Fantasy Football is here and here to stay in your world until spring. You may not know what Fantasy Football is because you don’t know the sport or don’t understand the concept of the “game,” but here is the run down.

In your classes you may hear people saying, “You win this week” or “You want to trade” or something like “Your team sucks.” These are all most likely being referred to in fantasy football terms. 

Fantasy football is a game/app that has up to 4-12 players usually and is a “game” that is based on a real life football players’ performances. The way it begins is first you find a group of people to start a league with, next you set a time and date for a draft. The draft is where you pick players to be on your Fantasy Football team. You must make sure when you set the time and date that all your league-mates can be on their phone and draft the players they want, if not then the app will choose your players for you. Then when the actual NFL season starts, you go against other league-mates week by week to see whose fantasy team is better than the other. 

Now the way you can tell if your players and team are winning/losing against other teams is by their live performance of an actual football game. An example is Tom Brady. If you have Tom Brady on your team, you can watch his game to see if he performs well to give your team points. Depending on how he plays in the actual football game, you will receive a certain number of points for your team. 

Throughout the NFL season, you can trade and acquire players like if you are the general manager of an actual team! In simple words, Fantasy Football is a game where people choose their players and create a team and you get to see if your team is better than your other league-mates. 

Fantasy football is just another way to make NFL games interesting for viewers to enjoy. Nowadays, many people probably would not be watching actual NFL games if it wasn’t for Fantasy Football. 

Now some ways to make the league more interesting or make your league-mates actually want to be encouraged to play is money! This is an option and not required; you can always play Fantasy Football for free. In most leagues, the league-mates put in a certain amount of money each for the “prize” for whoever has the best record by the end of the NFL season. An example is if a league has 12 people in it, each person puts in $10 to play and whoever wins the league will receive all the money since they had the best record. So in the end, the winner ends up with $120 and only put in $10. Another way to make the league fun is a “punishment” for whoever ends up with the worst record in the league, which makes it even more interesting. The punishments do vary and are not at all harsh or harmful to anyone. An example is that whoever gets last has to do a silly dance in public or something in that category. Who knows, you might see a Fantasy Football punishment on school campus, at your family gatherings, or at random times.