Football Preview Review - Fox Sports

Over the next few weeks, the people who bring you the People's Pigskin will try to get you prepared for fantasy football season (that's football, not futbol) by taking a peek at one of the most critical items in your preparation efforts: the fantasy football preview magazines. Today we continue our series with an offering from the people who brought you this.

Fox Sports Fantasy 2010 Fantasy Football

Vital stats: $4.95 price, 98 pages, 302 offensive player reviews (no individual defensive players) and no tearout sheets.

Top 10 picks: Fox decided to base its predictions on a 12-team league conducting a 16-team draft. However, for those of you playing in a 10-team league, Fox recommends drafting Chris Johnson, Adrian Peterson, Maurice Jones-Drew, Ray Rice, Michael Turner, Steven Jackson, Frank Gore, Andre Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald and Reggie Wayne.

Intriguing nugget: The minions of News Corp. should get credit for breaking down the typical weekly schedule of those concerned about a player's injury. Crunch time starts on Thursday, according to this magazine. ("Two practices [missed] in a row? Time to worry.") However, Friday is the time to pull the trigger on any roster changes, since, "if a player doesn't practice Friday, he often doesn't play Sunday. With some teams," practicing the Friday before a game is "almost a requirement."

Head scratcher: Since these things are usually collaborative efforts, it is quite common for a fantasy preview to obey a rule in one section and disregard it in another. However, one would expect a magazine to be consistent enough in its advice it offers that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing on a single page.

The first page of Fox's "Draft Day Cheat Sheet" has a list of do's and don'ts for drafting. One of the do's: "Draft a top RB in the first round." However, the first page also has a list of "recommended position selections (rounds 1-6) based on team order and round." Again, the advice assumes that you have a 12-team league and a 16-round draft. How many of the 12 teams does this list say should draft a running back first? Seven.

Another of the do's: "Pick a quarterback in the second round." How many teams does this list say should draft a quarterback in that round? Three. (To be fair, that list also said one team should take a quarterback in the first round.)

Kicker rule obeyed? Nope. In a mock draft of 12 "experts," four participants picked a kicker in the 15th round. And this preview doesn't believe in the "don't draft a kicker until the final round" rule anyway. Its advice on the position: "Hardly any of them are worth a pick earlier than the 15th round."

Survey says: One bonus feature of this magazine is a survey of Fox Sports and Scout.com contributors on a variety of critical questions. We learn such valuable things as who has the hottest cheerleaders (the Dallas Cowboys) and who is the league's most hated team (the Cowboys again; maybe everyone's jealous of the cheerleaders).

One more thing: Instead of spending the time, energy and ink breaking down every possible offensive contributor for every National Football League team, the folks at Fox Sports assembled team previews from local Web sites such as PatriotsInsider.com and BucsBlitz.com.

All the local experts offered answers to questions like who will be this year's "fantasy stud" and which game has earned the label "must win." Thirty-one of the 32 experts also offered a pick for "Best Sports Bar." The one who didn't: the Cleveland Browns expert. Maybe it's because the Warsaw closed down.

We'll be back with our fearless predictions.