Fantasy Football Intro or Here We Go Again

I wasn’t going to do it this year. I was finally over Fantasy after an abysmal season where my #1 overall player decided he wasn’t going to show up, multiple people I went all in on sucked, and 30 teams ignoring Christine Michael entirely. Like he wasn’t better than 90% of the backs starting today. Heck, I’d take him in the first round of a Madden Franchise draft. Let’s do this!

So yeah, this year I was really not going to write anything about Fantasy Football for the first time in about 8 years. I was debating to stop playing all together. It’s not the same level of enjoyment anymore. Back about a decade ago, you really had to know things to be good. Sure, luck was a factor, and it always will be, but you needed to know depth charts to draft well. Anyone following rankings, typically from an outdated magazine, would be completely outmatched by anyone who kept up on the news. Truly, the nerds ran the world, as many of us have feared for centuries. Why do you think bullies existed? To keep the nerds without confidence, and freshly wedgied.

A funny thing happened to fantasy over the next few years – a spike in popularity. What was once the equivalent to playing a weekly card game with the boys became a multi billion dollar industry. I mean, there was a sitcom that was based around a fantasy football league (Which got significantly worse when they branched out from that, but that’s another rant), and Matthew Berry became a household name. Suddenly, there was news everywhere. You couldn’t log on to a sports website without getting top 200 lists. Anyone with half a brain, a camera, and a hot take became an analyst. The market was more over saturated than Bravo with housewives.

This increase in information meant no one was a secret. If you liked a player in 2008, you might have been the only person in your draft considering him. Half of the league probably never heard of him. Today, sleepers don’t exist. You could do all the research in the world, but when you sit down at the draft, everyone knows who Daniel Lasco is, even if no one else in the draft has even seen his youtube highlight package.

Oddly enough I kept getting Christine Michael in most leagues. It was probably just a glitch in the Matrix.

The gap created through research and football knowledge evaporated. Fantasy became the sports version of playing slots. The luck factor has shot through the roof. There’s still skill involved of course, but the playing field is more level. For some, this makes the game more exciting. For others, the geeks of the world, is made it a lot less. Guess where I come in? Is this an excuse for not winning any leagues I’ve played in for 6 years? 100%.

So basically, I’m a whiny, sore loser. Is anyone even remotely surprised by this? You shouldn’t be. There’s like 7 Peppa Pig Blogs.

But as August approached, I decided to start writing. The Mets were completely dead in the standings, and the constant barrage of football news started to get me back into things. I find myself enjoying the research, and honestly it didn’t take nearly as long as it used to. I guess having all that information available was helpful anyway.

Now naturally the Mets have won 15 out of 17 games since I started and had I known this, I would have went all in on baseball instead. Now, it’s too late. At least I can be let down by two different teams in September. That sounds like a good time.

All this week, expect a position ranking for each of the positions that matter to fantasy football. Oh, and also TE. Then, at the end, I’ll do an overall ranking that you can use to finish in about 9th place in your league. That’s pretty sweet. There may also be a surprise of two along the way, depending on how much time I have. Trust me, it’ll be a mediocre time.

Tune in tomorrow for our QB discussion.