There was a story about Fantasy Football on NPR this morning, and I have a hard time picturing how it works. The wiki article says it’s mostly about trading and creating fantasy teams. So are there actual “games”? From the story it sounds like thousands and thousands of people are involved in this, but I can’t get a sense of it. Is it done online? Was it done before the internet?
Ummm… and mostly: how is this fun? I mean, where does the *fun *come in?
It was done before the internet but was not nearly as widespread. It is great fun if you are already a football fan because, depending on who you have on your team, you may end up having a rooting interest in a televised game that you otherwise wouldn’t bother watching. It increases your knowledge about players and teams around the league rather than just focusing on your favorite, which also leads to more enjoyment in watching other games that might not feature your home-towners. You may even switch over to a game you have no players in just to see if you opponent’s player(s) are doing anything.
A roster typically has starters at Quarterback, Runningback (1-2), Wide Receiver (1-4 or so), Tight End, Defense (the whole unit, not individual players) and a fieldgoal kicker. Basically, any position on the field who has a chance to score points is drafted (even on defense, they get points for interceptions, sacking the quarterback, recovering a fumble for a touchdown, etc.), and you typically have 2-3 players at each position on your team (leaving you with several who you won’t use that week), so you have to adjust your roster week-to-week to take account of injuries, off-weeks, and matchups (if your super-stud QB is going against an awful defense, you start him, for example).
Then you are matched up against the starting lineup of another league member, with the outcome of the game based on how many points your team scores. You score more, you beat him. At the end of the season, the top teams face off in a short “playoff” of two weeks or so, then the championship game between the two best teams in your league.
I’ve played for almost 20 years - love it. It has really made me a better football fan overall. The fun of it is enjoying all of football more, and of course the thrill of grinding your opponent into the virtual dirt.
Real players in real sports play real games. You draft the the pool of real players in a “league” of 10-12 people (could be less, could be more). The real world stats accumulated in the real world games correspond to fantasy points. The guy whose team accumulates the most points wins their matchup.
Points can be earned in different ways depending on what rules you use, but for example your quarterback might get 1 point for every 25 yards of passing he has, 6 points for every touchdown he throws or runs in himself (the extra point if left for the kicker usually), you might lose 3 points for every interception he loses or fumble he makes.
So if your quarterback throws for 325 yard, 2 touchdowns, and an interception, he would earn you 13+12-3 or 22 points.
Every other position is similar. At the end of the day, you add up your points, compare them to your opponent, and whoever has the highest total wins.
Lets say you have Adrian Peterson as your running back. He gains 98 yards and scores one touchdown. He would get your team 9.8 points plus 6 for the touchdown = 15.8 points total.
You have three wide receivers, one QB, one TE, two RB’s and a kicker. Each one of them get points as described above. You “play” an opponent in your league who has similar players. At the end of the weekend the total points accrued by your players against the total of your opponents players. Most points wins. Your record would 1-0 (on week one if you outscored your opponents points).
You draft players at the beginning of the year… there’s only one Adrian Peterson so only one guy gets him. You are going to draft the best rated player for the position and hope he gets the ball and accumulates lots of yards and scores TD’s. Once you are in a league online it becomes very easy to figure out. Last year was my 2nd year at FF and yes it is fun!
Also, some people play with what is called a “team defense.” Where you simply pick a team’s entire defensive players (so you’d have say, the 49ers defense), and the accumulated points that they earn go to your teams score. My league plays 3 individual defensive players, so we have to draft and trade those players.
I started playing about 12 years ago because I wanted to be able to watch and talk football with the guys. It REALLY does a great job pretty quickly in getting you familiar with teams and the players. Not just the marquee players either, because if one of the stars (referred to as “studs” in FF) gets injured and he’s on your roster, you have to scout another player to fill that spot. But it’s not as simple as just going and picking up his back up either, because as soon as word gets out that say, Drew Brees is injured and not going to be able to play for a few weeks, everyone in your league is going to try to pick up his back up.
Yes, FF was played before the internet, but for the life of me I don’t know how that’d even look. The automated sites take care of all of the scoring calculations, and picking up players is usually just a click or a drag and drop, and it still consumes a few hours of my week during the season. I can’t imagine how it was done when everything was done with pen and paper.
For me, the fun come from hanging out with the guys and trash talking on our league site. Oh, and everyone in our league (we have 12 guys) says they look forward to our draft night party more than any other event in the year.
It was called “Everyone worked in the same office and the Commissioner got an extra-long smoke break on Monday morning to add up Sunday’s point totals from the newspaper.” Everyone else of course scored their own teams to double-check the figures. We used to have some spirited debates about some of the totals. And the Monday Night game was almost always a tense affair for someone.
Draft night was getting everyone together in a conference room with a dry-erase board and going through an actual draft.
You don’t get that kind of interaction in the Digital Age. For the most part, I haven’t played FF with anyone except random Yahoo! nerds in over 10 years probably. Modern officeplaces don’t tend to be conducive to that kind of interaction, and none of my IRL friends give a hoot about football.
One of the best games I’ve ever been in was purely abstract. We had teams, and players, and games – but never mind what the actual game was! (“Cryptoball!”) All we knew were the outcomes. It was a “black box” kind of science and statistics games. If I move this guy from position A to position B, does he do better? If I pay more for equipment, do I win more games? Hey, Jack, I’ll trade you this player for that player!
Entirely abstract…and fun! I think this kind of admiration for statistics and experimentation is a big part of Fantasy Football.
Maybe before the internet. Now, I would guess that at least half of the fantasy football playing demographic plays to demonstrate superior knowledge of football than for any love of statistics. I remember the looks I got the first time I brought a computer to the draft, and the completely blank looks when I mentioned the word “spreadsheet”.
The fun is having the team you assembled through draft, auction, trades and free agency compete on Sunday against a similarly compiled team of one of your friends’. Jocularity ensues, win or lose, especially if kept in perspective.
Let’s say you and I are in a league together - just the two of us. First, we have a draft. I take Adrian Peterson. You take Peyton Manning. I take Jimmy Graham. You take Adrian Foster. I take Aaron Rodgers. You take Jamaal Charles. I take Calvin Johnson. You take Larry Fitzgerald. We carry on like this for 16 total rounds, each filling out a roster.
On Week 1 of the NFL season, our players play in real games. We take the statistics that our players accumulate during that week, add them up, and compare. The manager with the higher total wins. We do this for 13-14 weeks. Then we go into the playoffs in Week 14 or 15. The winner of the playoffs is declared the champion.
Over the course of the season we can trade players, pick up free agents as our players get hurt, etc. That’s the basic description of it.
Thank you all for these excellent and informative posts.
My only experience with sports mania was many years ago when I had a season ticket to my city’s NBA team (back when ordinary mortals could afford them). Every waking minute was taken up with basketball, reading about it in every source we could locate (no internet then), and even going to local playgrounds to watch kids play during the All-Star Break when the withdrawal became unbearable. Being female, my mania also extended to stalking players and leaving notes on their cars. I’m guessing straight men don’t do that.
I can see where this would be loads of fun and constantly challenging. The combination of fantasy and real life is particularly compelling because the real life part is completely outside your control, but if you’re clever, informed, and intuitive you can make good choices. The element of chance, however, is still high.
I would definitely be in a League of Our Own with you, as Munch was my fav character on L&O:SVU.
Do these players play together on real teams or are we making fantasy teams? If the latter, do we name the fantasy teams?
But not necessarily with each other, right?
In all their games over the week? Is football only played on certain days? (Yes, I just arrived from outer space.)
This is a very good description.
I can see, as one poster said, that the internet has made this more efficient, and involved more people, but that intra-office play must have *really *been fun, what with the screaming, shouting, weeping, wadding up sheets of paper and throwing them, etc.
The real players play on their real teams. Their production in terms of yards, hits, baskets, rebounds, etc. correspond to points that you track for your team - the fantasy team.
You absolutely name your fantasy team! Fantastic question.
The players play their games and have no idea that your fantasy team exists. Well, some players do but most don’t like the idea that there’s someone out there cheering them on solely because they’re on a fantasy team.
Basketball is games over a week. Baseball too. Some leagues have it so you set your lineup for a week and is static. Others let you change it day-to-day. Football is played only once a weeks o it lends itself to having the lineup set once a week - Sunday. Easier to keep track of.
For what are known as “local” leagues, the preseason draft or auction is often a permanently circled date on the social calendar. Alcohol is invariably involved.
Industry estimates are that between 24 and 28 million people participate in some form of fantasy sports league.
The reason I like Fantasy Football is because it makes me interested in all the team’s games, rather than just my favorite team. I’ll sit down and watch the Cardinals play against the Ravens just because I have Larry Fitzgerald and Ray Rice on my fantasy team. And I’ll get really into the game. I might not even care to watch much of it if I didn’t have that rooting interest.
Incidentally, there are multiple Fantasy Football Leagues run for posters on this board. I run one of them, Senor Beef runs several with different rules, and there may be a couple of others as well. Each league will have a signup/discussion thread in the Game Room forum, probably starting by the end of the month, if not sooner.
My league will first be open to the people that played last year. If someone drops out, I’ll make that slot available to anyone that wants to play. I think most of the established leagues here do something similar.
I’ve always thought otherwise. I figure players like the fact that alongside the regular fans who are cheering them on for the sake of their team, there are also the fantasy fans who are cheering them on as individuals. Being picked for a fantasy team, after all, is a reflection on their personal abilities and I’m sure most professional players have enough ego to appreciate that.
Adrian Peterson: “For all the people that had me on their fantasy football team, thank you for believing in me.”
Nowdays anybody can play and have a decent chance of a successful team even without much football knowledge. The internet sites have become so automated that even during the draft they’ll tell you the highest ranked player available. Takes away some of the skill involved.
I attempted playing in a pencil-paper leauge back in, oh, 1996? and it was damn tough. We weren’t given any resources like even a player/position/team list. You had to do your own research to figure out who was good and who was even on teams rosters or who was even starting or injured.
Needless to say unless you were a real football nut and followed the NFL news closely it was a difficult game. I was horrible at it.
**Do these players play together on real teams or are we making fantasy teams? **
Yes, the players play on their own teams - but we use their stats for our fake fantasy teams. All the players I mentioned are real football players, who all play on different teams. You can certainly pick as many players from the same team as you can draft, but it’s not recommended (simply because people who do so are typically just picking players from their favorite team, rather than branching out and learning about the rest of the league. This “homerism” usually leads to disappointment.)
If the latter, do we name the fantasy teams?
Absolutely - sometimes that’s the best part.
**But not necessarily with each other, right? **
Correct. In fact, it’s not uncommon for players on the same real life team to be playing against each other in fantasy. So if I have Drew Brees and you have Jimmy Graham (both on the New Orleans Saints), I’ll actually lose points every time Brees throws a touchdown to Graham (well, you’ll gain more points than I do, to be completely accurate).
In all their games over the week? Is football only played on certain days?
NFL games are on Sunday, with one or two Monday night games. Later in the season they add a Thursday game, because it makes them money.
Everyone else of course scored their own teams to double-check the figures. We used to have some spirited debates about some of the totals. And the Monday Night game was almost always a tense affair for someone.
I’m guessing straight men don’t do that.