It’s a time for tough decisions, where certain choices are of utmost importance and will have great effects for months down the road.
No, this isn’t a political advertisement or a serious commercial, it’s a description of a fantasy football draft. Every year when I head back to college in August, one of the first college traditions I take part in is the annual draft with my roommates. It’s a fun way to start off the year get back into the swing of things, and have a friendly competition that lasts all through the end of fall semester. Fantasy football is a way to bring us together and help us all enjoy the sports season this fall even more.
Before I went to college, I was a football fan but admittedly not the most informed one. I knew the Vikings, a good number of their players, and the well-known players across the NFL. I knew which teams were “good” and which were “bad.”
Getting involved in fantasy football, as I did my sophomore year, takes that kind of knowledge to the next level. Only knowing the star players in the league isn’t good enough to field a good team, you need to know the league from front to back. Otherwise, you’re not going to be very successful.
To prepare, I often need to do a lot of research, usually keeping up on NFL news during the summer. It’s important to watch the draft and free agency to see which new players teams sign and what positions they are filling. Sometimes a player who did very well for you one year ends up moving to a new team where they won’t be in as many plays or ends up with more players competing for their role. You also have to watch out for injuries that might happen even a few days before your draft so you know if a player won’t be able to play right away.
Even with all of this research and careful planning, draft day still provides a tough, but exciting challenge. Odds are, my roommates have done this same research, and so know as well as me which players will be best to pick. As the draft goes on, there’s that feeling of elation getting that player you really wanted on your team. Then there’s the feeling of disappointment when someone snatches up a player you’d been saving till a later round, or a player that you thought you were the only one who had all the research on. But it’s fun because it forces you to be adaptable, sometimes going to your back-up choice in order to finally finish your team.
Once the draft is over though, the strategy and fun doesn’t stop. If undrafted players do well, my roommates and I race to see who can click to add them to our team first. Dropping a player who isn’t doing well at the moment is sometimes a risky consideration, as a roommate will then add them to their team and sometimes get good value from them. Trades are hashed out as each of us tries to fill out our team and get that one guy we really like.
And of course, all of the friendly banter and careful monitoring of every NFL game so we can keep track of how our team is doing. All of this pays off each week with either a win or a loss against whoever’s team you played against that week, and then into the end of the season, where the playoffs determine the fantasy champion, and bragging rights until the next year.
Though I’ve only recently started playing it in the past few years, fantasy football has been such a fun way to make football an even more entertaining experience, and build fun connections with my roommates and others I know who play fantasy.
It makes even a bad year for the Vikings bearable because if the Vikings are losing, your fantasy team could still be undefeated. I definitely recommend fantasy football to any football fan. I just don’t recommend picking a kicker early in the draft.
Connor Kockler is a student at St. John’s University. He enjoys writing, politics and news, among other interests.
