Most of the major fantasy football sites open their doors for the upcoming season when the calendar turns over into the month of June.

Now two weeks into the first summer month of the year, the great flood of fantasy football has begun.

It is a calming bath after a long few months of limited football action. Free agency and the NFL Draft do their best to keep rabid football fans appeased, but nothing calms the masses like the thrill of the impending season.

With training camps set to open just over a month from now, football fans are coming to life all across the country. Some have already signed up for fantasy leagues while others patiently wait to reach critical mass for a new league.

Those who have waited to sign up should be lauded for their patience. A little extra research never hurt anybody. So before fantasy owners blindly enter into a season-long contract with an online fantasy football service provider, make sure to get your facts straight.

Yahoo! Fantasy Football

Yahoo! has one of the more fun and likeable fantasy sports interfaces around. The site is well designed, has plenty of innovative functionality – the drag-and-drop feature is absolutely fantastic for team management – and is well stocked with goodies.

There have been drawbacks in the past however. For one, the main reason I switched my main league over from Yahoo! last season was because of the limited waiver wire options available in the free version of their fantasy football service. Apparently, though, Yahoo! is expanding the settings for free leagues this year so this may no longer be a problem for fantasy owners.

The other downside in the past was that fantasy owners had to pay for free live scoring. But the price — $10 – is not too steep and carries over to all of an owners leagues through Yahoo!. While it would be nice to have live scoring for free, the price and flexibility are not entirely debilitating.

Fleaflicker

My personal favorite of the lot. Fleaflicker is highly customizable – no more restricted waiver wire rules – with free live scoring. It may not have all the flash-and-dash of some of the other sites, but what it lacks in aesthetics it makes up for in functionality and customization.

Despite being lesser known and altogether smaller than some of the power sites, Fleaflicker is well run with very little down time. No more server errors trying to make a last minute substitution on game day or site crashing during high volume traffic hours of the week. The site’s reliability alone makes it a much better choice than at least one of the major sports’ sites on the web – FoxSports.com – which has had its share of problems in the past.

The drawback to FleaFlicker is the look-and-feel of the site. It is more mundane with less features (drag-and-drop would be much nicer than the current drop-down box system) than Yahoo!, for example. Sorting through players on the waiver wire can be a hassle as well and could use an upgrade in ease-of-use.

Jacob from Fantasy Football Fools agreed.

“I just tried Fleaflicker this past season, and it’s growing on me,” he said. “If the interface was upgraded a bit to eliminate all those drop-down menus and if the waiver wire management was consolidated to one screen so that it is easier to find and edit, it’d be a little easier to use.”

My Fantasy League

By far the site with the most support among the fantasy experts polled for this story is My Fantasy League. Honestly, I have never used MFL  for any of my leagues but it sounds like a winner to me.

The writers/editors from Pancake Blocks, Fantasy Football Librarian, Bruno Boys and Fantasy Football Xtreme all threw support behind MFL.

“MyFantasyLeague.com is a solid league management site,” said Smitty from Fantasy Football Xtreme. “Most all of the expert leagues in the business are using MFL to run their expert leagues, so clearly it’s one of the better league management sites around. You can completely customize everything, unlike some league management sites out there.”

If it is good enough for the fantasy football experts, it should be good enough for all fantasy owners. MFL is definitely worth a look this season.

ESPN Fantasy Football

Never used it, not sure if I ever will. Nothing against the WWL’s inquest into the world of fantasy sports, because I am sure they put on a good show – that is, after all, what ESPN does best.

Jacob from Fantasy Football Fools said he has been impressed with ESPN’s services after several of his leagues moved to the site.

“The trading and waiver wire management is more visual and less confusing for new members than it is on other sites, and ESPN’s live scoring is one of the best-looking and most reliable that I have seen,” he said. “Being able to access my team and watch live scoring on ESPN’s mobile site from my phone was the big seller for me this past season.”

I think we all have seen the ESPN mobile commercials by now, so this does seem like their “thing.” And if it is easy to use and does not cost the user a whole lot of dough, it makes a lot of sense. Using ESPN’s mobile features, fantasy owners can feel more comfortable straying from the confines of the computer desk every Sunday. But only for a little while because who wants to miss the live Sunday action?!?

CBSSports.com Fantasy Football

Smitty from Fantasy Football Xtreme threw some love to CBS as the second-best fantasy service available on the web.

“I’d probably rank CBSSportsline second to only MyFantasyLeague.com when it comes to league management sites,” he said. “CBSSportsline.com is probably the best league management sites out there when it comes to player pages, profile pages and look/feel.”

Though I have never used the service, I have heard good things. At least two of the major NFL networks – CBS and ESPN – can put on a decent fantasy football service. And yes, FoxSports, that is another shot at you.

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