Alright football fanatics, we know you all have your office fantasy games ready to go, and you are checking stats like made hoping to walk away with the all-so-coveted parking spot that the winner walks away with. There are a bunch of magazine out there that aim to help you decide what you should do with your fantasy teams. Rather than have you go out and buy them all, hoping to walk away with victory, End Score reader Ben VanWinkle decided he would buy them, read them, and tell us what he liked - and didn’t like - about the publication. First up - Athlon Sports Grogan’s Fantasy Football Analyst.

It’s Fantasy Football draft time again and players everywhere are scrambling for the advice that will give them the edge in their league.  Consumers have dozens of magazines to choose from – but which is the best?  And more importantly which publication is right for your particular needs?

This series of article reviews several magazines on store shelves right now to help you decide.  I’ll dissect each and describe its contents and unique features and advise on the kind of reader who might benefit most from it.  I’ll let you know my impression of it – do I think it’s worth buying?  Next January I’ll take another look at each and let you know how accurate they were in their forecasting.

Just in case it’s a factor in your decision to buy I’ve counted up the number of ads featuring scantily clad women and included that information in the header section of each review.  Maybe that’s something you want to avoid—or maybe it’s a feature for you – either way the information is here.

Athlon Sports Grogan’s Fantasy Football Analyst
http://www.grogansports.com
Edited by: Charlie Miller, Dan Grogan, Kelly Grogan
$6.99 US, 176 pages, three sexy ads.  Cover features Steve Smith.

This magazine features massive cheat sheets (200 players on the overall list) and brief, easily digested descriptions of each.  It opens with draft day strategies for leagues of different sizes and surveys of each position by tier (no tiers in the player descriptions though – you’ll have to take notes.)  It’s clearly intended to be used primarily as a draft day tool.  (Oddly it doesn’t include auction price suggestions – just serpentine draft listings.)

Features include a debunking of fantasy drafting myths (for instance third year players don’t play better, on average than others) and an analysis of how rookies, transitional players and coach changes will impact their teams – new and old.  Last year’s issue is reviewed for accurate and inaccurate predictions.

I love the inclusion of an Expert Poll section (that’s a huge winner of a concept for me) and the associated mock s-draft.  Grogan’s provides a survey of expert opinions on the top players by position, then calculates the consensus and ranks them in that order.  Then the experts explain their decisions.

Of course it includes sleepers and busts—sleepers are ranked by tier to give you an idea of where they should be picked.  A Q&A section features sports writers from across the nation weighing in on their local teams.  The coverage of teams is light – just a couple paragraphs of notes and some charts.

This is a superior Fantasy Football magazine for players who are familiar with the basics and are mostly looking for advice on draft day.  It’s less useful to an absolute beginner (who will want more information on how the game is played) or aspiring commissioner (there’s nothing here on how to set up, score and schedule a League) or to a player looking for advice on managing his or her team throughout the year.  (There’s little here on analyzing the schedule for advantageous matchups, for instance – just a chart in each team’s description section.)  But as a draft day tool – for an s-draft only—it’s recommended.