Why You Should Play Fantasy Football (If You Don’t Already)
Photo: USA Today Sports
The latter half of July is now among us which means it’s about that time again to start thinking and preparing for fantasy football season. It’s the time of year for thinking about who your keeper players from last season will be (if it’s that type of league), planning your draft strategy, and doing some research on players around the league so you can potentially have the upper hand over the others in your league. If you have never participated in fantasy football, this all probably sounds silly and you may wonder why so many people take a “fantasy” competition so serious. Well, there’s plenty of reasons why.
Photo: Tommy Gilligan/USA Today Sports
The first reason why you should play fantasy football is for the simple fact it instantly makes every NFL game interesting. If you don’t play, then you’re really only invested in one game every week, which is your favorite team’s game. After it goes off, then you could probably care less about who wins most of the other games around the league or what players have big games. You might watch them casually, but you won’t really care much about the outcomes. However, if you have a fantasy football team, you’ll watch every game around the league intently, or at least catch the updates on your phone every 30 minutes or so every Sunday.
An ordinary Jaguars-Lions game might not interest you in the slightest, but if you have a player or two from either of those teams then all of a sudden you’re invested in the game and will find yourself cheering for those players like they play on your favorite team. The same goes if your fantasy football weekly opponent has a player or two on one of those teams. You will be just as invested in the game, except you will be cheering against those players. Rather than have one or two interesting games every week, playing fantasy football will make every game must-watch television.
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Another reason many people get into playing fantasy football is they are interested in broadening their NFL knowledge. If you don’t know very much about the players around the league, there’s no better way to get familiar with them than to be involved in a fantasy football league. You’ll not only see these players’ names regularly, but like I already mentioned, you will suddenly become a big fan/adversary of theirs. After playing fantasy football for one year, you will feel like a long-time NFL guru.
The next reason you should play fantasy football is it allows you to feel like an NFL coach/general manager. Fantasy football games aren’t won purely by chance, but instead will require you to make good decisions week in and week out. You must look at the matchups and decide which players to put in your starting lineup every week and also make decisions about which players to drop from your roster and free agents to add to your limited roster. If it is a keeper league, you must decide every year which players you want to keep from last season’s team and which players to let go to the yearly draft. It’s a cool feeling being able to call the shots like you are an NFL GM, but can also be very frustrating when you decide to bench a player and they have a great game (or vice-versa).
Photo: fantasypros.com
The last reason I’ll provide is the competition aspect of it. If you’re in a league with family/friends/co-workers/people you know, it makes the competition aspect of it so much better. When I first started playing in the mid-2000s, I was in random leagues with nobody I knew and while I still wanted to win, it wasn’t nearly as fun as it has been for the past 9-10 years playing against people I know. There’s nothing like being able to talk junk throughout the season to people you know and then beating them. Also from the competition aspect of fantasy football, it’s very fun to play to win something. It can be money, a trophy, a belt, or anything, but when there is something on the line, it makes everything that much more competitive and fun.
There are numerous reasons why you should play fantasy football, but these are the main reasons why you should log in and create a team this football season. Find a group of people you know and start a league or enter someone else’s league if they ask you. You won’t regret it. And remember the name of your team is nearly as important as who you draft, so make it a good one!
Garett