Finally. Opening weekend is almost here. A long summer of preparation is about to pay off (for some of us, at least). The magazines have all been published, the web site cheatsheets are up-to-date, and the expert drafts have all been run.

Ah yes, the experts. Those wise men who are kind enough to share their knowledge with the uneducated. The scholars who, after a lifetime of study, have cracked the fantasy football enigma code and descended from the mountain top to enlighten the unwashed.

Or at least, the guys who used to room with some dude who made his own football site.

Actually, many of these experts are pretty smart, and they do help schleps like me to do better than we probably deserve to. Those who are at the top of the game (including the folks at this site) are invaluable.

For the rest of the self-appointed experts at our favorite magazines and web sites... well, since you've spent the better part of the summer offering your advice to us, let's return the favor. Here is some advice to the experts, from the mouth-breathing masses of the fantasy football world.

Don't get too clever
Despite what most of us assume, being a fantasy football expert is not a 24-hour-a-day parade of acclaim, glory and bikini babes. At some point during the day, the expert has to sit down in front of his computer and actually write something. And that can get boring.

So we understand that you experts can get a little distracted while working your way through your 451 player profiles (or, as they're called on the magazine covers, 450+ Player Profiles!). And it can be tempting to break the monotony by showing us how witty you can be.

Please resist that urge. When it's draft day, and we're desperately flipping through your magazine to find out about some deep sleeper, we need information. Not comedy, but cold, hard facts, served up with a side of opinion. When the clock is ticking and we're calling an audible at the line, it can be the difference between a great pick and a clunker.

So please, we know you're the next Letterman, but don't let the knee-slappers overrun of the player profiles.

We need to know your scoring system
Your rankings don't help us if we don't know how you arrived at them. That means we need to know what scoring system you based everything on (as well as roster requirements and other rules). It sounds simple, but some sites and magazines still don't reveal this crucial information.

Why? Maybe you forgot. Maybe you didn't think it was important. Or maybe, just maybe, you didn't have a scoring system in mind when you drew up your rankings in the first place.

Nothing says "amateur hour" like a set of rankings that don't seem to be based on any sort of structured scoring system. If that's the case, don't expect your readers to put much faith in them.

Please use something resembling standard rules and scoring
Yes, I know that there's no such thing as a standard scoring system in fantasy football. Some leagues give four points for a passing TD, some give six. Some leagues award big plays, some don't. Some leagues give a point for receptions, some don't. Add in various starting lineup configurations, and no two leagues are quite alike.

But please, experts, at least try to stay in the same general ballpark as the rest of us. When you start getting fancy, you destroy the value of your cheatsheets/mock drafts, because you're playing by rules that nobody else uses. Stay away from giving two points per TE reception, using three flex positions, starting two kickers, etc. One major magazine even based its ratings on a bizarre system where TEs were mandatory in some weeks but not others. Enough!

A rule of thumb: If your mock drafts include the phrase "I'd never make this pick in a normal league, but...", then it won't be worth much to your readers.

We know you're smarter than us, and we know you've probably designed the perfect fantasy football rules and scoring system that would no doubt catch on and rule the world if only people would try it. But in the meantime, the rest of us are still using traditional systems. You should be too.

Enough with the "Survivor" drafts, already!
Look, we understand why experts love survivor drafts. They're reasonably easy to set up, fun to draft, and require essentially no maintenance after draft day. No trades to make, no rosters to shuffle, no waiver wires to scour. The expert need only show up for the draft, make their picks, and then check in at the end of the year to see how they did.

Here's the problem: other than the experts, virtually nobody actually plays in survivor-style leagues. The rest of the world is busy with head-to-head leagues, with frequent trading, waiver wire pickups and roster changes. And that changes everything.

So please, if you're going to do an expert draft, please be kind enough to at least pretend that you're using a head-to-head format, with regular season and playoffs. You know, like your customers do.

Finally: Thank you, and keep up the good work
We know you're not perfect. Most of you are not even close to perfect. Many of you are downright annoying. But you're all doing your part to make fantasy football community a better place, and for that we thank you. Especially those of you who put in the long hours and get little recognition - we know that not many people are getting rich off of this business, but we appreciate the efforts. So on behalf of all fantasy football players around the world: Thank you. You make our world a better place.

(And besides, we get a warm fuzzy feeling when we realize we're smarter than you.)