What is Fantasy Football?

I’ve just recently been introduced to Fantasy Football by a friend of mine, who’s been glued to it. It’s always perplexed me, but now, after a while of playing, I can finally understand why he’s been cheering for players from teams he doesn’t even support. 

First things first: What exactly is fantasy football? 

Fantasy football is essentially a management game, where you are the owner and manager of your own football team. But instead of having real-life players on a field, your team exists in the digital realm. To manage your team, you can “draft” real NFL players to create a strategic team to compete against other people’s fantasy games. The winner of each match is decided through a series of calculations mainly based off of how the players on each team are doing in actual NFL games. 

To truly start playing, you first need to join a league with friends, family or even strangers. Then, before the NFL season starts, you and the others in your league take turns selecting real NFL players for your own team. After having an initial roster, players will decide each week which players will be active to earn points. As games happen, the active players will earn points based on how their real-life counterparts are doing. For example, if Patrick Mahomes goes absolutely beastmode with 3 touchdowns, that racks in a lot of points for your team. At the end of each week, your team will match up against another team, and the team with the most points will win that week’s matchup. As these matchups continue, teams will continue battling other teams until the eventual league championship. 

Fantasy football adds a whole new layer of excitement to the NFL. Before, rooting for the Chiefs felt no different than cheering on the Lakers—they only stake I had in each team was losing face if my predictions were wrong. Yet now, with fantasy football, I’m now invested in players across the entire league, no matter their team. I might now have cared about a Jaguars and Titans match before, but because Trevor Lawrence is on my team, I have to be vigilant about every game and check up on his performance. 

And fair warning, fantasy football can get addictive. I’ve found myself obsessively checking stats, agonizing over drafts, and punching the air (or myself) for my choices. The highs of winning and the lows of defeat have both added spice in my life, keeping me on my toes each week. So the next time you see someone frantically refreshing their phone or obsessing over a game, you’ll know that they’re deep in FFF: fantasy football fever.