Branches Book

BRANCHES

Max Spitz

FANTASY FOOTBALL, AN ADDICTION OR AN INFATUATION?

Sunday, December 4, 2016. The Houston Texans are visiting the Green Bay Packers in 33-degree, snowy Lambeau Field with around 78,000 in attendance. Low scoring game and fans are freezing their tushes. “Touchdown, Davante Adams!” Pan out to the TV broadcast and there are five teenagers reclining on a couch, each with a computer on their lap, eating bagels, and closely watching the game. I jump up and start celebrating while one of my friends yells an expletive; he had Houston’s defense. My other friend laughs and yells, “Your team is soooo bad.” You can feel the competitiveness in the room. This is fantasy football, what I consider to be America’s actual pastime. It’s easy to recognize why I would choose not to openly share fantasy football as a favorite hobby of mine. For one, it’s embarrassing. Why would Max mention a lame computer-based sports activity where he focuses on a team that nobody else, but him, cares about? This question proves how ridiculous it is to consider fantasy football a hobby and how ridiculous the concept itself is. The thing is, I agree; it is a ridiculous hobby and something that I shouldn’t be proud of. Yet, it is something that I really enjoy and something that I am ultimately very passionate about. Every aspect of fantasy football is so enjoyable, but first let me explain the concept. Essentially, the objective is to outscore your opponent in head to head weekly matchups with a roster of players from various teams. You draft a roster of 15 players with nine players starting and six on your bench. The starting lineup consists of a quarterback, two running backs, two receivers, a tight end, a flex position (where you play a running back, receiver, or tight end), a team defense, and a kicker. Your bench consists of backup positions. It’s like being the general manager of a football team without all of the serious business and financial stuff involved, like paying your players seven figure salaries. With the lineup that you create, you work, and hope, to have better lineups than your opponents. Every week you play a different team in your league in a head to head matchup and try to outscore them with points generated by your players. For every positive play (touchdowns, yards gained) that each player on your team makes, you receive points and for every negative play each player makes your players loses points. The fun part is that all of these points are being generated by each player thereby making the

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