This is a weird year for sports, right? I mean, who figured that the virus would flip everything upside down?
With the entirety of the NFL season hanging over us, some fantasy football players are choosing to opt out themselves because of the uncertainty. Believe me, I get it. With everything potentially being week to week, there are questions about how to handle and approach it. For most of us, the traditional season-long fantasy football season is a sense of normalcy. We get so enthralled in it. This year, maybe not so much.
Searches for fantasy football on Google are down nearly 30% this year compared to last year. I mean, after all, most of the excitement of playing fantasy is historically the draft, right? We’re watching training camps, preseason games, looking for patterns or maybe something that could tell us who that “diamond in the rough will be,” or the break out star.
This year, we have very little to go off of when prepping. I mean, we don’t have games, a lot less video, so we rely heavily on media and beat reporters, and the dreaded coach speak. You know, things like “Player A came into camp in great shape” or “Player B is ready to make a big impact this season.” It sounds good, but we know how much trust we can put into what coaches say.
However, if you want to play fantasy in 2020 but are concerned about getting through an entire season, there are several options that you can play to get the fantasy football fix while not necessarily making the commitment. Let’s be honest, as much as we want there to be a full NFL season, we need to be prepared to make some contingency plans in case games get postponed, or worse the season comes to a screeching halt because of COVID-19. Nobody wants it, but we can’t deny that it could happen.
Therefore, let’s look at three types of games if you’re looking for an alternative to the traditional season long fantasy football format:
DFS (Daily Fantasy Sports)
This has become wildly popular because you can play whenever it’s convenient for you, and it’s a huge favorite of mine. It’s a weekly (or even game-specific) format that requires you to work within the confines of a salary cap ($50K on DraftKings $60K on FanDuel.) If you forget to play or frankly don’t feel like it, no worries. Fill out your lineup underneath the salary cap and watch the cash roll in. This is nice because it also won’t allow you to plug in players that could be on a bye week. There are so many different strategies to winning, and it can fluctuate from week to week.
Best Ball
Let’s be honest. Outside of the draft, the best part of playing fantasy football is submitting the lineups. We study the numbers, matchups, trends, injuries and all other pertinent information to try and put the best lineup out there. Well this is the Ron Popeil of fantasy football. Just “set it, and forget it!” In this format you draft your team and forget about it. There’s no in-season management (waivers, trades, etc.) Every week the site will take the optimum lineup and use that. It’s accumulative, not head to head.
Guillotine League
This is a format that has started to pick up some steam over the past couple of years. You draft a team, but essentially it’s a 17-team survivor league with the lowest scoring team being eliminated and disbanded every week. Those players then become free agents that the remaining teams can bid on. Every week as teams get chopped more players enter the pool. It is essentially sudden death football meets the survivor pool.
The football season really is a fun time of year and fantasy adds to the enjoyment. There’s a reason it’s become immensely popular. Whether or not you’re planning to play in a season-long league is up to you. Some people already play some of the above, some play all or and some haven’t tried any at all. But this might be the season to dip the toe in the water and try something different.
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