The word fantasy has many different meanings. People usually associate fantasy with fairies, dragons, magic, damsels in distress and dashing heroes. It’s typically dreamt-up lands in books and movies with mystical creatures. Some might even say fantasy reminds them of Mariah Carey’s billowing voice. But fantasy is also associated with something that is quite different from the faraway lands one often thinks of. It is associated with football.

That’s right. Instead of a flying dragon, fantasy football puts you in the world of high-flying footballs. You get to go behind the scenes and make your own football team out of various players in the NFL. With fantasy football, you become the manager. 

This engaging activity tries to immerse people in the experience of owning and running a football team. People compete in leagues. Groups of family or friends competing against each other every week.  This sport entertains millions of people each year. According to ESPN Press Room, ESPN Fantasy Football, the most popular source for fantasy, has 12 million players this year which is a new record for the company. 

At the beginning of the NFL season, each fantasy football league has a draft where each member of the league takes turns drafting players. The goal is to create a versatile team that can score a lot of points each week. Points are earned based on different statistics NFL players have each game. For instance, points can be earned for touchdowns, receptions, positive rushes and many more. Each week members of the league go head-to-head, and whoever’s team accumulates the most points that week wins. Towards the end of the season the top six teams with the best records make the playoffs where they continue competing for a couple of weeks. Whoever wins the playoffs, wins the whole league.

This highly competitive fantasy land entertains people for weeks on end. Some people just do it for fun, others have entry fees in a winner takes all scenario, and others have ridiculous loser punishments. Fruita Monument High School Psychology teacher Leslie Anderson is an avid fantasy football fan. This year she is competing in three leagues, two low-stakes ones and a high stakes one with a big entrance fee.  She has been playing in the high stakes league since 1999. People are drawn to fantasy football for various reasons, but for Anderson it is the competition. And winning the money can be nice too. “I’m pretty competitive, so that makes it pretty fun.” Anderson stated. 

A group of senior boys at Fruita have a fantasy football league with a loser punishment. This year, the league gets to pick ridiculous outfits that the loser has to wear to school for three days. Even with this punishment lurking in the background, they choose to do it because of their love for football. “It is really fun and it’s a great way to stay connected and competitive with good friends. Also, we all love football,” one of the members of the league, Jack Savage stated.

So, how do you win fantasy football? Well, having a good team definitely starts with a good draft. There are a lot of different drafting strategies. Anderson’s drafting strategy is to draft receivers first and second round and then running backs for the next two, but that can change depending on who’s available. When trying to organize your draft picks it can be helpful to see where players are ranked. For every position, there are tier one players and so on and so forth. Tier one players usually go towards the beginning of the draft. These rankings can optimize the talent on your team and can be especially helpful to beginners.

After that, fantasy players focus on weekly team management. This can include benching injured players or players who are performing poorly and even trading players with other members in the league. That’s right, fantasy football even includes a trade aspect. When trading, people try to get better players and maybe release some that haven’t been meeting their expectations. Trading can make or break fantasy seasons. According to Savage, one of the members in his league has had quite the trading mishap. Trevor Heer traded Jonathan Taylor for Kirk Cousins, who later had a season-ending injury. “Trevor recently made the worst trade in league history and now has a much higher chance of losing it all,” Savage explained.

With this intense game at its peak right now, fantasy players are trying their best to make sure they end up on top. Or at least not at the bottom. If you’re competing in a fantasy season right now, hopefully your players are scoring all the points in the world, so that you don’t become the next laughing stock of your friend group.