft pick was Dalton Hilliard. I ended up with Bobby Hebert and Eric Martin also. Must have been 1989.

The next year, my buddy and I designed our own league and scoring system that included IDP!!! Man, were we ahead of our time! Unfortunately, we never took it any further than just our own enjoyment. We did the whole newspaper scoring thing while watching Monday Night Football. Made copies of the scoresheets and faxed/mailed them out on Tueday after the Monday results.

20 years later, half of the original group are still in it. We run a keeper format, so you really get attached to "your guys". It is still a blast today.

One of the most classic moments was when DL Jerome Brown PHI was drafted...a couple months after he died.

So, yes, we really have been doing it as long as we say. Welcome to the party!!!

 

[FUBAR]

Been playing FF since 97 with Sandbox.com. Played fantasy hockey and baseball a few years from 86-89 between friends at a card store. USA Today, pen and paper and telephone were our tools of the trade.

 

[FUBAR]

My first draft pick was Dalton Hilliard. I ended up with Bobby Hebert and Eric Martin also. Must have been 1989.

IIRC my first pick ever was Grant Fuhr. For some reason goalies got points for wins.

 

[Lash]

1989

USA Today to do stats, we'd all meet on Monday to do stats so we'd know exactly what was needed that night

it is a proven fact that life DID actually exist prior to cell phones, internet, and starbucks - that is hard for this generation to see

i coach HS basketball, and we went to summer camp and i didn't allow cell phones to be brought on the trip, o' the wailing and gnashing of teeth on that one (hehe even half the parents were part of the whiners)