I’m Rich Hribar and This Is How I Play

Several years ago I began working remotely for a startup non-profit after spending most of my career in retail and corporate offices. As any quality researcher would do, I immediately began looking into tips and tricks of how to be successful working remotely. I stumbled across an article series by Lifehacker, called “How I Work,” which essentially was a collection of interviews, focusing on best practices, workflows, workspaces, and gadgets used by successful business people.

This article series is a nod, or rather a direct copy of their idea, from a fantasy football perspective. I’ll seek to interview the most interesting minds in fantasy football, procuring their secrets, routines, bookmarks, and more in an effort to pull back the curtains and provide you with resources and information. I hope you enjoy!

Your name

Rich Hribar

Your Twitter handle

RH: @LordReebs (formerly @RotoReebs during my Chris Gaines period)

Your location (city/state)

RH: Lorain, OH

Current day job

RH: This is it. Fantasy Football.

Current fantasy job(s)

RH: Writer at RotoWorld

One word that best describes how you play fantasy football

RH: Boring.

Who is your favorite (non-current) NFL player? Why?

RH: Jerry Rice. When I first got into watching the NFL, there were only two games per Sunday on TV and the 49ers were almost always the afternoon game. The 49ers were football poetry at the time and Rice was Robert Frost (also from San Francisco). It was like losing my virginity to a supermodel who also knew all the tricks in bed. He out-worked everyone and played forever. Maybe a little too long, but we’ll probably never see a 40-year old receiver go for 1,200 yards in a season again.

Current mobile device

RH: iPhone 6 Plus

Current computer

RH: HP Envy and some Dell Laptop. Nothing fancy, just what I need to get by.

First of all, tell us a little about how you got your start in fantasy football. How did that evolve to what you’re doing now?

RH: I was always wired into fantasy, even as a child. I remember playing fantasy on Sandbox in the mid to late 90’s when I was just a teenager. Given how I approach fantasy and content, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I locked in fantasy baseball for a long period of my life, but eventually become less and less interested in the actual professional sport as I grew older and only about the fantasy side until I was just a lifeless MLB fantasy player, so now I only play football from a fantasy stance because no matter how hard the NFL tries to ruin things, they still have the game that lures me in as a fan first.

I was never into social media (still don’t have a Facebook), but was encouraged by friends to get on Twitter for a fantasy and NFL news source over the mind-numbing interaction other social outlets provide. Once I saw the freedom of the outlet, I started posting my own stats and nuggets that I was using weekly out in the Twittersphere and eventually they found one Denny Carter somehow. Denny got me into my first writing gig at XN Sports. My very first article was on Jonathan Franklin, which obviously is why I have been able to turn this into an empire.

Kidding aside, I was just in the right place at the right time, because Denny’s offer opened a plethora of doors for me. I was able to meet people like Sal Stefanile, Chad Scott, Pat Thorman, and of course, JJ Zachariason through Denny, all of whom I consider friends first at this point. But the two people that I was able to connect through with Denny that helped me out the most as a novice in this industry was Davis Mattek and Rumford Johnny. Davis became a polarizing entity over the years of hot “taeks”, but I can assure you that he is genuinely a good dude. You can’t convince me otherwise outside of people being #MadOnline at him. Mattek was the first person to put me on podcasts with he and Coleman Kelly and that’s where I got used to speaking and chatting about fantasy. It was a blast and it made me better at this.

Through that, I was able to hook up with Rummy, who at the time, was doing the 2Mugs pod (RIP) with Ryan Forbes. That pod was extremely popular at the time and used to draw strong guests for an amateur pod. Those guys put me on regularly and that allowed my voice to reach titans you know today such as Evan Silva and Sigmund Bloom, who really pushed my work out into the open. Since then, I haven’t looked back. I have definitely been for fortunate that the right people found me and I don’t take that for granted.

How many fantasy football leagues do you currently play in? What is your favorite league and why?

RH: Outside of best ball formats, I play in around 25 leagues in which I have to perform weekly activities. I’ve always operated under the mindset that if you’re prepared, you can play in as many leagues you can take on. Fantasy Football is an inherently variant hobby, and winning actual titles is hard no matter how good of a player you are, so I want as many seats as the table as I can get.

My favorite leagues are the Kitchen Sink leagues run by Ryan McDowell, the Commissioner of Commissioners. Those are Superflex leagues with deep, wide open starting lineup requirements that are a blend of Dynasty, Contract and Devy league formats. The most compelling part of the leagues is the diversity it promotes in strategy. There are a lot of ways to win and play in those leagues, which is what makes them so enjoyable.

What’s your best time-saving shortcut or fantasy hack?

RH: Because of the CMS that NBC has and the structure of The Worksheet, I owe Tableizer days of my life at this point.

In order to be successful in fantasy football, you have to do at least one thing better than the average owner. What’s your secret?

RH: I’m a really boring player. I generally play fantasy in a very transparent fashion. I value true production I can hold in my hands and try to incorporate a range of outcomes into as many of my decisions as possible, whether during the draft, setting lineups, or making trades. My goal is to aim small, so when I miss, it’s small.

What’s your greatest weakness in fantasy football? Startup drafts, mining the waiver wire, making trades, lineup decisions? How do you make up for it elsewhere?

RH: I’m generally never the owner who picks up the hot player with unsustainable production. I’m rarely the guy grabbing Tyreek Hill off waivers, because I get frozen in the impending crash back to reality. Even when that recoil occurs, though, you can’t deny the positive effect on the season those guys can potentially have since winning any week you can is worth something.

How would you describe your fantasy football philosophy?

RH: I put the work in. I’m trying to know something you don’t know and if you do know it, I want to know it first. But I’m not arrogantly going about my business like that I’m smarter, just informed. I’m consciously aware that I will be wrong a lot. Playing in so many leagues allows me to be open with how I play, since I don’t have time to waste. I’d like to believe that being so transparent makes me a good trade partner, but some suitors may disagree. At the end of the day, I make a lot of deals and those deals generally have very compact negotiations.

Walk us through what your week looks like during the season as a fantasy owner. When do you watch games, process waivers, propose trades, etc?

RH: We don’t sleep around these parts from September through January. This is my first year without the overlap of a 9-5 job on top of everything fantasy related, so I’m hoping it’s saner. Monday and Tuesdays are spent generating content for the Worksheet in season, but I make sure to take an hour or so every Tuesday to line up all of my potential waiver claims for the week. Doing the Worksheet so early in the week helps with a lot of those moves. After waivers, the rest is easy now that we can do anything mobile these days.

What’s your favorite article you’ve ever written? Why?

RH: The Konami Code series I did for NumberFire is what kind of pushed my current brand out there, but to be honest, the articles I’ve written that have failed stick with me more than anything that was well received or accurate. I once wrote that Albert Wilson was a potential arbitrage of a prospect on Odell Beckham. In print. This is f***ing serious. That alone haunts my soul and should burn any bridge of trust you’ve ever placed in my work.

Who is the best fantasy football owner you’ve ever played with and why?

RH: I’m (un)fortunate enough to play in many leagues filled with you and your reader’s favorite analysts and nearly all of those guys are as good as you’d believe they are. It’s hard to pick just one guy. I will say that Dan Meylor always builds teams that I wish I had and he values players similarly to me, so we never make successful trades, which is respectfully frustrating. Also, not all of the best fantasy players are analysts. My dude @Scottyr12 has always crushed fantasy across all formats. He has more of my money than Uncle Sam and my wife at this stage.

What’s your current workspace (for fantasy football) like? Coffee shop with laptop and headphones? Home office with a standing desk?

RH: I have nice corner space with room for everything I need. I try to do more work on PC than my lapper because going away from the dual monitors must be how Jaime Lannister felt after losing his sword hand.

Besides your phone and computer, what gadget can’t you live without and why?

RH: Has to be the PS4. I try to get as much gaming in as possible in the offseason. I just finished a run of Life is Strange and recently blew through Horizon Zero Dawn and Mass Effect Andromeda. I also have a 12-year old son in prime gaming age, who I play all the sports games with (Madden, NBA2K, The Show). He hasn’t reached the stage where he can hang with me yet, so I don’t have to retire from gaming yet. Also, the PS4 is the access point to the Netflix, Hulu and Amazon accounts for when I need to catch up on some shows or standup comedy.

What apps, software, or tools can’t you live without?

RH: I mentioned Tableizer already. Obviously Twitter and Excel are big parts of my day to day operation. I’m actually not very skilled at coding at all, which makes me envious of the stuff Josh Hermsmeyer is able to produce. What he creates visually is the stuff I see in my head when looking at a spreadsheet, but his skills in presentation are above anything else anyone is doing at the moment.

What is your go-to site for your tough start/sit decisions?

RH: My phone. I run specifics through JJ Zachariason, Evan Silva and Pat Thorman all week long in season.

If you could only read one website (other than those you contribute at) for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?

RH: Twitter is the easy answer for the branching points of content.

Take a quick peek at your bookmarked sites. What are the top 3-4 sites on the list?

RH: I have Pro Football Reference and Pro Football Focus on there and the rest are all household sites for bills, etc.

What podcast is currently queued up on your phone?

RH: Since I naturally consume so much football content given my job, I don’t really listen to (m)any football related pods. I’m more about the pop culture ones, I’ve got Nerdist, WTF with Maron, Blank Check, Planet Money on call, plus I still listen to Stern as much as possible.

What are you currently reading? A novel, comic book, website, magazine?

RH: Since we’re almost done with the first season, I’ve started American Gods. I’m a big graphic novel guy and Neil Gaiman also wrote The Sandman series in the early 90’s that is excellent. I’m also keeping up on Saga by Brian K. Vaughan. He’s a Cleveland guy that has done work with Marvel and DC, but he also wrote Y: The Last Man, which is my favorite graphic novel of all-time.

What do you listen to while you play? Got a favorite playlist? Maybe a podcast? Or do you prefer silence?

RH: Sometimes I have the TV on in the background, but I can tune out things fairly easily. Three kids and a 10-year marriage will develop those abilities. When I do listen to music, I have a wide base that I enjoy, but gravitate to 90’s hip hop and 80’s power ballads. Aquemini is probably my favorite album of all-time and I’m always into anything that you can croon at a piano bar when running five or more adult pops deep.

Do you have any superstitions on game day? Wear the same lucky T-Shirt? Always make homemade chili before the games?

RH: Just the ritual of trying to bridge the time from waking up to kickoff. Sundays are the days I’m envious of West Coasters.

How do you recharge?

RH: I have three kids from ages 12 to seven months, so this is how I recharge. Outside of that, we’ve gotten really into tabletop games as we’ve progressively left our youthful nights behind. Anything strategy based works, but we’ve been playing a lot of Smash Up lately. Our small circle of friends and family have also gotten hooked on Escape Rooms recently. We’ve done three over the past few months in Chicago and Cleveland (escaped the all, fwiw) and have fallen in love with them.

What’s your sleep routine like? Are you a night owl or early-riser?

RH: I’ve never required a lot of sleep, something I inherited from my dad. I don’t drink coffee, either. That’s not a humblebrag, either. because I want to like coffee, but my body rejects it and I can’t function on it. I’m just naturally wired to go.

Fill in the blank: I’d love to see _________ answer these same questions.

RH: Matt Freedman

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

RH: I wish I had some obscure quote to drop in here, but it’s simply treating people like you want to be treated. You don’t have to bend yourself in half for anyone, but genuinely treating people well goes a long way.

Is there anything else you’d like to add that might be interesting to readers and fans?

RH: You mean 1,000+ words from a dude who is employed to write about a game that is played off another game wasn’t enough? Nah, I think they’ve had enough.

The How I Play series asks writers, developers, editors, and fantasy football degenerates to share their secrets, bookmarks, routines, and more. Have someone you want to see featured, or questions you think we should ask? Email Eric Dickens or start a conversation with him on Twitter.