Fantasy football craze

Fantasy football is an online sensation that has been sweeping our nation over the last five years or so. It is a fun and friendly way to compete against your friends.


Fantasy football has an online draft where you create a league with your friends and you have a chance to pick your favorite players and put them on your team. It tries to simulate owning an actual team, only without all the salary cap and financial junk that comes along with owning your own football team.


The point of the draft is to get yourself the best players in the league on one team in order to beat any of your friends, whether it is a points league or a match-up league.


During the draft, team owners are instructed to pick a certain number of players for each position. The usual breakdown is two quarterbacks, four wide receivers, three running backs, two tight ends, two kickers and two defensive units.


A points league is when you win based on the amount of points your team has scored in a week and they all add up at the end of the season. The player with the most points is the winner.


A match-up league is when you are matched up against one of your friend’s teams. With a match-up league comes the playoff feature. If you have more than eight teams in your league, it will take the teams with the top records and have them go into a playoff round, while the other teams are left out and their season is over.


“I love fantasy football. It is a great way for me to compete with my friends,” said senior Emily Koppelman.


After all of the drafting is done comes the first week of head-to-head competition. More research than expected goes into fantasy football. You have to make sure you’re not sending a weak running back, like Julius Jones, against one of the most prominent run stopping defenses, like the Pittsburgh Steelers. You also do not want to have a lot of players from one team starting, especially if they play the same position because then they would split carries or receptions, and thus revieve less points.


The free agent and trade aspects of the game are also somewhat similar to the way it actually works in the National Football League (NFL). You cannot have too many players on your roster and you also can’t have too few.


“Playing fantasy football gets you interested in keeping up with the NFL and who the best players are,” said junior August McCarthy. “It’s fun to compete with your friends to see who knows the most about NFL players and teams.”