For 18 weeks, senior Dhyan Sesha gave his all to his fantasy team, watching each player’s game no matter the day or time, while studying the best players to add to his team, so that he can beat all his friends, win his league, and avoid a nasty punishment.

Fantasy Football is a game that keeps up with the NFL regular season. You are the owner of your team and you are playing against other people (your friends, family, or a random league), you draft players in the NFL and based off of their performances you get points. People play fantasy football in order to make watching games more interesting. “I feel more attracted to games that my players are playing in,” Sesha said.

When you are drafting your teams, you draft 16 players, but only nine end up starting. You start one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, one tight end, one FLEX player, which is a running back wide receiver or tight end, and then a defense and kicker. Although, this is not the only setting you can play with as you can modify your league in different ways. “One of my leagues is a two quarterback league which means each person has to start two quarterbacks,” Sesha said.

If you get more points than your opponent then you end up winning. The Fantasy Football regular season normally lasts 14 weeks and includes a different opponent each week. After your regular season ends, based on how you performed you are put into a bracket either for the playoffs or into a consolation bracket so your league can decide a loser. “My goal for the season is to make it to win the whole league so that I can avoid our punishment,” Sesha said.
All leagues have different punishments for the loser with wide varieties of what the loser would have to do. Common punishments include public embarrassment, staying 24 hours in a Waffle House and retaking the SAT or ACT. “The person that loses our league has to eat a meat mountain from Arby’s,” junior Farai Fraser said.

To have a successful team, you need to be active, setting your lineups and making sure that you don’t have anyone important not playing in the coming week. Sports news media have taken over the format of fantasy football, with both Yahoo and ESPN making their own platforms for the game along with providing both news and help for each user who plays on their platform.

With playoffs just a little over a month away, students are now starting to set lineups more frequently, make more trades and overall are trying to be more active. “With playoffs coming soon, I am trying my best to start winning,” sophomore Dylan Parry said.

Fantasy Football as a game, has taken over the NFL regular season, hooking audiences on to each and every game wondering if they will win or lose their matchup each week. It has brought an increase to viewership throughout the NFL and entertainment to viewers who are not watching their favorite team.