Life Of A First Time Fantasy Football Owner

When I signed up for a fantasy football league the first time, I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew a lot about football and players from different teams around the league in general, but I had always cheered for certain players that I liked, and wished other players would just run into the goal post during games like Terrell Owens.

When a friend of mine asked me to join his Fantasy Football League, I figured what the heck all I do on Sunday’s is watch NFL games anyway.A couple of weeks later I received the confirmation email to go online and register my team name and set up my account before the fantasy league draft. Once I set up my account I noticed that you could actually rank the players in order that you wanted on your team. It seemed easy; I went through found players that are usually good playmakers, but after the 50th person there was still another 300+ names to sort through, so I just left it alone.

It was now two weeks before the draft and I was paying extra attention to the preseason football games just to make sure players I wanted to draft still looked good going into the regular season. I also paid attention to top rookie prospects especially wide receivers, running backs and quarterbacks. You know if they’re drafted in the first round of the real NFL draft they have a good chance of seeing some playing time if the person ahead of them on the depth chart goes down with an injury.

It was now draft day and my research was done, I had finally compiled a list of all the players I wanted to draft. With the second pick in the draft I selected QB Tom Brady from the New England Patriots, I also went on to get running backs Brian Westbrook (Eagles), Ryan Grant (Packers), Cedric Benson (Bengals), Darren Sproles (Chargers), Earnest Graham (Buccaneers) and Leon Washington (Jets). For receivers I picked up Reggie Wayne (Colts), DeSean Jackson (Eagles), Eddie Royal (Broncos), Devin Hester (Bears), and Donnie Avery (Rams). I only drafted one tight end Owen Daniels (Texans), one defense the Patriots, and one kicker David Akers (Eagles). With my last draft pick I selected Jake Delhomme (Panthers) as a backup quarterback since Brady spent all of last year on the sidelines.

Going into the season I thought I had a good team I was excited to see how the first week would go. One of the features of the fantasy league that I have learned drives you crazy is the scoring predictions, which I now know not to trust. For my first game it said I was favored to win the game 101-92 and made me feel like even more of a draft whiz. First time playing and it already looked like I was going to win my first game.

When the first week of the NFL season started, I found myself watching, but wondering in the back of my head how my players were doing. Then I remembered one of the guys said on Dish Network the NFL Network channel gives you up to date stats on players for the 1pm and 4pm games. So every commercial I was jumping to the channel to see how my players were doing. It kind of felt like I was an actual owner of a team minus all the money and the luxury booth.

After the 1 o’clock games I logged into my ESPN fantasy football account just to see what time my other players were on. That’s when I noticed there was a stat tracker already on the website that gives you up to the minute live scoring for your players. When the 1 o’clock games ended I was losing 60 to 35 and it didn’t look good. The predictions now said I would lose 101 to 89. I had 4 players left and the other team had 5, so throughout the 4pm games I was constantly looking at my laptop while watching the games on TV. Needless to say my wife was not too happy. At the end of the day I was up 94 to 84, going into Monday nights game we both had one player left. I was confident I would win, but as I had learned earlier in the day fantasy football scores can change negatively in an instant.

When I got home from work on Monday I did my fatherly duties made sure the kids homework was done, helped make dinner, and enjoyed time with family before putting the kids to bed. By the time the game started I already had my laptop open so I could track my player points throughout the game. I went on to win my first game 106 to 89 and felt like a proud owner. That’s all it took, after week one I was hooked and couldn’t wait for the next week to start.

Over the next couple of weeks I learned that when a team is on their bye week so is your player, which I was not prepared for (I know I’m an idiot). I went on to lose my next three games before deciding I had to make some trades to improve my team, so I traded QB Jake Delhomme and TE Owen Daniels for TE Chris Cooley (Redskins) and RB Rashard Mendenhall (Steelers). After that I dropped WR Avery and picked up WR Mike-Sims-Walker (Jaguars) off the free agents list. Since the trades I have won two games in a row and stand at 3-3 going into week seven.

I don’t watch the stats on my laptop as much as did, I only check it about 5 times a game now, which I think is reasonable even though my wife says it’s still too much. I now see why over the year’s fantasy football has become so popular. Before I just liked to make sure I was home to watch my favorite team play on Sundays, and followed other teams just to see if I could figure out who would make it to the Super Bowl. Now not only do I watch my favorite team every Sunday, I also enjoy the up and down roller coaster ride of watching my fantasy team perform every weekend.