I never understood what fantasy football is about or how it works. I remember friends is getting together and doing pools but could never grasp the concept. Also what makes it so fun and appealing? Im hoping this sub can help me understand. 😊👍
In: Other
You start by getting a group of interested people to play and you use an online app or website to track everything and play your season.
At the start of a real football season you all take turns to “draft” real world players for your fantasy football team. Maybe you want the quarterback from the 49ers, or a running back from the Rams, so on and so forth. So now you all have your fantasy team of real world players.
Then as the real world season goes on, the app/website tracks the real world performance of your players and uses that to assign points to your fantasy team. If your players do really well in real life, your fantasy team is going to do really well. Edit, I should add that each week your fantasy team is paired up against another fantasy team in the league so that’s how wins are decided.
It’s a way for sports fans to assemble their own dream team, and it’s usually accompanied by a lot of trash talking and betting. Most people I know who play it seem to enjoy it a lot.
You start by creating or joining a league using one of the many fantasy football apps, which is just a group of people. If you are the one creating the league, you can set how many players you want to allow in, and can invite people you want to join, like friends. You can also just have it set up to have random people join your league.
The standard positions are QB, WR, RB, TE, K, DEF, and you basically pick IRL players/teams from those position to be on your fantasy team. The specific scoring system is adjustable, but for a basic run down, you draft (pick) your players before the season start, either automatically (computer selects for you) or manually, and those players can score you point when they play a game if they perform well.
So if you selected RB Josh Jacobs who is currently playing for Green Bay, when he runs the ball and gains yardage, it scores you points if you have him on your active roster. If he scores a touchdown, it gives you more points. Lots of point rules for each position that are adjustable by the league owner, but thats just a quick general example.
You will play a different person from your league every week. You basically just field certain players you think will perform well each week based on that NFL players upcoming matchup and past performances, and your teams score is an accumulation of all your active players points combined versus all your currently weeks opponents points combined. If your points are higher, you win that week, if theres are higher, you lose.
Basically, its like guessing which players will do well each week. People like it because its kind of a competition to showcase whos knowledge about the sport is better, with a lot of luck sprinkled in for extra gambling fun. You do not have to bet real money to play, I never have, but some people like to. Thats what the pools normally are, you buy a spot into a league and the winner of the league wins the buy in pool of all the players as a cash reward.
Imagine a simple video game where you have to pick a roster of imaginary warriors or players (your opponent does the same), then based on a roll of the dice and the players’ stats, you figure out how many HP of damage they inflicted on the enemy / points they scored and the winner is determined. There’s no skill involved, aside from trying to optimize your roster.
There are some basic restrictions on who you can pick, a player can only be on one team in a given fantasy league (or everyone would just pick the very best in the NFL with some small variation, which is why you need to have a “draft” at the beginning), there can only be ever one QB fielded on your team, but others like wide receivers or running backs you can have multiples of. (within limits)
That’s FF in a nutshell, except the “stats” of the players depend on the skill of the real players (and how well their real-life coach is using them, and how well-supported they are by the rest of their team) and the whole NFL is the “dice.” Player gets injured (because, say, Patrick Mahomes took out his knee), benched, fails a drug test, is arrested for a DUI, or just plain plays bad for someone of their ability? That’s a bad roll of the dice.
Edit: As for what makes it fun… It’s basically low-stakes gambling with your friends or co-workers. (Over time, I ended up deciding it’s not fun, it takes a lot of effort to play well – keep close watch of what’s happening to your players and try to optimize your odds – with no guarantee that playing well will mean you’ll win. And I get too competitive and care too much, which makes the whole thing *way* too stressful. But that’s just my personality.)
And it’s a good way of getting into football if you’re not a superfan of any team. You go to a sports bar on Sunday and check your fantasy results on your phone while watching multiple games and having some beers and eating wings… (and watching the degenerate gamblers who actually bet real money on teams freak out)
Latest Answers