NFL fans reveal top site picks
By Marc Saltzman
Gannett News Service
NFL fans are huddling online, where they can chat, check the latest news and stats, and participate in fantasy leagues.
"I consider the Internet the world's biggest tailgate party," said Samuel Forrester, a Miami mechanic who spends time chatting with other Dolphins fans on Yahoo! Chat (chat.yahoo.com). "Personally, my favorite NFL site of all is KFFL — it's a bookmark — must for fantasy football fans."
Online since 1996, KFFL (www.kffl.com) provides news and player rankings for people who participate in online fantasy football leagues. These popular games — some of them hosted by KFFL — let fans have a shot at managing their own NFL team.
The "NFL Internet Network" at www.NFL.com is one of the most visited pro football Web sites, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings, which tracks Web site traffic.
Owned by the NFL, this site serves up league news, player information, links to team pages and other topics, including a team ticket directory to reach any of the league's 32 ticket offices, an official NFL Shop to buy all kinds of merchandise (including personalized jerseys) and a substantial media section to watch or listen to past games and highlights.
As comprehensive as the league-sanctioned NFL.com is, New York City college student Enrique Garcia said, "the only site you need is The Redzone because it has the most links, sources and forums than any other site."
The site (theredzone.org) provides team-by-team headline links to pre- and post-game coverage on the Web sites of dozens of newspaper and broadcast outlets.
"I'd much rather read news and analyses from the team's hometown than from a general overview found on NFL.com," Garcia said.
Now in its sixth season, ESPN's fantasy football game, "Gridiron Challenge 2002" (games.espn.go.com/gridiron), is another popular diversion. Participants can track their players, teams and other actions on wireless devices, including cell phones, personal digital assistants and pagers such as the RIM Blackberry.
ESPN also has a Spanish-language version of its NFL site at espndeportes.espn.go.com/futbolamericano.
If you're tired of tracking stats in an attempt to pick the winners of next week's games, check out Microsoft's site for the Xbox game "NFL Fever 2003."
The site attempts to predict the winner of the upcoming week's "Monday Night Football" game by playing it out in advance on the video game console. The site includes a simulated highlight reel, game summary and statistics that are posted Fridays at xbox.com and nflfever2003.com.
Last season, the artificial intelligence from "NFL Fever" correctly predicted the Super Bowl XXXVI score (Patriots 20, Rams 17), the winner of all five NFC playoff games and the outcomes of 17 of 25 games.
