The 11 Types Of Fantasy Football Players

As America's most popular sort gets ready to kick off, America's most popular play-pretend sport is gearing up itself. Every league has these types. Which are you?

The Beane

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The Beane is named for Oakland A's GM Billy (though that picture is of the much more attractive Brad Pitt, who played him in the movie Moneyball, based on the Michael Lewis book. Yeah, dude's a star.). This player wheels and deals. You'll get multiple versions of the same trade offer every week. If you're not paying attention to the waiver wire, you're going to lose out to the Beane every single time. Crafty and smart and just arrogant enough to drive you crazy, the Beane is one of the most frequent fantasy champions. Not to be trifled with.

The Push-Over

Every league has one, and everyone falls over each other trying to screw him out of his best players before everyone else does. Get him drunk and tell him how the Texans are really worried about Arian Foster's torn Labrum Made-upus. He'll be trading you Foster for a high school football coordinator in no time. If your league's commissioner is the Push-Over, you're in trouble. Without a leader who has the courage of his convictions, your league will devolve into message board squabbles and epic email chains where epithets are hurled like Tim Tebow passes, which is to say recklessly and with a holy fervor.

The Dictator

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Every good fantasy commissioner is the Dictator. He knows what he wants the league to look like, and your job is to facilitate that vision. Want PPR (Points Per Reception)? Too fucking bad. Disagree with a trade? None of your fucking business. The only danger is when the Dictator commish takes his or her power too far. A few years ago my league featured a calamitous deal where the commish picked up Vincent Jackson (he had held out that year, leaving him on the waiver wire a few weeks into the season) and immediately traded him for Adrian Peterson with a player who wasn't paying attention. I had to take a Silkwood shower after the ensuing email disaster.

The "Who?"

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The "Who?" prides him or herself on using the later rounds to take players you've never heard of. Did a guy just make the team because he wowed on the practice squad? The "Who?" is going to take that guy and tell you how great he was at Yale and that if he had gone anywhere else he'd have been a first round pick. 98% of the time, The "Who?" drops half of his players before the first game. Sleepers are only fun until you have to actually put together a lineup.

The Homer

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"I don't care that you think I'm crazy. I'm taking Fred Jackson in the top five and when it comes back around Ryan Fitzpatrick is coming home." The Homer foolishly puts his or her love for a real NFL team above his or her love for the imagined team that is being gambled on. The Homer rarely wins a league unless they're from New Orleans, Green Bay, or occasionally New England. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have both Trent Richardson and Brandon Weeden on my team. But I swear Weeden was a joke.)

The Librarian

The Librarian shows up to the draft drowning in literature. Football Outsiders? Check. Matthew Berry? Check. Some obscure newsletter you've never heard of, but totally, definitely has the best track record in fantasy? Check, and don't you dare ask for the name, because he's not sharing it. The Librarian will seem more skilled early on, but as the draft enters its later rounds, he'll be too engrossed in his papers to pay attention to who has actually been picked. People will yell at him.

The Gambler

The Gambler isn't happy to just have one sum of money on the line with his fantasy season. He needs side bet on top of side bet. A weekly high score pool and a weekly head-to-head bet against another owner is the bare minimum for this guy. The Gambler is also the most likely to end up streaking through the local Chick-Fil-A singing Lady Gaga when he doesn't make the playoffs, because if there's nothing on the line, how can he even enjoy these games, man? He also probably does cocaine.

The Revolutionary

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The Revolutionary wants change and he wants it now. He'll evangelize about the merits of the auction-draft format. He'll demand PPR before considering joining a league. He wants bonuses for big yardage days, and a flex spot in the lineup. And don't even think about having a team defense in the era of drafting Individual Defensive Players.

Every league needs a good revolutionary. He keeps things from getting stagnant and brings the rest of the players the latest developments from the Fantasy Football Laboratory of Gambling Fun. But if you have the Push-Over as your commissioner, there's no one more dangerous. It'll only be a matter of time before you end up having to pick a Premier League soccer star for tie-breakers.

The Parrot

The Parrot has no opinions of his own. He has Colin Cowherd's opinions and Tony Kornheiser's and Mike Wilbon's and Bill Simmons' and Terry Bradshaw's and Michael Irvin's and Howie Long's and...

The Time Traveler

The Time Traveler watches the NFL, but only kinda. Everything they know about the league, they learned from Madden NFL 2004. They'll draft Randy Moss fifty spots early. Ask where Brett Favre landed, and be shocked to discover that Plaxico Burress is a free agent. They'll end up with a team of guys they only half know. And yeah, they'll often win the league, because people who pick March Madness brackets based on the uniform colors often win too.

The Invisible Man

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This guy shows up at your draft, drinks a lot of beer, eats more than his fair share of the food, promises to pay later, takes forever on his picks, and talks trash the whole time. After one week, he stops checking his lineup. After five weeks it becomes clear that he's never going to pay, and in week 11, he'll cost you a spot in the playoffs when his entire team has a bye against your rival. There is no worse scum in the fantasy football universe.