The Complete Guide to Fantasy Football for Beginners Part 1: What is Fantasy Football?

I’ve been watching football since I was 8 years old. Every Sunday, I used to grab a bag of microwave popcorn, throw on an old jersey, and sit in front of my TV to watch my local team take the field. Even though I wouldn’t always understand the difficult and convoluted rules of the sport, I loved just watching the physicality and the superhuman athleticism that my favorite players would provide. 

As I got older, I started to learn more about football, and began to dive deeper into the intricacies and the complexities the NFL had to provide. I began following news platforms, following statistics, and watching more and more games outside of just my favorite teams and players. I became a super fan of the league and fell in love with watching the game. By the time I reached high school, I considered myself an expert of American football.

One day, one of my buddies messaged me and asked me about starting a fantasy football league among our peers. Considering most of us were avid watchers of the sport and fantasy football seemed like a fun, unserious competition for us to engage in on the side, we created an ESPN league and started our campaign.

It was only ten of us, and nobody had ever played before. Wanting to get a leg up, I started doing my own research before the draft, reading articles and watching youtube videos. I quickly got overwhelmed. The game I had thought to be simple and light-hearted turned out to be an elaborate compound of strategy, calculated outlining, and lots of luck. Words such as “sleeper,” “PPR, “ “waiver wire” and other various terms were thrown around constantly and I struggled to familiarize myself with the heap of it all. Eventually I just gave up and told myself I would improvise upon draft day. 

When draft day rolled around, we all joined a call and began to select players left and right. When my turn came up, I was stumped and couldn’t make a decision. The clock ticked down and I panicked and just chose the player on the top of my screen, because I recognized his face quickly and he seemed decent. Upon seeing the player get added to my roster, I felt a small sense of accomplishment, but this feeling was short-lived as I realized I had no idea how I was going to progress through all 16 rounds. A small feeling of relief pulsed through my veins as I realized nobody else knew what they were doing either. 

As the rounds progressed, our strategies (or lack, thereof) became painfully obvious. We made our draft picks based on name recognition, and we made so many obvious mistakes that we ended up looking like a bunch of fools. Some teams would end up with five superstar quarterbacks and wide receivers but no other positions, while other managers would flaunt players that they believed were muscular and athletic but had little to no value in fantasy. For me, my team was a mishmash of big names and obscure players, but fortunately I had every position covered. 

As our season went on, we slowly started to learn through trial and error different strategies and decisions to make. We realized it’s probably a good idea to start players like Patrick Mahomes over a 7th round QB from Eastern Michigan simply because he had nice-looking hair. I developed skills on how to sign impactful free agents, make advantageous and beneficial trades, and recognize when a player was starting to have a dip in their on-field performances. 

If you’re like me and you wanna learn how to play fantasy football, you can do what I did and BS your way through the season, or you can use this guide to lead you through the unknown ramifications and convoluted rules of the game. I’ve been playing fantasy football for several years and multiple leagues, and have won my league several times. I had to learn this business through a series of mistakes and setbacks, but fortunately for you I can set you on the right path to winning glory in your first ever season.

If you have already played fantasy football, this guide is still extremely helpful, as it goes through draft strategies, different scoring systems, and can certainly give you some new information you didn’t know before. If you have never played, this guide is perfect for you as it goes through how to build a squad, how to make trades, and some expert tips I would have killed to know as a beginner. Now, without any more delay, let’s dive right in. 

What is fantasy football?

Fantasy football, in general terms, is a simulation-based game that uses real-life statistics and player performances to determine scoring. In other words, it uses the actual output of real-life players to determine how many players those points score in fantasy. For example, if Justin Jefferson has a really good performance in a game, he will have a really good performance in fantasy. But if Justin Jefferson does not play well and barely catches any passes, he will have a bad performance in fantasy. It’s a game of predictions. In the nationally recognized format, fantasy players will draft their roster before the season and will play a different team each week, and whoever has more fantasy points that week gets the win. Johnny may join a fantasy football league and play Matthew in Week 1, and Johnny’s roster will combine for 150 fantasy points while Matthew’s squad only scores 120 points. Johnny gets the win. There are other possible ways of playing, which will be explained later, but almost every fantasy league operates like the scenario described above. 

There are multiple ways teams will determine the winner of the fantasy league. Most commonly, the best teams near the end of the season will enter a playoff format in the final weeks of the regular season, and one team will be crowned victorious. Uncommonly, some leagues won’t enter a playoff stage and will just use the team with the most wins to determine who lifts the trophy. However, most competitions will use playoff games. It’s up to the league manager how you decide to operate the season. 

Fantasy football started in the 1960s and was conducted on paper. Leagues would write out who they drafted, and they would use the stats to manually calculate how many points each player would receive each week, and would add the wins of each competitor by hand. Thankfully, you won’t find anybody still playing like that except for maybe your local nursing home. 

Today, leagues are processed digitally almost everywhere you look. The advanced technology nowadays can convert player stats to fantasy points almost instantly, and your fantasy team will be updated live every minute on gameday. Drafts are done online, and you can use a simple laptop or cell phone to pick your squad and the internet will save it for you. You can make trades, sign free agents, and check your scores 100% virtually.

If you are worried about joining a league this year because of a time commitment, I’m here to tell you not to worry about that. Because of technology and how easy it is to edit your squad, there is very little time commitment involved each week. You will have to engage in a draft before the season for an hour or so, but when the season starts you only need around 5-10 minutes per week to set your lineup and check your scores. If you wanna play more seriously and you have a deeper passion for winning, you will only have to spend slightly more time each week, maybe 15 minutes to find the best possible trades or sign the best waiver wire players. Fantasy football is an extremely enjoyable competition and requires very little commitment. 

If you are looking for a good online platform to create or join a league, here are five leagues I would recommend:

1. ESPN Fantasy Football (My Preferred Platform)

2. Yahoo! Fantasy Sports

3. Sleeper

4. NFL Fantasy

5. CBS Sports Fantasy Football

Fantasy Football is no easy task, but this full comprehensive guide is full of insights, strategies, and pointers that can turn a beginner into a champion. In the following parts, you will learn how to draft, how to form your roster, how to pursue trades and make impact signings, and ulimately how to bring home that trophy.