“On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”

Fight Club, one of the seminal movies of my generation, is the inspiration today for something rather unlikely: fantasy football. Based on the intense Chuck Palahniuk novel by the same name, Fight Club made its initial impression on me as I dilly-dallied in middle school as a cynical but philosophically blank youth. The quasi-nihilistic, irreverent, post-modern conversation seeping through the subtext of every frame of that film helped me shed a lot of the behaviors I could no longer sustain in myself and helped forge more helpful, articulate ones. In essence, it provided the voice I needed to buck the status quo and create an identity more in tune with the twenty-first century. Sometimes we need a wake-up call, and sometimes those calls come from odd places (remember that in 1999/2000, Fight Club was not yet a cult favorite and performed rather poorly in the box office; I only happened to catch the movie because my dad had ordered it on pay-per-view).

This is your fantasy football wake-up call.

While the game has been played for the better part of three decades, it’s reached the level that its not only a legitimate, money-making industry with newspapers and magazines selling independent fantasy draft guides and television wonks offering weekly advice, it’s an undeniable segment of the passion America has for its favorite game. This is a good thing–it broadens the casual fan’s interest in the game by introducing a personal competitive element and it bolsters the diehard’s interest even farther by demanding an increased viewership of all NFL teams, not just one’s lifetime favorite. You would think that an institution which has grown by leaps and bounds in such a short time would also have theories on winning that evolved proportionally. This is not true.

The survival rate of traditional thinking on fantasy football, like anything else, has dropped to zero. Thus spake Tyler Durden.

Some publications, like the guide offered by USA Today as well as those particular fantasy analysts (“fantalysts”) ahead of the curve are aware of definitive changes. ESPN’s influential “Sports Guy” Bill Simmons recently devoted a long column dedicated to the necessity of change in thinking of fantasy football drafts. I too have felt the tides shifting and, for the betterment of the online community, have decided I can no longer sit and let another poor soul throw away his money without the slightest bit of advice.

With the help of Rupert/Cornelius/Travis/any of the stupid names he goes by, I present to you: the rules of Fantasy Football Club. And remember, if this is your first year at Fantasy Football Club, you must take risks.

THE FIRST RULE OF FANTASY FOOTBALL CLUB IS: It’s all about the touchdowns. I don’t care if you’re not playing a TD-only league, the rule remains. Touchdowns win you championships, simple as that. Yardage is nice and consistent, but nice and consistent only works for mutual funds or tortoises poised in strange races against hares. Touchdowns will ultimately decide whether or not you’re pocketing your friends’ money or if you’re staring blankly at another fruitless performance from Laurence Maroney. Let it become your mantra.

THE SECOND RULE OF FANTASY FOOTBALL CLUB IS: It’s all. About. The touchdowns. I can’t make this any plainer. Here’s a decent example: in 2009, Player A got 1,348 yards, good for second best in the league, but only had 4 touchdowns. Player B got only 722 yards but had 9 scores. Player A would give you 156.8 points for the year and Player B would give you 126.2 points for the year, a difference of 30.6 points over the course of the year or an average of 2.35 points per game. Player A is Wes Welker, whose 2009 Average Draft Position (ADP) was 30th–in other words, he’s going by the end of the third round in most drafts. Player B is Robert Meachem, whose 2009 ADP was 167th, or the equivalent of a late 14th-round pick, if he was drafted at all. That Meachem would have so many scores after a lackluster start to his career and that Welker would find the end zone only once a month is not the point here. The point is that if you had missed on Welker but grabbed Meachem -who had over 600 yards less receiving than Welker – as a late flyer, your team would have been almost as good simply by focusing on touchdowns. Keep this illustration in mind when scheming trades, when drafting, and when scouring the waiver wire. Speaking of…

THE THIRD RULE OF FANTASY FOOTBALL CLUB IS: Never fall asleep on your team. I’ve been the commissioner of a league comprised mainly of high school friends of mine for the last six years and last season was by far the most competitive I’ve ever witnessed. I won’t bore you with the details save for the salient ones: all but one team was mathematically alive for the playoffs going into the final week of the regular season. Part of that parity comes from a consistent passion for your team. Maybe your buddies want you to join the league so they can steal your cash; surprise them by being a diligent and prepared owner. It starts with a quality draft (more on that later) but continues every week.

Read columns by your favorite writers, both ones that focus on the fantasy aspect as well as those simply interested in the X’s and O’s of football. Don’t ever propose or agree to trades without fully thinking them through–I recommend posing any potential trade to a neutral friend or three not to have them decide for you but to gauge their reaction. If their e-mail response includes three or more expletives and a caps-lock meltdown, it’s not a positive sign for your trade. Scour the waiver wire twice a week: once on Tuesday, after the games are over and you can see which top players are still available, and then again on Friday or Saturday after players clear waivers and you can add a free agent to your team without a waiting period. How many leagues were won last year based on performances by Jamaal Charles or Jerome Harrison? Who had the foresight to pick up Miles Austin before he became a no-brainer option at WR? Most importantly, watch as much football as humanly possible. It might mean you go without sex from your girlfriend and you may need to invest in bedpans and a treadmill by the time Halloween rolls around, but your fantasy team will thank you. There’s so much insight to be gained by watching the games–live, via DVR, or at the very least, highlights. You’ll begin to notice which players are scoring fluke touchdowns and which are consistent performers, which offenses/defenses are on the rise/on the way down, and how coaching staffs are preferring to implement their guys.

He is not a unique and beautiful snowflake.

THE FOURTH RULE OF FANTASY FOOTBALL CLUB IS: Don’t let a player’s name or history blind you. I know you love LaDainian Tomlinson. We all do. I even own a powder blue jersey with his name on it, purchased the year he set all sorts of rushing records. None of those records is going to win your league, and you’re a stubborn old ox if you draft him this year with aspirations of anything beyond an emergency start. He’s a legendary player, but he’s not the same L.T. Maybe you didn’t know who Ray Rice was before last year or didn’t trust his rookie status. Bet you felt burned when the guy who took a chance on Rice beat up on your tandem of Jamal Lewis and Fred Taylor. Also, and you could call this Rule 4a, don’t simply rely on a player’s statistics to gauge his worthiness of a start. Pay attention to the team, too (see Rule 3). Does your quarterback’s head coach prefer to run to set up the pass? Then you’d better temper expectations for Carson Palmer and Mark Sanchez. Do your wide receivers play a lot of outdoor games in December? Maybe you’re better off grabbing dome-bound Anthony Gonzalez or Jacoby Jones as an insurance policy.

The single greatest variable is the week-to-week matchup. I know you’re not sitting Chris Johnson or Peyton Manning regardless of the competition, but let’s say you grabbed Ryan Grant as one of your starting two running backs and he’s playing Minnesota that week. You know Minny’s run defense is ridiculous. You know Grant averaged 41 yards rushing in his two games against them in 2009. You know that, in those same games, Aaron Rodgers turned the passing game loose. So you’re a little relaxed bumping Grant to the bench in week 7 and trying your luck with the streaky Reggie Bush at home against Cleveland’s awful front seven. Don’t let it be the only factor in your decision making, but if coaches spend all week devising team-specific game plans in order to win, why wouldn’t you take a long look at those matchups?

THE FIFTH RULE OF FANTASY FOOTBALL CLUB IS: No handcuffs, no double-downs. These so-called “strategies” have consistently baffled me. The handcuff, for those who are unaware, is the designation given to the backup of one of your star players. In other words, you might draft Rashad Jennings as a handcuff to Maurice Jones-Drew. You might also pour orange juice on your Frosted Flakes instead of two-percent. Just ‘cos you can do it doesn’t mean it’s smart. Look at it this way, drafting your star’s handcuff assumes that the backup can produce at a rate higher than another team’s starter (or another team’s more impressive backup). This is lunacy. Even given a great offensive line, that’s no guarantee that a benchwarmer can turn into a reliable starter. Would you rather take Steve Slaton (2010 ADP: 110th) as a handcuff to Arian Foster or Thomas Jones (2010 ADP: 118th), a likely starter/solid platoon in KC? The platoon situation (two or more running backs significantly sharing playing time) of most teams in the league means that handcuffing is less relevant than ever before.

The double-down is a term I’m using for when a team drafts two wide receivers from the same squad, or worse yet, both halves of a running back platoon. I’m almost as sour on drafting a team’s number-one wide receiver and number-one running back. There are only so many touchdowns to go around, and more often than not it’s in your interest to select your starters from different teams. It’s practical – think about the situation you’d be in during Team X’s bye week – and it smooths out an unnecessary week-to-week risk. Diversification is a key to a strong portfolio in the stock market; it should also be the key to your fantasy team.

THE SIXTH RULE OF FANTASY FOOTBALL CLUB IS: Draft strong, win big. Draft day is the single most important day of any fantasy season, which should go without saying. But here I am, saying it, so obviously a lot of people aren’t paying attention. Would you go to a car dealership and pick out the black convertible sitting in the front of the lot because your uncle bought one last year and liked it? Not without checking out some of the sweet rides hanging out back, right? Don’t bumble your way through draft day without doing your research. As I said before, read and watch as much as you can. One of the best things you can do is participate in mock drafts. Drafts, as in plural. You can’t get a read on where players are likely to fall without going through a few mocks and averaging out the results. Some fantasy owners like to try out specific strategies in a mock (for instance, drafting a QB in the first round followed by a top WR, or the old-school RB-RB strategy in the first two rounds) and some people use it to prepare themselves for the middle-round stress of finding an adequate player in just ninety seconds. Just about every major fantasy football website has mock drafts running all day.

Come into your draft day ready to win. Don’t reach for players on your favorite team the way drunk Bostonians reach for pasty girls with crooked teeth. Do take a gamble on a rookie late in the draft. Don’t be the rookie who drafts someone in the sixth when that player had already gone two rounds prior. Do organize a cheat sheet to help defray the anxiety of a tough choice. I recommend organizing your players by position into tiers. For instance, your top tier of quarterbacks might be Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and Tom Brady. Your second tier might include Tony Romo, Brett Favre, Matt Schaub and Philip Rivers. The third round comes in your draft and you’ve already snatched up a solid running back and wide receiver. Brady and Favre are both available. If you’ve thought hard about your tiers, you don’t have to go back and forth–trust your research and take Brady. That’s just one example of how you should organize and prepare your attack.

THE SEVENTH RULE OF FANTASY FOOTBALL CLUB IS: No kickers. No runs. For the love of all that is deep-fried and salty, do not draft a kicker before the final round. I don’t care what any big board or draft-day cheat sheet says, there’s nothing more embarrassing than sitting there in the eleventh round, mulling whether to take a wideout or a running back when you hear your buddy say, “I’ll take Stephen Gostkowski.” No! The difference between the best kicker and the twelfth-best kicker over the course of a year is about a point per game. In other words, nothing. One guy in my league doesn’t even draft a kicker. He’ll try and parlay one of his backups in a trade for something better, dump a guy he doesn’t feel terribly confident with right before week 1 and pick up whatever kicker he’s feeling that day. Doesn’t matter. Kickers defy all correlative statistics.

Yeah, this guy just screams tenth-round potential.

As for runs, you’ll get ‘em, especially with tight ends and defenses. Someone’s going to get itchy that the DEF or TE spot on their roster is empty come round eight or nine and pull the trigger on Owen Daniels or the Ravens D. That’s fine for them, but don’t let it dictate what you want to do. If you had your eye on Donald Brown or Steve Breaston in round nine and suddenly defenses are flying off the board, don’t give up your instincts to grab what’s going fast. That’s how you end up buying into hype instead of recognizing your diligent preparations. Most teams will only draft one tight end and one defense. Granted, there are top-tier options at both, but if it’s not important to your team strategy to grab one of those, then relax. There’s plenty of pie to go around.

THE EIGHTH AND FINAL RULE OF FANTASY FOOTBALL CLUB IS: Know your league. This one might be tough if you’ve never played before or if you’re playing with strangers. If you’re fortunate enough to be in a league with friends, play them the same way you would if all of you were sitting at a poker table. Is there a guy that weirdly favors Eli Manning more than he should? By all means, snag the lesser Manning brother as a trade chip. Do you know that your best friend will overplay for Broncos players? Then count on Knowshon Moreno going a round or two higher than most predictions. Not only does knowing your league help ensure your success, it’s a hell of a lot of fun to bust on someone in your league for having to settle on Chad Henne as his starting QB because you blew up his plan to draft Donovan McNabb a few picks before.

If you’re not sure of the tendencies of your leaguemates, you can at least pay attention on draft day. I recommend keeping track of everyone’s team on top of your own. Let’s say you’re drafting eleventh in a twelve-man snake-style draft. You’re trying to figure out whether to take Hines Ward or C.J. Spiller at the bottom of the fifth round. The guy picking right after you (then again to kick off the sixth round) has already drafted his two starting running backs. That helps clarify your decision to take Ward and let Spiller come to you early in the sixth round, knowing there’s almost no chance that other guy is going to draft a third running back before getting another wide receiver.

Keep in mind that not even I, possibly the most sage blognosticator (look it up…wait, don’t) you know, can guarantee success in fantasy football this year. I’m just showing you the way to avoid some of the pitfalls that snag players. I highly recommend you take this advice, roll it around in the dirt with some other advice, chew it up and stick it in your veins. Take the plunge this year in fantasy football and remember, none of this really matters anyway. It’s just a way to pass the time in a more interesting way, right?

“When the fight was over, nothing was solved, but nothing mattered. We all felt saved.”