We are just about a month away from the 2022-23 NFL season, and questions abound. Can the Rams repeat as Superbowl champions? Can Tom Brady put together one more magical run at age 45?
If you back a particular team and root hard for them during the fall and winter, you might feel like you have all the excitement you can handle. However, maybe you want to add a new element when you watch your favorite sport every Sunday, Monday, or Thursday.
You can have that new element by joining a fantasy football league. Let’s talk about why you should do that right now.
You’ll Watch the Game with New Eyes
Fantasy football is fun and exciting for fans, and that’s the main reason why people like to join leagues. You might buy your favorite quarterback’s jersey and wear it to the bar on Sunday afternoons, or perhaps you’ll even attend a few of the home games if you have the money to do that.
You can get together at a friend’s house and bring your famous five-layer bean dip, and you can talk trash if you have buddies who support different teams than you.
Fantasy football lets you watch the game in a whole different way, though. You might enter a league with some kind of top prize, or maybe you’ll join one just for the bragging rights if you win. Either way, you’ll learn to study the game to decide who you most want on your fantasy squad.
You’ll learn how to understand analytics and how to predict what a player might do on a given day. You will look at the competition each week and judge whether a quarterback might shred a porous defense or whether a running back will have a career year based on their team’s schedule strength.
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You Can Also Test Your Luck
You can also find out whether you’re lucky this year or not. You can select players and draft a team based on your superior football knowledge, but maybe some of your players get hurt on the season’s very first game. On the other hand, perhaps your whole team stays healthy all year, and you dominate and win your league easily.
Much like any game of chance, with fantasy football, there’s a luck element and a skill one. It’s fun sometimes to see whether the sporting fates favor you or whether they’re aligned against you.
You Can Join Forces with Family Members or Friends
You can always play against coworkers, friends, and family members, but you can also team up with someone, or multiple people, and put together a team as a cohesive unit. Maybe you’ll create a team with a parent or grandparent. Perhaps you’ll let your kid sister help you draft your team. That way, you can root for your chosen players together.
You can feel close to that person with whom you partnered if one of your wide receivers scores a touchdown or if your defense records a sack. You’ll find the stakes feel higher, and there’s a palpable adrenaline rush if you create a team with someone you love.
Every Game Feels Like a Party
Football is a violent ballet, and every game day feels vital if you love the sport. You’ll find things intensify even more, though, if you have some proverbial skin in the game.
If you’re in a fantasy league, or more than one, you’ll look forward to every game day during the autumn and early winter months like never before.
You will enjoy watching the leaves change color and fall from the trees because you know there’s going to be some smashmouth football, and every play potentially matters to you.
Even games between two bad teams feel more important if you have some of their players on your squad. You can take time to think about trades with other league members, and you can debate a trade’s merits with your friends and coworkers.
When it’s game day, you can get together at a friend’s house or invite them over. You can decorate your living room or den with football memorabilia and try out some of your new favorite recipes.
You can turn your home into draft day central before the season starts, and you can have the whole neighborhood over for kickoff.
You can discuss the game endlessly and speculate about both your team’s real-life prospects and your fantasy team’s playoff chances at the same time.
