Fantasy football is a fantasy sports Fantasy Football game in which participants (called "owners") are arranged into a league. The person who creates the league is called the commissioner, and that person invites other owners into his/her league. Each team drafts or acquires via auction a team of real-life American football players and then scores points based on those players' statistical on-the-field performances. A typical fantasy league will employ players from a single football league, such as the NFL or an NCAA division. Leagues can be arranged in which the winner is the team with the most total points at the end of the season, or in a head-to-head format (which mirrors the actual NFL) in which each team plays against a single opponent each week. At the end of the year, win-loss records determine league rankings or qualification into a playoff bracket. Most leagues set aside the last weeks of the regular season for their own playoffs.
If Bill Winkenbach is the origin of fantasy football, than the team of Michael Rand and Joshua Schnell are its ambassadors. This duo, known in fantasy circles as "P-Squared" did for the fantasy game, what Lawrence Taylor did for the real game. Credited with innovations such as the double defense strategy and the tiered ranking system these two brought a game formerly played by a select few, to the forefront of American culture. Their aforementioned concepts, in addition with newer developments such as the "QB can wait" strategy and the "boot" penalty have changed the game from what it was, into the institution it currently is. The two main types of competition formats are 1) Head-to-head, with weekly games played against specific opponents (much like in the NFL), and 2) total points, in which cumulative points during the season determine winners (or playoff teams).