At this point in the football season, fantasy owners are in the thick of their playoffs. Some teams are flying high, and some teams are finishing the way they started.
“This is my year.” (It never was)
The strategy that goes into constructing a lineup makes it feel as if you’re preparing for a NFL Sunday. You have to look at matchups, projections, check your gut feeling— all this to try and outduel your opponent when the games have locked and it’s totally out of your control.
Perhaps your team was boosted by the performances of Josh Jacobs in a career year, the emergence of Trevor Lawrence, or Geno Smith finally seeming to have figured it out in Seattle.
This can also depend upon if your league plays a point per catch or a half point per catch, the label and scoring basis for all things fantasy football.
Points come from catches, yards and touchdowns for offensive players. Points are typically 1 point for every 10 yards gained. For quarterbacks, it is 1 point for every 25 yards. Touchdowns are typically 6 points like in real football.
Some leagues play with kickers and defense. They have point ranges based upon field goal distance, points and yards given up, and defenses can get points from sacks and takeaways.
The most defeating feeling has to be being up 3 points when your opponent has their kicker remaining and they pull out a 1-point victory because of a late field goal.
There’s been disappointments like Russell Wilson’s first season in Denver, Jonathan Taylor’s injury-riddled season, and Cooper Kupp having his season cut short, and maybe taking out your playoff hopes along with him.
In a game that once had to have its points calculated by hand, there has been an explosion of apps and websites involved. In earlier iterations of the competition, points were calculated by one person in the league, much like a banker in Monopoly, and you wouldn’t know for a few days what the results of your matchup were.
Now, everything is instantaneous.
ESPN has one of the more popular apps, as well as programs and briefings to help managers get the most from their lineups. This is especially important now that playoffs are underway. In a standard 10-12 team league, 6-8 teams make the playoffs and it’s an all-out brawl to take the crown.
Every player will be available and it now comes down to pushing the right buttons. Most leagues play for a cash prize and maybe a trophy. A lot of leagues will also implement a last-place punishment. Sometimes it’s a tattoo, or public humiliation, or the ever-daunting sitting in an IHOP for 24 hours and every pancake eaten takes 1 hour off— it’s harder than it seems.
The team may be fantasy, but the stress is real. Watching multiple games at once for just your player, people find themselves yelling at the TV over a routine play that wasn’t put in their third reciever’s hands.
If you survived round 1, congratulations and best of luck moving forward. You’re one of the few that still have a chance, and hopefully it will not ruin the Christmas holiday for you. If you’ve been eliminated, that’s too bad, maybe next year will be your year.
