There’s six days left before Kansas City and Houston kick off the 2020 NFL season. So you have six days left to prepare your entry for our Fantasy Index Open competition. This is our free all-comers contest, crowning an overall champion of fantasy football.

This isn’t like a regular fantasy league. There’s no draft, games or starting lineups. Instead, you rank the top 20 players at each position. Whoever compiles the best list of 120 players is the overall winner.

The champion takes home a large trophy put together by the team at Affordable Trophies. They’ve been partnering with us on this venture for the last nine years. And both the champion and the 2nd-place finisher earn spots in the Experts Poll in next year’s magazine.

The entry forms have been online for about a month, but we have been adding some new players as NFL teams adjust their rosters. Definitely at the kicker position. Teams are going down to 53 players on Saturday. After the rosters settle down over the weekend, we’ll add a few more notable players on Monday.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s a little uncertainty this year, so we’re adding some special rules for this season. If a team plays fewer than 16 games, its stats will be adjusted to remove that factor. If an individual player misses a couple of games because of a positive COVID-19 test, however, it will be treated no differently than a sprained ankle.

David Wilde of Mukwonago, Wis., won the 2019 Fantasy Index Open, while Mike Erickson of Riverton, Utah, took 2nd. They were the top finishers out of a field of 832.

To enter the 2020 version of the contest, log into the site and then click on “YOUR STUFF”. The contest is one of the pull-down options, under “Fantasy Index Open 2020”. Those who are already logged in can get to the contest by clicking here.

The contest is free, but to be eligible to win you must sign up on the website, providing a name and mailing address. If you were to sign up without supplying a name, you wouldn’t be eligible to win the trophy (which is huge).

Once on the website, use the drag-and-drop technology to select your 120 players in order – 20 at QB, RB, WR, TE, K and DEF. Those are your players for the duration of the 17-week regular season, so be careful about selecting players who are more likely to serve suspensions or miss games with injuries. There are no waiver moves or trades, so when a player doesn’t play, you get a zero from him that week.

Entries are due before the start of the first game of the season. That’s Thursday, September 10, at 5:20 p.m. Eastern. Until then, feel free to start on your picks, coming back to make adjustments for injuries and other developments. Once that deadline hits, all entries are locked.

When scoring the competition at the end of the year, we’ll use PPR. Players will receive 6 points for touchdowns, 4 for TD passes, 1 for every 10 run/rec yards, 1 for every 20 passing yards and 1 for each reception. Defenses receive 2 points for takeaways, 1 for sacks and 6 for every touchdown scored on a return of a takeaway or kick. Kickers get regular NFL points – 3 for field goals and 1 for PATs.

In January, we’ll score all of the picks using a complex scoring matrix that combines a player’s production against where he was ranked. Basically, the higher you rank him, the most his production counts. Suppose, for example, that Justin Tucker finishes the season with 100 points. If you ranked Tucker first, that would net you 2,500 points (25 x 100). If you ranked him second, you would receive 2,400 (24 x 100). Third would be 2,300 (23 x 100) and so on down to 20th being worth 600 points (6 x 100). We use that same approach for all 120 players ranked by each entry, with the overall high score winning the title.

You’ve got less than week left to complete your entry. Best of luck to all.