Last night, for the first time in my life I showed up to a Mexican restaurant with a spreadsheet.

Next time the data might be geared toward helping me pick the perfect dish for my meal, but in this case it was my cheat sheet for drafting in the most interesting fantasy football league I’ve ever done.  We figured out that I’m the only person in the history of the league — now in its fourth year — to never place in the top three, but I still find it fascinating.

Here’s how it works.  We have eight guys who each draft four NFL teams.  Once you have your four teams, you have exclusive access to all of their players and fill out your roster using whichever of those guys you want.  The rest of it works just like any normal head-to-head league.

Why is this so great?  First, it’s different.  Many of us play in multiple leagues and that sometimes leads to having them meld together in your mind since they’re all pretty much the same.  But what my brother and I call the “teams league” stands out because your strategy and roster moves are different.

This format also eliminates some of the annoying things that can pop up throughout a fantasy season.  Say your top running back gets hurt.  In another league, a different owner would likely pick up the guy’s backup and you’d be out of luck.  In the teams league, you are the only one who can add him.  It also largely eliminates the frustration of teams that have multiple quality running backs but a coach who can’t decide to consistently give one of them the ball.  With two running back slots and a flex position, you can just start both of them.

There are always a couple of players who come out of absolutely nowhere to have monster fantasy years.  Often they end up on the team of whoever is lucky enough to have a good waiver order number in the week after a breakout game.  Well, in this league it’s not up to that system.  Imagine the thrill of discovering that you have an amazing wide receiver you weren’t even counting on when drafting.

The final benefit of this league is that the draft is REALLY fast.  You only have to make four choices, unless of course you have the last pick in which you only pick three of your teams and take the leftover.  No agonizing over which of the 18 seemingly identical third receivers you should take.  Often the fourth pick is just so you can get that team’s running back or one wide receiver with no intention of ever playing anyone else.

This year I ended up with the Saints, Vikings, Dolphins and Jaguars.  We’ll see how it goes.

If you want to shake up your fantasy life, I could not more highly recommend doing a teams league.