Why has Peyton Hillis been so ineffective after a breakout year last season? After four mediocre years to start his NFL career, why did Fred Jackson have the fourth most points of all running backs before he got hurt? Why did it take only 10 games for Wes Welker to match how many points he scored in 15 games in 2011?
These are all the types of questions that people who are in to fantasy football ask themselves each week.
Fantasy Football is growing in popularity every year. Numbers released by the Fantasy Sports Trade Association state that there are now a massive 14 million people playing fantasy football in the 2011 season around the world. It is not just for men, either. Women make up 15 percent of the people who have gotten into the weekly choices of who to start at each position and whether or not to trade certain players.
Fantasy football starts before the NFL season starts with the owners of each team drafting a team of NFL players. The standard fantasy team starting lineup normally consists of starting one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, one tight end, one kicker, and one NFL team’s whole defense and special teams. Players earn points for touchdowns, yards gained or lost, and in the kickers’ case, for field goals made. There are normally 8-12 teams in each fantasy league, and the teams can trade players and add free agents.
There is no method to the madness in the fantasy football world, and that is why some people have an unreal love for it and others do not understand the obsession with it.
Twins Matt and Luke Riedl, seniors, are like many people that have gotten into the choices and decisions of fantasy football. Sundays are the most looked-forward to day in many houses across America now, including in the Riedl house.
Luke and Matt are both in the same fantasy football league and share intensity for fantasy football. Each Sunday consists of watching football and checking ESPN often to check on how their fantasy teams are doing.
Another reason fantasy football is loved is because it is a chance to compete with friends and family throughout the season.
“One of the best parts about fantasy football is the competition,” Luke Riedl said. “It makes it [fantasy football] much more fun, being able to compete with friends.”
Another good thing about fantasy football is that the owners are completely in control. For all the sports fans who complain about what their favorite team is doing and questioning moves they make with players, fantasy football gives them the opportunity to be in full control of players being added, dropped, or traded.
Despite these potential positives, there are still some people who are not yet on board and don’t find the appeal in fantasy football.
“Fantasy football is a lot of time wasted,” senior Olivia Nall said who is not a fan of fantasy football.
The argument of wasting time is valid; it takes up all day Sunday and Monday nights. Later in the season, football is also played on Thursday nights, so it can be quite time consuming to build a good fantasy team.
In addition, there are 17 weeks in the NFL regular season and the fantasy football regular season goes from Week 1 to either Week 13 or 14. After the fantasy football regular season ends, the playoffs run like any other round-robin tournament, and the winner of the playoffs wins the league.
It may be true that sometimes fantasy football owners spend time trying to figure out a player that everyone else discarded, and the time is completely wasted if the player turns out to be nothing. But for those times when the owner is correct about a player, all that time spent on research is rewarded and it is worth the time.
“I don’t think fantasy football takes up that much time if you know what you are doing,” freshman Marc Laska said. “If you don’t know what you are doing, you could be on there for a while trying to make your team the best.”
In most leagues, owners don’t even keep their players from year to year, and the football players that owners can grow attached to are gone and the cycle starts anew when the next season starts.
Although there are so many people who have started participating in fantasy football, there are still many people on the other end of the spectrum that dislike it. Sundays will keep being ‘football day’ for Luke and Matt Riedl, and Marc Laska, and other supporters of it, but for Olivia Nall and everybody else who dislikes fantasy football, Sundays will continue to be frustrating.