Welcome to Fantasy Alarm’s coverage of the 2020 XFL season! I wish I could say this was the inaugural year for the Xtreme Football League, but it’s not, and we all know how it ended up for the original league. I fondly remember going to an Orlando Rage playoff game nearly 20 years ago, and for an 11-year-old it was an amazing experience. But looking back, the product was awful. However, one can only assume Vince McMahon has learned from his mistakes to deliver a far different product this time around. Gone is the sex appeal that made Matt Vasgersian openly uncomfortable during the XFL’s first game, and in its place come new rules and scoring methods to differentiate from the National Football League.

As you’ve already seen in the preseason coverage, Ryan Hallam broke down the rules and the coaches to further explain scoring changes with this new league, while also informing us of what to expect from each of the eight teams on offense. The league is designed for higher levels of scoring, but is the talent good enough to reach such expectations?

On Monday, January 27th, the XFL announced it’s 52-man rosters ahead of the February 8th season opener. More recently, the XFL Depth Charts have been updated following the end of training camp in Houston, but there’s still room for trades and acquisitions with just over a week to go before the season kicks off. The Depth charts will be kept up-to-date through the regular season.

If you’re looking to join a fantasy XFL league, you may have to do it the old fashion way by calculating scores in a spreadsheet. If that’s a little too much work on your end, currently Alternative Fantasy Sports is offering online fantasy leagues so get yours set up today! Mind you, with only eight active teams, the player pool is thinner compared to the NFL.

Prior to your league’s draft we will have Pre-Season Rankings breaking down the top quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, defenses/special teams, and kickers. Yes… even Kickers.

During the season, Ryan Hallam will have you covered with a weekly Waiver Wire column highlighting the best free agent acquisitions to better your team. As usual, “stud” running backs and wide receivers will be a premium, but so will quarterbacks considering this is a shallow league. Only eight will be starting each week and there are some quarterback competitions still taking shapeand jobs could change in-season, especially as we enter the first week with Aaron Murray currently injured.

Speaking of injuries, we’ll have a weekly Injury Report from yours truly. It’ll touch on the biggest injuries from around the league that impact the most fantasy-relevant players. However, the offensive lines can impact the running backs and if you do play in a league with D/ST’s it’ll touch on some of the key players on the other side of the ball that are battling through pain. The Injury Reports will touch on the status of the injury, timetable for return, as well as their practice pattern leading up to every weekend.

And lastly, we’ll be offering DFS content as well. Ryan Hallam and I will rotate each week covering the Playbook and Example Lineups.  With only eight teams, the weekly four-game slates cater more towards GPP contests, but we’ll cover cash game plays as well despite the overlay. DraftKings has confirmed that they will be providing DFS contests for those of us that need to get our DFS football fix and our Playbook and Podcast will get you prepared each week. Yes, Ryan and I will be recording a weekly podcast previewing that week’s slate of games, and some of our favorite DFS plays. The podcasts will drop either Thursday or Friday with the Playbook dropping Friday afternoon/evening with the Example Lineups coming Saturday morning before the weekend slate locks. Weeks 9 and 10 feature a Thursday night game, and we’ll adjust the DFS content scheduling accordingly for those weeks as they draw closer.

It’s a brief ten-week season with an additional two weeks designated for a four-team playoff. Similar to 2019, we’ve been gifted with additional football, but this time it comes in a league with better funding behind it. It remains to be seen if this XFL suffers a similar fate to its predecessor, but we’re excited for the prospects of another football league and can’t wait to ride it out with you, the FANation!