For most girls, fall means oversized sweaters, fashionable scarves, and pumpkin spice lattes. For most guys, fall means football. This year, I blurred the line between the sexes when my family created our first intra-familial fantasy football league and I agreed to play. Thus, I entered boy world and down the rabbit hole I went.     

My family started our league at the suggestion of my 10 year-old brother, Joey. The little nugget compulsively watches SportsCenter and he can recite mind-boggling amounts of sports stats without so much as batting an eye. So, when he presented us with the idea of doing a family fantasy league, it was impossible for me to say no as he was practically bouncing up and down with excitement.  

Now, I’m not saying that girls can’t play fantasy or like football. But prior to this decision, I was just a girl who only enjoyed occasionally watching football when it fit into my schedule. Little did I know what was in store for me.  

About 10 minutes before our draft was set to start, I realized suddenly that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Frantically, I called my little brother, desperately trying to figure out how to complete the draft. This process was only complicated further by my confusion with navigating the ESPN website, which I can assure you I had never before visited. He explained it to me as best as he could, and with the assistance of one of my sorority sisters, I somehow managed to successfully draft a fantasy team.  

If I were a true fantasy football player, I probably would’ve carefully considered my strategy and hit draft day with guns blazing. But I’m not, so instead, the qualifications to get on my roster included being a name I’d ever heard of before, or just by being hot (Tom Brady and Eric Decker, anyone?).  

After the draft, I heaved a sigh of relief and quickly put fantasy football out of my mind. All I had to do was draft my team and be on my merry way, right? Wrong. But I genuinely thought that was all there was to it. I’d spent so much time tuning out guys when they start rambling about the world of sports that I wasn’t even aware how ignorant I was about it.  

As it turns out, there was a lot that I didn’t know about the operations of fantasy football. Case in point, I didn’t even know that you could move around your bench, much less trade players. It wasn’t until my guy friend demanded to see my fantasy team, proceeded to laugh in my face, and said, “I’m going to fix your team”, that I realized you weren’t stuck with your original draft picks.  

After this incident, plus one-too-many jokes from my family about my team’s consistent losing streak, I began to up my game. I altered my team on a weekly basis and actually paid attention to projections. This allowed me to win the next couple of games, much to my surprise.  

Regardless, my season was ultimately a complete joke. Who knew there was so much involved? I, for one, sure didn't. This was just my experiment dabbling in the cult that is fantasy football, and laughing at my clueless self along the way. But, you can bet your ass I’m coming back with a vengeance next year… now that I finally know how to play and all.