Playing in a fantasy football league is fun, and winning in your leagues make them even more fun. Here, we will go over some of the basic things to consider before you decide where you should start playing. Just remember, you play to have fun, and there’s nothing stopping you from playing in every type of league if you wish. You don’t even need to play for money if you don’t want to. It’s all up to you and what your goals for this are.
Season Long vs. Daily Leagues
You’ve probably played in a season long league. If you haven’t, you might have been scared away from them by the fact that they last for an entire season. For a big football fan, that’s part of the appeal. If you’re a casual fan, that’s the frustration. A season long league is a big commitment. They can be long and they can be drawn out if you want to see results, but the true fan appreciates the grind.
One isn’t right and one isn’t wrong. The only reason we make this distinction here is so that you can honestly evaluate where you fall, and then make a decision about which type of fantasy league you should play within to give yourself the best chance of making money.
Which is Right?
Depending upon your interests and your strengths, one type of league might be better for you than the other. Daily fantasy football promises quick results and there’s very little time that you need to give to it if you do not desire to. You can play one week a year, win your league, and be a huge winner. Or, you can play every weekend, grind out a few dollars, and have some extra spending cash, plus have had a lot of fun. Both are successes depending upon your viewpoint.
On the other hand, being a football fan in general also lends itself to success in season long football leagues. Here, what some people see as a chore–choosing which of your players to start each and every weekend and which to bench–is actually quite enjoyable. You already like watching the games and reading the top blogs about your favorite players and teams. Why not use that to your advantage? You know these things already, now you just need to apply them to your fantasy roster.
The big difference between your roster in a season long league and a daily league is the fact that your roster won’t change much week to week in a season long league. You draft your team once before the NFL season begins, and that’s it. You can make trades and pick up free agents and waiver wire players, but there’s only one draft. In a one day league, you have a new draft each weekend. If you really wanted to, you could have a new team with unique players each and every weekend. That’s totally your decision.
In other words, what’s right for you isn’t necessarily what’s right for everyone else. You have strengths and weaknesses, as does everybody else out there. You need to figure out what those are, and how picking the right league fits in with that.
To make things even more complicated, once you pick a league, you have even more choices to make. You have different scoring systems in each type. Do you choose a salary cap structure or a snake for your season long league? Do you play at FanDuel or DraftKings for your one day leagues? Lots of little–but very important–decisions like this need to be made, but that’s a topic for another day.