All posts tagged Fantasy Sports

About 10 years ago, I started dating my now-husband, who it turned out was the kind of football fanatic who had cable but also subscribed to DirecTV just so he could get the NFL Sunday Ticket. He used to watch all the games at once on split screen… and I would leave the house. I’d lost touch with pro football at that point in my life, and I couldn’t understand how he could pay attention to—much less enjoy—more than one game at a time. He mentioned his “fantasy league,” but I didn’t understand that, either.

The next year, we were living together at the time of his fantasy football draft. I still didn’t get it, really, but I happened to be working nearby when it came time to choose a quarterback, and he wondered aloud whom to take. “Peyton Manning,” I said, I think more on instinct than because I’d learned much about Peyton Manning over the previous season. “I think he’s going to have a good year.”

Peyton Manning did have a good year—and Al won his fantasy league. Since I’d had a hand in choosing Manning, I started paying attention to how he was doing. It was during that season that I started to understand how fantasy football could make someone want to watch several games at once on split screen (something that most of the contributors to this site probably never questioned).

The next year, I joined a Yahoo! public league (because my husband’s league wouldn’t have me), and I’ve been playing each year since. Some things I’ve learned that may help you, the sports fan, convince the non-sports fan in your life to give fantasy football a try:

1. It makes almost every game interesting. It’s no longer necessary to have a home team to root for in order to enjoy football; as long as one of “your” guys is on the field, there’s something to cheer.
2. It’s not a huge commitment. You do have to pay attention to bye weeks and injuries, but since football is a weekly sport, there are far fewer games to track than, say, baseball or hockey. (My husband would disagree with this point—he gets super obsessive about tracking players when he plays fantasy—but it’s by no means necessary. It’s still possible to do well with only a once-a-week commitment to setting up your roster.)
3. It’s OK to auto-draft. Speaking of commitment, live drafts can definitely be stressful (especially if your internet connection flakes out) as well as a time sink. Automatic drafts are a bit weirder, since you don’t know what draft position you’ll get, and you can’t make picks on the fly based on what others did in the last round, but I kind of like the serendipity. I’ve also done no better (in fact, I did worse) when I went through a live draft than when I autopicked. Live drafts are for people who do a lot of pre-season research, ranking, and probability analysis, people who like to trash talk, or both. You don’t need it because…
4. You can win off the waiver wire. (Technically I’m referring to the free agent list, but I like the alliteration.) I get one or two good players a season in the draft—for example, Larry Johnson my first year, Drew Brees last year—but the rest are usually expendable. While most people will tell you that getting an ace running back in the first round can make your season, a bad draft doesn’t mean you’re out of the running. I’ve yet to play in a league where I didn’t pick up at least one other awesome point-getter off the free agent list. It’s always good to start trolling the list once the bye weeks roll around, as some people will drop a player with a bye and forget to snap him back up. Another tip: People often hang onto the kickers and defenses they got in their drafts, even when there are free agents who are doing much better. Sometimes picking up a kicker on a hot streak can make your season.

Finally, a piece of advice: Don’t draft the home team. If you’re auto-picking this will be hard to do anyway, but don’t be tempted to rank all the players from your hometown team highest, or to pick up home team free agents. The main reason I say this is because of #1 above—the wider-spread your roster, the more games that will matter to you—but it also prevents bye weeks from biting you. You don’t want to have to drop half your guys because of a bye.

Now: Get out there and draft a team if you haven’t already (or convince a loved one to give it a try). The NFL season may have started on Thursday, but it’s not too late to get in the game.