Ask Your Fantasy Football Expert: Alessandro Miglio

"Beware of preseason hype, though, it is much safer to take a proven commodity than a rookie who has a couple of good preseason games."

Find previous Ask Your Fantasy Expert interviews.

My interview this week is with Alessandro Miglio of the up-and-coming site Pro Football Focus. He puts the numbers into context to help readers pick the fantasy team of their dreams. Plus he's your man for office holiday parties.

All fantasy writers name-dropped will get a link to their Twitter feed. We'll keep with the theme of my questions/comments in Titan blue and Alex's in non-blue.

How did you get into fantasy football writing?

Great question, I have no idea! In all seriousness, a little over a year ago I had no serious designs on becoming a fantasy sports writer – mainly because I did not know where I could get my foot in the door, but also because it was something I had not put any serious thought into. Pro Football Focus gave me that chance. As my story below shows, if anyone is serious about wanting to write for fantasy football, Twitter is a fantastic way to make connections and get opportunities.

How did you get started with PFF?

I started following Pro Football Focus’s Twitter feed sometime during the 2010 offseason, and shortly after that I saw a tweet about a writing opportunity. I enjoy writing and fantasy football, so I inquired. Mike Clay, the managing editor of the fantasy side, gave me a shot and I took full advantage. It has been a year since I started writing for PFF, and I count myself fortunate.

How'd you come up with the idea for your recent Draft Steals and White Elephants article? And what exactly do you have against elephants?

As I completed mock draft after mock draft, a picture of draft day steals formed in my mind, and of course the opposite. The funny thing about this article is that it only took me a couple of hours from inception to completion – it was one of those kinds of articles that gets lodged in your mind and will not leave until you finish writing. I burned right through it! As for the elephant… sometimes I leave the metaphor at the door, but the white elephant one felt like it fit quite nicely. If you have ever spent time with an elephant – especially a white one – you know they are jerks.

Tell me about DolphinsBlog.com, and how you stay a true believer when the Dolphins have treated you poorly as a fan recently?

That gives me a good chuckle – it has been a pretty difficult decade, hasn’t it? I have been a Dolphins fan ever since I can remember, growing up with Dan Marino slinging the ball just about until I got to college. A series of unfortunate decisions and some bad luck have made the post-Marino era difficult to watch, but every team goes through that. The Patriots and Jets – both of which have added to the misery – have been laughingstocks in the past, and they will be again someday. I am a diehard; Miami will be back.

DolphinsBlog.com is something that I fell into as a direct result of my work with PFF. Without PFF, I would not have a football Twitter account, and thus I would not have met Chris Hansen – he manages the blog network. Through the power of Twitter my Dolphins fandom was made known, and Chris eventually asked me if I would manage the site. It has been quite the experience for me.

Where do you live?

Beautiful Northern California via Miami and New York City. Hard to beat.

Tell me about your day job.

I work at as a control systems programmer. Basically speaking, I am in charge of making sure the technology in classroom spaces is controlled and monitored properly.

Do you have long-term goals with your fantasy football writing?

It would be great to help PFF Fantasy grow into something big. They helped me spread my wings, and I feel like the site has some serious potential. Long-term aspirations for a fantasy football writer are tricky – the reality is that the odds of hitting the jackpot as a fantasy writer are about as good as the odds of hitting a jackpot. For now, I enjoy the work and will take things as they come In the future.

How do you deal, as an in-demand fantasy expert, with all the league requests? Do you have a limit on leagues?

There is definitely a limit. Last year I was actually only in a few serious leagues because I did not want to bog myself down with the new writing gig. This year I have been invited to a lot of leagues that I have had to politely turn down. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the invitations, but I would be doing myself and my fellow leaguemates a disservice if I was in too many leagues. Plus I can only win so much before it starts to get boring.

The spouse question: Does your wife/gf/sig other have any issues with your obsession?

My lovely wife is a good sport about all this. She is a football fan (a Patriots fan married to a Dolphins fan, can you believe it?), and she has participated in fantasy football leagues in the past, so my obsession is not something entirely foreign. I try to keep it balanced, though – she deserves more attention than what I pay to fake football, so I definitely try to give that to her… still a work in progress at times. It certainly helps when I bring home a big money league payout as the champion, though.

Football or sex: which do you think of more?

Oh, man, I hope my wife isn’t reading this. I’ll say football, but only because it’s like a second job now. If sex was my second job, well, then I’d be a pretty happy man. [Zach note: That's a completely different blog.]

Tell a story about a fantasy regret. Bad trade, bad draft pick, move you thought about making but did not, something on that realm.

I think this could qualify as one of the worst fantasy blunders in fantasy football history: trading Arian Foster for Joe Flacco. I will wait for the laughter to subside…

This happened last year, shortly after one of my auction drafts. I had drafted Jamaal Charles, DeAngelo Williams, and Matt Forte, but I had skimped out on quarterback and someone outbid me on Flacco because I did not have enough money. At that point, my quarterback was Big Ben, who was suspended to start the year. With Foster being a "sleeper" at the time, I thought I could afford to trade him. Lucky for me, I won the Vick sweepstakes on the waiver wire and traded DeAngelo for Shady McCoy, so I wound up winning the championship anyway.

Tell a story about a fantasy win. Great trade that worked out.

There are so many, it’s hard to choose! I’ll give you two trade wins from last year: traded Legedu Naanee for Mike Wallace in one league, and Jason Snelling to a Michael Turner owner for Jeremy Maclin in another. The latter one was actually vetoed by the league, which ticked me off, but I got the commissioner to allow it.

Where are you on the usual football Sunday? Is there a man cave?

You are about to expose my dirty little secret: I am usually not watching live football. Being a churchgoing man on the west coast, I found it extremely tough when I first moved out here. I spend a lot of long Sundays at church because I am a sound engineer there and I also play piano from time to time, so I tend to have to do a lot of my football watching on NFL Rewind or DVR. I guess this makes me a football heathen.

Tell me about a hobby/interest outside of football.

Hanging out with my daughter is really awesome, as I have come to realize. I really enjoy reading, and lately I am into science fiction or fantasy. I actually aspire to write a book one day. Photography is something I like to dabble in as well, though I have not spent as much time on it as I would have liked to in recent months. I used to be a much bigger video gamer, and I still enjoy them, but there are so many interesting things that life has to offer that I have toned that part down quite a bit over the years. And then there is music, which I have been involved with all my life from playing piano to being an audio engineer to listening to the Glitch Mob.

Which fantasy writers are on your must-read list?

There are so many that it is tough to pick favorites, aside from the PFF staff of course. I really dig Matt Waldman’s stuff – he is extremely knowledgeable, not to mention a great writer. Sigmund Bloom is another guy who I enjoy reading. Chet Gresham and the guys over at 2 Mugs FF are good for laughs while still giving good information. Someone who has climbed the charts for me is the Fantasy Douche, though his real identity is hidden from me. There are dozens of good or great writers out there, you just have to look.

Better fantasy experience: Long-term league with friends or fantasy "expert" league?

This is my first year really doing any experts leagues, so I will have to get back to you. I really enjoy playing with friends, though, so the experts will have to offer a lot of incentives to catch up.

Tell me about any plugs that you'd like. Podcasts, sites that you write for, expert leagues, anything.

Check out the fantasy section at profootballfocus.com, there are a lot of great minds there. Speaking of which, a lot of those minds created the PFF Fantasy Draft Guide, which is 115+ pages of greatness that you can get for $4.99 (PDF) or $7.99 (hard copy) – really great stuff. You can also check out DolphinsBlog.com ,which is doing well, or some other teams on the blog network – we are slowly getting other teams online. I would also like to thank Ryan over at FootballSickness.com and Bob/Chris from AllPurposeRoto.com for having me on their podcasts recently, check them out!

Finally, a big thank you to you, Zach, for the interview. Love your series, and I am honored to be a part of it!

Thanks to Alex for answering my questions. Here's his work on Pro Football Focus. Follow him on Twitter.

Read previous Ask Your Fantasy Expert interviews.

Andy Miley

Jim "Taz" Day

Chet Gresham

Bryan Fontaine

Eric Yeomans

I Hate JJ Redick

Fantasy Douche

Eric from DL Football

Clint Chugg

Matt Waldman Part 1 and Part 2

Chris Wesseling

John Sarmento

Ryan Forbes