What is fantasy football? And why should you start trying it out? Fantasy football has become a popular pastime for sports fans in the United states. In 2020, over 59.3 million people participated in fantasy football. In fantasy football, fans act as team owners and can sign ,trade and cut players. Points and standings are based on how well athletes perform in games. Allowing you to compete against your friends, drafting a team made up of NFL players and based on their performance they are picked. For example, if you have, Christian McCaffrey on your team and he throws a touchdown, your team scores points. Add up all the points and the team with the most points at the end of the NFL week is the winner.
In addition to the drafts at the start of the season, there are auction leagues. This is another type of league that has grown throughout the game. Auction players add an interesting twist to a new league that a standard draft can’t do. Instead of drafting in a set order, each team starts with the same budget of “money” to bid on players, let’s say $1000. Owners take turns announcing a player to be auctioned. Any owner can bid at any time as long as they have enough money to pay the winning bid.
The most common type of league is the Redraft league. Every year, you draft a new team. Then there’s the keeper league, in this one the owners stick together and play together every season. Each owner keeps a certain number of players from his or her previous year’s roster. If your league allowed five keepers per team. You being the league like a redraft where everyone drafts a team. In your second and every subsequent season, each owner selects players from there to hold onto for the upcoming season. So say, you drafted George Kittle, you could keep him for his entire career. Players not designated as keeped become eligible to be drafted by any team. Dynasty leagues allow the owners to stay in this league for years. Instead of having a few players for the upcoming season, you keep your entire team. In a Dynasty league, younger players have more value because they still have many more years remaining compared to veteran players. Making trading a lot more fun.
In fantasy football there are multiple formats for leagues. Head-to-Head is two owners that play against each other every week. The team with the highest score gets the victory. At the end of the fantasy regular season, the teams with the best record advance to the playoffs. Points only are played by a different team every week, your squads overall point total is all that matters. The team with the most points at the end of the season is the champion. This scoring system is almost never used in fantasy football. Roto leagues determine a set of statistical categories their teams will use as a scoring system like touchdown passes. If ten teams in a league, out of the ten that lead the league in touchdown passes would score ten points. The team with the second most touchdown passes would score nine points and so on. Finally, the best ball is optimized for your team score. Your highest scorers at each position are automatically plugged in. It’s almost like a set it and forget it type of league. There are no waivers and no trades. You draft and wait to see how the season unfolds. This is for those who enjoy the draft but dont have the time for multiple teams through the season.
If you enjoy football and the players, then you should definitely get together with friends and family to start a league in fantasy football. This will make Sunday Night Football more engaging and keeps others invested in teams and players you normally wouldn’t pay attention to. So, go ahead and try out your sport skills and go up against other fans or people you know. See who wins the bet at the end of the season and which players helped you out the most.
