If you have not yet heard of Fantasy Cares, it’s about time you did. Because they are truly the greatest part of the fantasy football industry and community. They are the driving force behind great events like the Scott Fish Bowl, which generates tens of thousands of dollars for Toys for Tots each year. They bring together all of the best parts of the game we know and love while making an ACTUAL charitable difference. So make sure you are following Fantasy Cares over on Twitter to help support a good cause! 

The Scott Fish Bowl may be their flagship event but one of their best events that is inclusive to everyone just got started this week - the Fantasy Cares Eliminators (or FCEliminators as they will henceforth be known)). And in this article, we’ll give you a better idea of what they leagues entail with a couple of tips to help you win! That way, if you do join one (like mine listed under Coop 2, for instance), you’ll have a vague idea of what you are doing. Though, as you are about to learn, it's hard for anyone to know for sure how to tackle this format!

IMPORTANT UPDATE - In honor of filling over 200 FCEliminator leagues, they have added promo code MOVIES which will be eligible until 8 PM ET on Tuesday, 5/14/24. That gets you into a drawing to win a spot in this year's Scott Fish Bowl!

 

FCEliminator Fantasy Football League

How Do They Work

The FCEliminators are best ball leagues with an additional twist - each week, the lowest scoring team gets eliminated. So you start with 18 teams and that last team standing is crowned champion. Now, depending on which one you enter, there may be additional twists so be sure to check the scoring. But they all have this basic element.

Because of that, you have to make a decision on risk/reward with certain players. Specifically, guys coming off injury or who may get suspended. Yes, you might be able to get a discount on Rashee Rice, T.J. Hockenson, or Daniel Jones. But will you get eliminated before they come back and help you? That is your call to make.

Check The Scoring

Some of the analysts have their own twists for their leagues. Some allow trading. Some are running backs only. Some are even just punters and kickers. When you select a league from the drop-down menu, it should hint at whether it is a “standard” league or if it has additional twists. I say “standard” scoring though because this year the basic scoring for these leagues is anything but “standard” or “basic”.

“Standard” Scoring

Standard is in quotes because the scoring this year is “upside down”, as they are calling it. And the easiest way to sum it up is that it rewards pure chaos. Not only big positive plays, like long touchdowns, but also crazy negative plays. If your QB throws a 40+ yard touchdown, that is five total points. If he throws an interception? You GET four points. It's beautiful nonsense.
Here is a look at the absolutely insane scoring for this year (my second eliminator is now open has the standard scoring but, if we fill that and want to get a little crazy with another, we can!)

Have No Fear

Does that make you nervous? Well, don’t let it. Because it’s all for charity and it’s all for fun. And NO ONE really knows exactly what they are doing. We’re here to give you an idea of how it works, give you a couple tips, and, hopefully, get you involved. At the end of the day though, half the fun is figuring out angles to approach the scoring and how to attack it! 

Luckily for us, there is a little bit of help. For instance, John Byrne (@Byronchenko on X) has taken Mike Clay's projections and updated them for this scoring. If you DM him a copy of your donation reciept to Fantasy Cares he will share those with you. Give him a follow while you're at it for his hard work! I have also taken some time to peruse the scoring and I've got some general tips as well. Here are the positions ranked from most to least valuable with some info on how to play them.

Quarterbacks

It’s not like yards and touchdowns are negative - they are just nerfed. So quarterback is still the top position and good QBs still score a lot of points. But you obviously get extra points for high-risk QBs that have a lot of interceptions or fumbles. Josh Allen should pretty obviously be one of the top QBs, if not QB1, given that info and his play style. Conservative QBs that take care of the football and slow the game down are probably not great here. This is not likely to be a strong format for Russell Wilson, Derek Carr, or even Aaron Rodgers, for instance. Guys like Jared Goff and Kirk Cousins are highly unlikely to get many bonuses for 20+ yard rushes as well...

 

Running Back

Running backs get a little juice compared to wide receivers as you do get 0.125 points per yard vs. 0.1 for wide receivers. You also get three points for long runs of 20+ yards vs. 40+ for receptions (keep both of these in mind for WRs that run the football). Here were the leaders in the 20+ run category last year. I will admit that it would have taken me a LOT of guesses to get the top guy:

There were actually 12 other backs that had five or more rushes of 20-plus yards so a good chunk of the backs out there are converting longer plays with those three point bonuses. Focusing on the guys you believe will create explosive plays is the name of the game.

Tight Ends

It's a “tight end premium” so you get 1.5 points per reception for tight end vs. 0.75 for other positions. And you get a full point for first downs. That will help the volume guys. Based on the projections, the top five tight ends will likely be right there with the top five WRs and the positional scarcity of tight end put them ahead of WR as a priority for me. 

The big play bonuses really only affect the true speed guys as it’s fairly rare for tight ends to have 40+ yard plays. The only players to have three or more 40+ yard plays in one season over the last seven years or so are George Kittle and Chigoziem Okonkwo. I would give a little boost to anyone that runs in the 4.5 range - especially George Kittle, Kyle Pitts, and Evan Engram - but don't go crazy worrying about that bonus.

Wide Receiver

Touchdowns are devalued big time at only two points. But three points for 40+ yard plays brings long, explosive touchdowns back into the mix. First downs are also worth half a point which is going to be crucial in this scoring. We want to be thinking about guys who are not only the focal point of the offense but are high aDot players catching the ball downfield for first downs and big chunks. I bet you can guess who the best player is given that description but last year these were the leaders in 40+ yard receptions (per Pro Football Reference):

Honestly, as we go through some of this scoring, wide receivers aren’t super valuable in this format (which is fine because they get plenty of love in every single other format). Let’s keep looking.

 

Kicker

The kicker haters will need to avert their eyes. As this format is especially friendly for kickers. If you look at Mike Clay projections that John Byrne doctored up, the top kicker based on this format would actually land amongst the top 10 RBs, WRs, and TEs. That's crazy.

How is that possible? The secret is that missed field goals are actually SIX points. The problem? Bad kickers often lose their jobs. For instance, Chad Ryland led last year with 9 missed field goals but the Patriots brought Joey Slye in to compete with him. So we don’t necessarily want to draft based on missed field goals alone. The recipe here might honestly be to just draft kickers early and often. Bonus points for kicker where the team is willing to send them out for long field goals - missing those is often expected but not every kicker gets a chance to attempt them. Matt Gay missed the second most field goals with eight and five of them came on his league-leading thirteen 50+ yard field goals. 

Punter

I’m not going to pretend I can look at these punter-scoring stats and tell you who to draft. But I can tell you two things. First, Punters actually score pretty high in this format - the should land in the RB2/WR2 range.  Second is that, the more you punt, the better. And, keeping with the chaos theme, even blocked punts are good. The Jets, Patriots, Giants, Browns, Panthers, and Broncos led the league in punting last year and it’s pretty obvious what the common theme is there. So, you'll want to lean into bad teams. Which is true for this next position as well.

Coaches

This one is actually nice and straightforward - the worse the coach is, the better. You get 10 points for losses (which should crack your lineup many weeks). And zero points for wins. Vegas is pretty good at predicting which teams will be good and which teams will struggle - the Panthers, Patriots, and Broncos have win totals set at 5.5 while the Commanders, Cardinals, Giants, Titans, and Raiders are all set at 6.5. These guys aren't going to have huge upside so we are talking about last round pick range or so. And then you have to hope that your bad coach doesn’t get fired mid-season.

Defense

DEF operates the same way. You get points when your team gets crushed. You actually LOSE points for good plays. Unless the team gets absolutely blown out with a big yardage total though, there are lot of ways things could go wrong in. The projections actually suggest that a lot of defenses would have scored negative points in this scoring last year. So they really will only crack your lineup a couple of times. So I’m generally avoiding them. If you are drafting them, go for the worst possible defenses and draft them late.

Summary

And there you have it! If you dig into the scoring you may find some additional tips and tricks to help you out and, as I said, that’s half the fun! It’s our job just to bring more attention to these and make some fairly scary-looking scoring a little less scary. Again - it’s all for fun and it’s all for a good cause so that is what matters most! You can sign up over here to play with your favorite fantasy analyst and, if their leagues are already full, you can play in mine!

Once these are all full and started up, if you are looking for information for NORMAL best ball drafts, we have just the thing. Our 2024 Fantasy Alarm Best Ball Cheat Sheet is up and running with rankings, targets, sleepers, rookies, and busts. And it will be updated all summer long so you can continue to take advantage over the next few months and win more money for Fantasy Cares charity leagues next season!