Every fall brings the season for the National Football League. Along with the NFL, fantasy football season happens every fall as well.
Fantasy Football brings football fans of every type to sites such as Yahoo, ESPN, NFL.com and more. Once on these sites, the fans join their leagues, either a private league with their friends or a public league with random fans from around the country.
After joining the league, the Fantasy Football players have to prepare for their draft. In the fantasy draft, the fans select their team, which is made up of players from the 32 NFL teams. Once the draft is complete, fans get ready for the season.
During the season, each fantasy team is matched up against another in the league. The teams are awarded points based on how well the members of their team perform in their game that week. Near the end of the NFL regular season, the fantasy football playoffs begin. These can be one of the most competitive weeks of the season, as the fantasy teams are fighting it out for the top spot in the league. While the fantasy playoffs are exciting and important to the season, the draft may be the most important component of the fantasy season.

The Draft
The fantasy draft officially kicks off the fantasy football season for the members of that league.
English teacher Mr. Michael Johnson said that the draft is one of the highlights of the season.
“It’s the one time you can get everybody together,” he said.
Johnson said this is the 17th year he has been doing the same league with the same eight guys he started with after high school. They have added four more to their league since then.
He also said that the guys get together for their draft, instead of each member just on computers.
“We like it. Everybody brings food,” Johnson said.
They bring food such as sausage and chicken and there is also the presence of an ESPN figure at his draft.
“One guy brings a picture of Mel Kiper,” he said.
When any fantasy draft starts, there can be different strategies as to which players and positions to select first.
“I always try to go for running backs first. They’re hardest to come by,” senior Jimmy Wackerly said. “You can always get good receivers and quarterbacks later.”
Senior A.J. Sarbaugh agreed that a fantasy team should take a top running back to start off.
“They will score the most points,” he said.
Johnson said that running backs are at a premium since “other positions have more depth.”
For a newcomer to fantasy football, Sarbaugh also said it is important to get the running backs early.
“You can get a guy who scores a lot of points to carry your team,” he said.
Johnson said the offenses and the amount of touches that a player will get should be something that a newcomer to Fantasy Football looks at.
He said newcomers should “pick guys in an offense that score a lot of points—get a Colt, a Saint, a Patriot” and to draft “guys that get a lot of touches and will score the ball.”
In addition, participants in the fantasy league spend much time in preparation.
Wackerly said that he would watch some shows related to Fantasy Football, but most of his picks come from knowledge of watching football over the years.
Johnson said that less planning goes into a draft than it did years ago.
“[The site will] provide you with their own list of who is the next best guy,” he said.
Johnson said that this allows people who do no research to just pick the next best guy based on the list.
In addition to the player-ranking list, Sarbaugh said it is also important to look at the bye weeks and which teams will play each at which point in the season.

The Season
Once the regular season begins, a part of the game that keeps fantasy owners’ attention is injuries. Depending on the league, injuries are handled differently.
Sarbaugh said he tends to keep the better players on his roster and drop the lower-rated players to free agency. He said determining whether to keep a player “depends on how long the guy’s out.”
Wackerly said the draft can help you deal with injuries that occur.
“You just have to hope that you drafted good players on your bench to fill in for them, or you make trades,” he said.
To avoid a situation where a fantasy team starts a player, who then scores zero points due to an injury, Johnson said his league provides a list of back-ups to the league commissioner.
“You might get stuck if somebody doesn’t play,” he said.
In addition to checking for injuries, team owners also need to look at their roster to set their lineup for the upcoming games.
Wackerly said he tends to check his lineup during his free time at home. Sarbaugh, who is in the same league as Wackerly, said he checks about 15 minutes a day “just to see who picked up who and the [scoring] projections.”
Unlike Sarbaugh, Johnson said he doesn’t check his roster until Saturday. He said that he knows other team owners who check ESPN and Yahoo every day but Johnson said all the information needed for the games can be found on Saturday and all at once.
While watching the games on Sundays, Wackerly said he will frequently root against his favorite team, the Browns, if their opponent has members of his fantasy team.
“I find myself rooting against Cleveland if my player is on the other team,” he said.
Johnson also finds the same issue but said, “If you’re in a league, you’ll deal with it.”
The number of leagues an owner participates in also can give issues, according to Johnson.
“You end up cheering for guys that are going to beat you somewhere else,” he said.

The Experience
Johnson has participated in both public and private leagues and said that private leagues are more competitive.
“You can talk smack and know who you’re dealing with,” he said. “You can have bragging rights with the guys you see.”
Sarbaugh said that the members of his league will talk about the results so far and which players are left on Monday Night Football during school on Monday.
He also said that the competition of being in a league with friends makes it “really fun and enjoyable.”
Johnson said that the media have helped to increase the popularity of Fantasy Football. He said that ESPN makes a lot of information available and that DirecTV lets football fans watch a wider variety of games. This is compared to years ago when only one game, maybe two, were available in a viewing area.
“Games I would not have cared about [became] more interesting because you have a vested interest in how it comes out,” Johnson said.
He added that sports in general gets much more attention and coverage by the media than it used to.
Wackerly said that fantasy football is “something fun and interesting to do,” and added that “it’s really easy to get addicted.”
There are many reasons why fantasy football players enjoy what they do.
Johnson said that he is a big football fan and that fantasy football will make the games that he would not normally pay much attention to interesting, since fantasy players are involved in that game.
He also said that fantasy football gives him another team to root for, if the team he follows is not doing well.
“If the Browns lose every week, I still have a chance to win in fantasy,” he said.
Sarbaugh said that part of his enjoyment, outside of the competition, is finding out which players performed well and how that affects the teams.
According to Wackerly, fantasy football is a fun activity to pursue with friends and gives more reasons to watch football on Sundays.
“It makes football more fun to watch,” he said.