Even before the football season starts, junior Jake Krantz has begun to research football players to help him in this year’s fantasy football draft. Watching football is fun, but he enjoys the added excitement of managing his own team with friends. Fantasy football is a chance to assemble a team of NFL players while going up against friends in a match to see who can score the most points.
The fantasy football season starts before the NFL season, with a draft where each individual participant creates their own team by selecting their own players. Each participant takes one player in each round until they have filled their full team and all the different positions that entails. The length of the draft varies based on the different rule variations in each fantasy football league.
Sophomore Micah Brickman, co-president of the Sports Analysis Club at CESJDS is in his third year participating in fantasy football, and is part of four leagues this season. This year, the Sports Analysis Club held a fantasy football league, letting students school wide participate. Brickman also participated in a 10th grade fantasy football league that drafted their teams during a school lunch period.
“It’s super hype,” Brickman said. “This year for our grade we went to Ms. Andrew’s room. We had like 30 people spectating, it was a whole thing, and it’s just really fun.”
There are different league styles to choose from, the two most common are redraft leagues, where you redraft your team each year, and dynasty leagues, where you keep your players and only draft rookies each season. Rules for fantasy football vary as you can choose many different variations to start a league with point systems, draft style, positions and number of teams in the league are all customizable.
Once the National Football League (NFL) season starts, each week teams are matched up against one another and they battle it out to see who scores the most points. This pattern is followed each week while players are matched up with a different opponent. Many leagues have a 14-week regular season with a three-week playoff.
Fantasy football brings competition and strategy to watching NFL football. Participants have to make choices each week deciding on who to bench and who to pick up from the waiver, which consists of the available players who are not currently on someone’s team. Once a player’s game starts, they can no longer be placed on the bench or in the starting lineup for that week. Teams also have the ability to trade players with other teams up until a certain trade deadline around the thirteenth week.
Punishments and prizes are not required and in many leagues players just play for bragging rights and the fun of the game. However, in some leagues, a punishment is decided on before the season starts and agreed upon by every person in the league. They are a fun way to penalize the loser of the league.
“I know someone in a league, they take it very seriously, but if they lose the league, they’re required to walk around a very, very public place, like a park, and they have to dress themselves up. They only have underwear on, and they have to dress themselves up in syrup and chicken feathers for three hours,” Krantz said.
Brickman enjoys the competitiveness of fantasy football, and the fact that both players win or lose have something to argue about.
“I do fantasy football almost exclusively for the entertainment factor, as well as the bragging rights,” Brickman said.
