Ever wanted to manage your own football team? Be the head coach, make the calls? Playing fantasy football gives you the chance to do it all. In fantasy football, you draft a team of current players, trying to build a team to score “fantasy points”, which can be accumulated from yards, receptions (depending on the league), touchdowns, and defensive points, and sacks. The goal is to score more points than your opponent that week, and similar to the actual NFL playoffs, the top teams make the playoffs, and compete to make it to the Super Bowl.
I interviewed several fantasy football managers. When freshman Jacob Perkins was asked “Would your friends consider you good at Fantasy football?” He gave us a very detailed, intricate answer. He said, “My friends and league mates, they would consider me one of the best they’ve ever seen. I’ve just had a rough season, with injuries that have plagued my team. I won one championship, 2 years ago.” Well, he seems very confident in his ability, even though he isn’t even in the playoffs. We asked a hopefully humbler interviewee, senior Alex Krise the same questions. Alex responded with, “I would believe they would consider me good, based on my previous victories and accolades, also considering I’m in the playoffs this year, and I won my league’s Super Bowl last year.”
This year, there have been a few standout players at each position, that have reigned at the top 3 ranks for their position week in and week out this year. At quarterback, Josh Allen has reigned as the highest scorer, with the closest second being 40 points behind. At running back, Jonathan Taylor has created a marginal gap between the next best. The number 2 running back, Jahmyr Gibbs, is 25 points behind Taylor. At wide receiver, the top 3 scores were all unpredicted, and a surprise to fantasy owners. Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who was almost an unused receiver last year, leads the receivers in points, and receptions. At a very volatile position like tight end, a good one can turn a decent team into a championship winning team, but having an underperforming tight end, can cost you games. This year, the best tight end has been clear. Trey McBride leads in scoring by 75 points and is showing no signs of slowing down for the playoffs.
The biggest busts from the draft are Brian Thomas Jr. that was projected to be 13th ranked player in all of fantasy football. But he is only performing at 10.7ppg on average which is horrible for fantasy football. AJ Brown is another big bust for fantasy football because he was projected by a large consensus to be a top 10 wide receiver in fantasy football, but he is only averaging 11.3 points. Alvin Kamara was a big bust in fantasy football number 3 overall in the CBS rankings for biggest bust, only averaging 9.7 fantasy points. One of the biggest boom players this fantasy season is Woody Marks getting 27 points one week but only averaging 9.6 points on a weekly basis.
Next year, if you’re looking to build a championship team, I would make some risky but educated picks in the first 3 rounds of your draft. For example, you should take Jahmyr Gibbs, Bijan Robinson, and Justin Jefferson. Now for more risky picks, Blake Corum, Kimani Vidal, Christian Watson, who, despite having a record year last year, has been extremely lackluster this season.
In conclusion, fantasy football requires, large amounts of knowledge, extreme intuition, and the ability to waver people to trade players. You have to be convincing, and essentially be a businessman. Making deals trading players, draft picks, and making multiple owner trades.
