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59.3 million people play fantasy football every year.

Fantasy Football is more popular than the actual game itself

Every year at this time I feel like a general manager to a professional football team. 

Who should we add? We should we not add? What do I think is a fair trade for this player? Not only a GM, but a coach at the same time; who’s starting, who’s on the bench?

It’s that time of year where I — along with countless others — take life too seriously and we play the great and sacred game of fantasy football.

I know that’s a pretty bold statement to make in the headline, but look at it this way: How many people tuned in to watch the Alabama-Florida State match up this past Saturday? The answer is 12.5 million. 

12.5 million is a large number of people to watch college students throw a pig skin and hit each other. You know what number is bigger though? 59.3 million. 

59.3 million people was the estimated number of fantasy footballers in 2015. That was a whopping two years ago.

Fantasy football is a numbers game; football is a game. It’s easier for a non-watching football fan to understand which players to start, sit and perhaps at the last second make a trade. 

For the past four or five seasons, I’ve played through ESPN’s fantasy league. It has had its ups and downs (the downs mainly being my teams have been awful), what I like about ESPN’s system is that it essentially gives you a preview for every single player in the National Football League. 

ESPN actually has its own “fantasy analyst” in Matthew Berry, in which he is the quintessential fantasy guru. Berry gives advice on basically everything that there is to fantasy football such as if you’re going to pick up a player from the free agency; everything you “need” to know, Berry’s got you.

Me, however, when it comes to fantasy football no matter what I do I find that I’m just short of making the actual playoffs and then I end up winning the consolation bracket. 

This was the first year I auto-drafted, meaning the computer picked who was on my team and if I’m being perfectly honest, I won’t complain. To have gotten Cam Newton (Carolina Panthers quarterback) in an auto-draft pick either says something about my luck, or the league that I’m playing in and I haven’t decided which. Either way, you won’t hear a peep out of me.

Ultimately, the beauty of fantasy football is this. You can either stress like there’s no tomorrow about something completely and utterly a colossal distraction to things that actually matter in life, or you could say the hell with that and bring it on.

And with that said, let the games begin.

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