According to a recent report, more than 40 million Americans play fantasy football every fall. That makes fantasy football the most popular fantasy sport in the country by far.
If you’re not a part of a fantasy football league yet, you should aim to change that immediately. Watching football every Sunday afternoon will be so much more exciting when you have a fantasy football team set up.
Not sure how to play fantasy football? It’s way easier than you might think. You can establish a fantasy football team and start picking the best fantasy football players in no time at all.
Continue reading to see how to start your own fantasy football team from scratch.
Begin by Setting Up Your Own Fantasy Football League
In order to create a fantasy football team, you’re going to have to be a part of a fantasy football league. And while you could technically join an existing league, it’s usually a much better idea to start your own league if you can.
When you start your own fantasy football league, you’ll be able to invite some of your family members and friends to participate in it. This will make playing fantasy football even more fun than it would be otherwise.
Just pick the fantasy football platform that you want to use (ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, and CBS Sports are just a few of your options) and set up a league through it. It should be easy enough to get your fantasy football league off the ground.
Set a Date for Your League’s Fantasy Football Draft
Once you have a fantasy football league set up and ready to go, you can set the date for your league’s fantasy football draft. Most leagues will hold their drafts sometime towards the end of August right before the NFL season is set to kick off.
Ideally, you should try to wait until as close to the opening night of the NFL season as you can. It’ll help you and your fellow fantasy football players steer clear of drafting players who then get injured prior to the start of the season.
You should also choose which kind of draft you want to hold. Snake drafts and auction drafts are the two most popular types of fantasy football drafts with snake drafts being the preferred option for many beginners.
Figure Out Who the Best Fantasy Football Players Are
After you’ve set a date for your fantasy football draft, you should think about spending some time doing research for it. In a perfect world, you want to know who the best fantasy football players are going to be for the upcoming season so that you can draft them accordingly.
You don’t necessarily need to take time off from work to do your research for a fantasy football draft or anything. But you should try not to go into your draft blindly without doing any homework on fantasy football players at all. That’s going to be a recipe for disaster for your fantasy football team.
Read Lots of Articles Written by Fantasy Football Experts
Don’t have a ton of extra time to devote to doing research for your fantasy football draft? There are plenty of fantasy football experts out there who put out very informative articles every year.
By reading just a few of these articles, you can get a better idea as to who you should think about drafting and who you should stay far, far away from.
Read more about the approach that you should take to drafting players for your fantasy football team in advance.
Put Together the Best Fantasy Football Team Possible
On the day of your league’s fantasy football draft, you should make all your picks on your own as opposed to letting your fantasy football platform “auto-pick” for you. Half the fun of fantasy football is attending your draft and doing your best to put together a great fantasy football team.
You’re obviously not going to be able to draft every single player that you want. But you should be able to create a lineup filled with at least some of the best fantasy football players.
Make Adjustments to Your Fantasy Football Team Over Time
The fantasy football team that you create on the day of your fantasy football draft should not be the fantasy football team that you’re playing with at the end of the NFL season. You should constantly make adjustments to your team to try and improve it over the course of the season.
Each week, you’ll have the opportunity to pick up free agent players who aren’t a part of another fantasy football team. You’ll also have the chance to part ways with fantasy football players who aren’t producing good enough numbers.
You don’t want to start making roster adjustments just because. But you should make it your mission to make improvements to your team whenever possible.
Sit Back and Watch Your Fantasy Football Team Go
As long as you do everything else that we’ve talked about here, you should be all ready to field a winning fantasy football team. The only thing that will be left to do is to sit back on Sundays and monitor how your team is doing.
You’ll find that watching NFL games will be so much more interesting when you have a fantasy football team. You’ll love seeing your score go up as your players pad their stats.
It’s So Simple to Start Your Own Fantasy Football Team
It’s hard to imagine a time when people didn’t play fantasy football. It has completely revolutionized the way that people watch NFL games.
You should experience this for yourself by starting your own fantasy football team. It’s very easy to do it, and it’ll make you love watching football even more than you already do.
Would you like to get your hands on some more fantasy football tips and tricks? Find them by checking out the other fantasy-related content posted on our blog.
