ESPN appears to have revamped its fantasy football website significantly, and I like what I see. I’m moving my keeper league over from Fox Sports, a hassle I’m only undertaking because I’m so impressed. The layout is simple and easy on the eyes; the only comparably clean site out there is Yahoo’s, which I refuse to use because of the inflexibility of its waiver wire system.

ESPN has clearly put a good deal of thought into how fantasy football players use their site. The best websites work so well that you don’t have to think about them – the next thing you’re looking to do is always right there waiting for you. This is the feeling I get on ESPN.com. While I liked Fox Sports because it offered all the features I need, moving from that cluttered, clunky interface to ESPN is like taking a breath of fresh air.ESPN also offers a couple of features I’ve never seen before and can already tell I’ll like:

  • Trophies: The commish can design trophies and award them for any reason at any time. Each has a value from -5 to 5, so some trophies are kind of like funny reprimands for bad or stupid behavior, while others signify that the commish noticed that you did something good. So far the trophies I’ll be handing out this season include Smart Move of the Week (+1), Bad Beat of the Week (+2, for getting a very high score but losing to an even higher one), Dumbass Move of the Week (-1), and Gigantic Whiner Award (-3).
  • Threaded conversations: Finally, a message board that makes sense. If you reply to a post, your reply is grouped with the post you replied to. So simple, so obvious… but rarely implemented.
  • Whatever you want to call this spiffiness:

Screenshot040

I love this thing. Anywhere a player’s name appears throughout the site, you can click and bring up a little AJAX window with info on the player and the latest news about him. Really, really cool.

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