Fantasy Football Insider: What if there isn’t Free Agency

Those who like to play fantasy football and are into it heavily enjoy taking time out to watch what happens in free agency. Players move from team to team and can either move into a good situation or into a bad one. What happens when your favorite fantasy player moves from one team to another? There are a lot of things to consider.

You have to consider the situation that the player is going into. If it’s a wide receiver, does the player’s new team pass the ball a lot? Do they have a good quarterback? Imagine taking Reggie Wayne out of Indianapolis and putting him somewhere like Oakland. His fantasy value could easily go down because of the quarterback situation in Oakland.

But right now, we are dealing with the fact that there is no free agency thanks to the lack of an agreement between the NFL’s owners and its players. Will there be free agency this year or is it not going to happen? Let’s see what not having free agency would do to your fantasy team in 2011 and what effect it might have on the quality of play both in the NFL and in fantasy football.

Free agency is such an important part of a team’s rebuilding that it has become a pretty important event for teams. Just look at what the Bear’s did last season. They managed to get one of the top pass rushers in Julius Peppers and it made a big difference for them on defense. They were able to get some pressure on the passer and their defense stepped up and helped lead them to the NFC Championship.

Sometimes one player can make all the difference or even just a few guys in a few of the right places can make things better. Free agency works very well for some teams and can help them get to the next level and that’s either out the basement or into the playoffs while for others it can be detrimental.

Fantasy owners keep track of which players are going where and how it is felt that the player will affect the team’s performance and how it’s going to affect the player’s performance. Guys who were previously very productive could win up in unproductive situations and their value could plummet causing them to fall far in fantasy drafts.

If there is no free agency then there will be extremely limited player movement meaning that your favorite fantasy prospects (and those that would have been free agents this season) are going to stay right where they were last year (depending on how the new contract comes out). This could be good or bad depending on who your player is and what team they are on.

No free agency may make it much easier for fantasy football players to do their research much better and in a much shorter time because there are fewer moves to track. But, if there are those out there that were crossing their fingers in hopes that their favorite fantasy player may end up going to a better team and a better situation, you may have to wait a while.

So fantasy football fans should be wary of what happens if there is no free agency this off season. You may want to move away from some of your favorite fantasy prospects (those guys that are stuck on the same team as they were last year and failed to produce adequate numbers) and look for other guys that you feel may have productive seasons. It may be a little more difficult but in the end it will pay off.