It's a known fact that every real football fan in America plays fantasy football. For those of you who don’t know what fantasy football is, it is a game where you draft a team full of NFL players and depending on how well your players perform, you get a certain amount of points.
You can play in a league anywhere from four to 32 teams. In the leagues with fewer teams, the teams tend to be better and in the leagues with more teams, teams tend to be worse.
Small leagues are fun because you get to gather a team of amazing players and watch them every week, but big leagues allow you to develop more of a strategy because each pick is that much more important given the competition for talent. Most fantasy football leagues are somewhere between eight to 16 teams, allowing for a mix of good players and strategy.
Fantasy football follows the same rules as the NFL. Each league is split into two divisions, and every week you go head-to-head against another team. Whichever team accumulates the most points wins the game. Your record is kept throughout the whole season, and, at the end of the year, the better teams play each other in the playoffs. At the end of the playoffs, just like in the NFL, there is a fantasy football Super Bowl and a champion is crowned. Anyone who has ever won their fantasy league can tell you that it is one of the best feelings you could ever have.
Winning or losing fantasy football games all comes down to how the points are scored. The point settings of every league are customized, so just because Tom Brady gets 25 points in one league doesn’t mean he gets 25 points in every league. The most heavily used fantasy football point system is called points per reception (PPR). In a PPR league, every catch a player gets is 1 point, every yard they get is 0.1 points, and every touchdown they get is 6 points.
However, there are also leagues that don’t play with points per reception, which results in different point totals. Because of this, the order that players are drafted all depends on how the point system works in your league. For instance, in a PPR league, you might be on the lookout for a running back that gets a lot of receptions but maybe not so many yards. However, if you are in a standard league (non-PPR) you may want to be on the lookout for a running back that gets a lot of yards.
Not only can the point system be altered, but so can the roster sizes. There are some leagues that play with 2 wide receivers and others that play with 6. Roster size all depends on the rules that your league customized. However, just like the points system, there is a most common lineup. The most common lineup is 1 quarterback, 2 running backs, 2 wide receivers, one tight end, one flex (running back, wide receiver, or tight end), one defense/special teams player, and one kicker. However, most leagues change their lineup settings to make the league a little more interesting.
There is also a new setting that some leagues are starting to adapt to. For the leagues that have the same players and number of teams every year, they sometimes participate in something called a “keeper league.” In a keeper league, you are allowed to keep one player on your team for the next season. For instance, If I took Derrick Henry as the fourth overall pick in the draft, I would be able to retain him. If I decided to keep him, then in next year’s draft I would lose my fourth overall pick. The keeper leagues require a lot of strategies. You don’t necessarily want to keep your best player, but instead, you want to keep the player that exceeded his original value the most.
Fantasy football is a great way for you to compete with your friends and also keep in touch with what is going on in the NFL. Waiting for my fantasy team to play is the only thing that gets me through the week. You also don’t need to be a huge football fan to enjoy fantasy football; all you need is a competitive spirit. So when your friends ask you if you want to join their league next year, don’t immediately shut them down.