Fantasy Football is for Everyone

Football in all aspects has most predominantly been seen as a male-dominated hobby. With that being said, it’s no surprise that fantasy football often reflects the same trend. What exactly is fantasy football? Fantasy football is a game where you create your own team of real NFL players through a draft. You compete in a league, usually with 10-12 people, going head-to-head each week to win games and earn a spot in the playoffs. The playoff winner is crowned champion of the league for that season. There are different ways to play, like redraft leagues, where you pick a new team each year, and dynasty leagues, where you can keep some or all of your players for multiple seasons.

I personally have been playing fantasy football for a little over 10 years now and it is a great way of engaging you into the season every year more and more. You are able to watch your team throughout the year and make adjustments to your lineup based on what your team needs and how they are performing. This year me and some of my buddies that I watch football with started a dynasty league which has been a super cool process to watch and be a part of. Being able to trade players with one another as well as draft picks because it is a dynasty has been a revelation for me. My record is 13-1 and am the number one seed in the playoffs. However, in my home league, I am 8-6 and need to win this week to even make the playoffs. This just shows the duality of fantasy football. You never know where you might end up at the end of the season or even any given week. 

With all that being said, I’d now like to give a little bit of a beginners guide through the draft process and some of the week to week activities that go into managing a team. The first thing I am going to talk about is the draft. The draft is where everything begins. This usually consists of around 15-17 rounds and you are picking offensive players, kickers and a teams defense, this could be different depending on your league format. You are usually drafting a quarterback, multiple running backs, multiple wide receivers, and a tight end as your offensive players. After you are done with the draft, that is when the fantasy football season begins. You are then able to trade players away to get other players in return depending on what your team may need. This is not the only way to be able to acquire new players. You are also able to do this on the waiver wire, this is where you can pick up any player that did not get drafted, or someone that has been dropped from another team in your league. This is all so that you can get the best possible players for your team to set your lineup with. You can not start everyone on your team, you have to pick the best possible lineup for each week. You will likely start one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, a tight end, a flex, which is any position previously listed besides quarterback, a kicker and a defense. You pick the best of who you have rostered to start each week and to score more points than who you are playing. This is all great fun and games but what is really the best part of fantasy football is that it is able to bring together everyone that is playing. It doesn’t matter who it is, it could be a bunch of friends trying to keep in touch or it could be family having some fun amongst them. This is why fantasy football is for everyone.