The very first year I played Fantasy Football was an absolute disaster. It was my junior year in high school and I was asked to join a league with other people in my grade and they needed one more person to be able to draft (For context, Fantasy leagues need an even number of participants to validate the league.) I missed the draft that year, which is about the worst way to start the year because my team was entirely auto drafted. My starting quarterback was Robert Griffin III and I think that should be somewhat indicative of my entire season.
If I remember correctly, I only won two games that year miraculously. The weeks I won were by the luckiest, slimmest of margins and the weeks I lost I was getting absolutely tossed around. I should have hated every moment of it but I was glued to my phone every Sunday checking and rechecking my matchups. Why? Simply put, it's a lot of fun.
Coming from someone who never really followed the NFL growing up, there was a humongous learning curve to overcome just to learn who the NFL's stars and role players were. As I soon discovered, you don't win fantasy football games strictly from your draft. Learning how to manage injuries, the waiver wire and trades was an entirely different world and can involve levels of strategy I never originally considered. Nearly five years later, there's still things I have yet to learn and the NFL landscape changes every year let alone on a weekly basis.
The highs of fantasy football make you feel like you're on the top of the world and the lows are absolutely soul crushing. In Week 3 I was down 70 points with a Monday night football game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers remaining. Luckily, I had a handful of players from both teams and a 30-yard touchdown from Mike Evans was able to barely carry me to victory.
On the other hand, I had one of the greatest draft moves I think I've ever pulled off and I ended up tossing it away. I had heard rumors the Pro-Bowl running back Le'Veon Bell was considering holding out from the Pittsburgh Steelers over contract disputes. According to the Steelers' depth chart, James Conner was up next to take Bell's spot. So with the 167th pick in the draft, I chose James Conner. He was immediately a breakout player, scoring a combined five touchdowns and 107 fantasy points.
So I decided to trade him. Every single report I had read indicated that Le'Veon Bell would return to the Steelers after their Week 7 bye to play enough games to reassure teams of his value when he enters free agency. I package traded him with another player in Week 6 assuming that Bell would return. He did not and James Conner continues to wreck other teams, putting up four touchdowns and 65 points since we parted.
But that, in a weirdly sadistic way, is the best part of fantasy football. You get your butt handed to you one week and then you spend so much time researching matchups and making trades to build your team back. Getting knocked around is the best part because there's always so much room for improvement. Fantasy football has created such a large community, and the woes experienced by one player can be empathized with by another player because of this large common experience regardless of the league.
21 percent of Americans play fantasy football and that's created an entire industry outside of the actual sport. ESPN now has an entire show dedicated to fantasy football that airs episodes online on ESPN+ and produces a near-daily podcast. Similar models have popped up all around the internet, making the fantasy football landscape more lucrative than ever. There is never a better time to get into fantasy football than the present.
Even those who don't want to commit to a season-long league can play daily fantasy, which has been made popular by companies like Draft Kings. In all honesty, I would recommend fantasy football to anyone who's even remotely interested. Just make sure you don't miss your draft.
