Does your fantasy football team have personality? It should. If it doesn’t possess one or it holds the wrong personality then it is doomed to fail.

You must be wondering, "what in the blazers is he talking about? Has he completely lost his mind? I mean a fantasy football team consists of a bunch of names, a pad of paper, some raw numbers, and a spreadsheet. This isn’t a living breathing organism. It’s a list of football players. How can a data base of names own any personality, let alone the right or wrong one?"

The simple truth is if your fantasy team does not "smile with personality"…. then it won’t have that winning touch.

Last month in my article entitled "Gaining a Mental Edge" I discussed how your fantasy team was doomed to fail if it was comprised of players you didn’t truly believe in. My premise was that if you were unsure of certain selections from the beginning how could your team possibly survive the long roller coaster ride of a seventeen game campaign? I warned it would be difficult to be unemotional and level-headed with a team made up of someone else’s picks.

Unfortunately, there are many different avenues to travel that will lead you into committing other serious errors in fantasy sports. Not surprisingly, you don’t require xyzfootball.com, Joe the Expert, or Football Inside Magazine to help uncover some of these pitfalls. You can find quick sand all by yourself. One little mentioned trap involves whether your team possesses that one necessary ingredient sung about by Lloyd Price in his number one hit in 1959…

Does your team "walk with personality?…talk with personality?…charm with personality?"…

What I mean is this: Start the process by evaluating what type of person you are. Are you a Bill Cowher type who is highly emotional and volatile? Do your weeks during the season fluctuate between an "I am going all the way" high to a nothing ever goes right for me" low. Or are you more like cool calm former Vikings coach Bud Grant who was bothered by nothing? During the sixties and seventies it was often difficult to tell by Grant’s demeanor whether his team won or lost on any Sunday.

You must accurately and honestly determine your personality in order to be consistently successful in fantasy football. Without doing this you will be left with players on your team who do not fit your style….your personality. This variable is not often considered when selecting teams, but ignoring it may be a critical mistake and often is a reason for a disappointing season.

A perfect example is the Antonio Freeman vs. Randy Moss debate. As we move closer to the 1999 season every "so-called "expert" seems to have an opinion on which of these two is today’s premier fantasy receiver, but not one has offered the single most compelling reason for choosing one or the other. That primary consideration, simply stated, is which of the two best fits your own personality.

Randy Moss had four games last year where he caught passes for under 40 yards. That means for twenty five percent of last season the top receiver in the game nearly gave you a blank in yardage. More amazingly, in a consecutive four game stretch during mid season he averaged a mere thirty four yards a game. Moss is not the receiver you’d want if you have the patience of Cosmos Kramer.

Antonio Freeman, on the other hand, had no games where he gained less than forty yards. He had one subpar stretch during the season where he averaged 56 yards per over three games, but it took a broken jaw to lower him to those numbers. Freeman was about as consistent as one could be during a 1424 yard sixteen game season (he missed one because of the jaw). Despite averaging 89 yards per contest he had only two outings where he gained over 110 yards. His performances were steady, with few highs or lows.

It is obvious that regardless of how this year unfolds, the preseason solution to the Freeman vs. Moss debate is solved from within. Who is the best fit for you? In other words, with your personality can you commit to Moss? Will you be able to play him week after week, through the ups and downs, without having him emotionally kill you? Will Moss’s play and situation (remember he’s required to share his yards with Carter, Reed, and others) upset you to the point where he damages your ability to rationally make other decisions concerning the squad? Is it possible that his volatility will effect your outlook on your team over the long run.

Or is Freeman’s steadiness better suited for you? The easy answer may appear to be "yes" but consider how it will feel to be forced to sit and quietly accept the weeks when Moss explodes for unbelievable yardage. Will that mentally drain you? If you are behind in receiving, will it feel like you have little chance of catching up with Freeman’s slow, but steady pace? In essence, you need to ask yourself, "as a fantasy manager is my personality better designed for the role of a rooted homebody or am I more comfortable being the riverboat gambler?"

The question of which player fits your personality, of course, does not begin or end with Moss and Freeman. If injuries drive you nuts, don’t take Terry Glenn, Issac Bruce, Robert Smith, Brad Johnson, Michael Westbrook, or Jermaine Lewis. If platooning bothers you, don’t consider Warrick Dunn, JJ Stokes, Doug Flutie, or any Miami Dolphin running back. If seeing your running back’s team consistently fall behind early in games (limiting your RB’s carries) annoys, then just say "no" to Corey Dillon, Ricky Williams, Duce Staley or Marshall Faulk.

Knowing who you are and fitting your team together based on that understanding will take you a long way in fantasy sports. It may not win your league’s championship, but if that long spreadsheet of names, numbers, and calculations is in tune with you, perhaps the team will feel like it talks, smiles, and charms with personality and seem like it has heart.

Todd Finestone is a staff writer for Fantasy Football Mastermind. His monthly column "FINE STUFF" can be found at several different fantasy football related sites on the Internet. Please click HERE to offer a "Thumbs Up" or "Thumbs Down" on this article. Thank you for taking the time to offer your valuable opinion.