“When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter.” – Phil Conners

No, this isn’t a lesson in great American literature of the 20th century. Movie buffs will remember Phil Conners, the cantankerous weatherman played by Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day. His well-documented escapades in Punxsutawney, PA were the centerpiece of the 1993 classic and actually provide a fantastic lead-in to this article for fantasy football junkies here on February 2nd.

It doesn’t matter whether the world’s most famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, sees his shadow or not. We’re still getting 10 more weeks of fantasy football!

Welcome to The Alliance!

For those wondering what’s going on, allow me to officially welcome you to Fantasy Alarm’s coverage of the Alliance of American Football. Never heard of it? Well then you’re in for a real treat, especially if you’re struggling with accepting the end of the NFL season and fear a lengthy time away from setting weekly lineups, making trades and smack-talking your family, friends and co-workers

Founded by TV and film producer Charlie Ebersol and Hall of Famer Bill Polian, The Alliance features eight teams, under a single entity structure, playing a 12-week season (10 regular season games with two weeks of playoffs) kicking-off February 9 and culminating with the championship game the weekend of April 26-28, 2019. Led by some of the most respected football minds in the game, The Alliance of American Football is high-quality professional football fueled by a dynamic Alliance between players, fans and the game.

What better way to fill the fantasy football void than to celebrate the birth of The Alliance with a fantasy league?

The Fantasy Alarm Alliance Invitational is a 12-team, two-conference fantasy football league that will run a seven-week regular season with a three-week playoff run. Due to The Alliance consisting of just eight teams, a standard 12-team fantasy league is not possible, so we created two independent, six-team leagues we’re calling conferences and each conference has its own separate draft.

Every team will play one in-conference and one out-of-conference game each week of the regular season with four teams from each conference making their respective playoffs. After the two conference champions are crowned in Week 9, they will then meet in the grand finale, The Alarm Bowl, in Week 10, the final regular season games for The Alliance.

With no official web site to house the league, we’re going old school here with spreadsheet drafts and all scoring and FAAB being calculated by hand. The league will be covered with a weekly piece here on Fantasy Alarm, complete with weekly scores, free agent updates and standings.

Sounds amazing, doesn’t it?

It is.

The two drafts took place this past Friday, February 1 and they were nothing short of spectacular.

Full disclosure, we were all sort of flying blind here. While all teams in The Alliance pared down their rosters to the maximum allowance of 52 players, we were not afforded depth charts nor did we have the bevy of information normally available to fantasy players. All we had to work with were the rosters on The Alliance’s web site and a faux-ADP article they published to, at the least, give us some semblance of player rankings.

Think about the very first time you played in a fantasy league. That’s how we felt, or at least I did. I don’t want to speak for everyone but as a 20-year veteran of the fantasy industry, I was very much a noob in this draft. I’m sure I wasn’t alone, though, as the draft room was seemingly filled with owls as the cries of “Who?” were abundant whenever someone entered a pick. And while we know the coaches and several names of former NFL players now competing in this league, overall, we as fantasy players all took numerous leaps of faith with our selections.  To say we are eagerly awaiting additional team reports and depth charts prior to our first run of waivers would be an understatement.

Below you will find a list of the invited players, the draft boards and a list of everyone’s rosters. We truly hope you enjoy the inaugural season of the Fantasy Alarm Alliance Invitational. We can’t wait for the first kickoff!

The Fantasy Alarm Alliance Invitational

Scoring: Standard

Starting Rosters: 1 QB, 1 RB, 1 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex (R/W/T), 1 K, 1 DEF

Bench: 6 players

Waivers: FAAB bidding (processes every Wednesday night)

The American Conference

The Players (in draft order):

  1. Andrew Korbul – Member of #FANation
  2. Mike Stencel – Member of #FANation
  3. Sandro Anello – Producer at SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio
  4. Smiffy – Co-host of The Shipyard Podcast (SD Fleet)
  5. Jeff Gasiorowski – Winner of the Fantasy Alarm Listener League (football)
  6. Stephanie Gregory – Member of #FaNation

The Draft Board:

Official Team Rosters:

The National Conference

The Players (in draft order):

  1. Cheyanne Bailey – Member of #FANation
  2. Joe VanDalsem – Co-host of The Shipyard Podcast (SD Fleet)
  3. Eric Rodaman – Member of #FANation
  4. Howard Bender/Jim Bowden – Hosts of the Fantasy Alarm Show on SiriusXM
  5. Trevor Windham – Member of #FaNation
  6. Justin Fensterman – Host/Producer at SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio

The Draft Board:

Official Rosters:  

Tune in all this week as the Fantasy Alarm Show welcomes in the participants of the league to discuss The Alliance and their fantasy teams!

Fantasy Football, baby!!! We still got it!