10 Useless Fantasy Football Tips

This year I made my Fantasy Football debut in our church league.  My husband is a football aficionado junky fanatic (yes I’ll leave that one) who knows more players and stats than I know things about coffee.  So I thought this year, instead of being annoyed at him checking FF stats, I’d join up myself and maybe bond over football.  Now that I’m officially knocked out of the champion game, I just thought I’d share my useless rookie advice with all of you.

1. Before you begin your draft, read lots of articles geared for Rookie Fantasy players, including expert tips on who to draft first.  Do you need to know what the terms “PPR”, “waivers”, and “Tom Brady” mean?  No.  But you should at least be able to use them in complete sentences.  (Note: All your research will dangerously inflate your confidence, but will only help you in approximately 1.3 of your draft rounds.)
2. Ask your husband alllllllll the questions.  You’ll need to be redundant because he will tell you things that you should have listened to the first time.  (Don’t read that last part too closely.)
3. When you go to a live draft party, make sure you bring a reliable mobile device.  Apparently, when it’s “your turn” to choose a player, the draft doesn’t pause just because you got kicked offline.  However, you may auto-draft a half-way decent defense this way….which will probably save you from some humiliating draft pick (like a third kicker or something).
4.   Always play Aaron Rodgers.  Always play Aaron Rodgers except when he’s on a BYE.  Still, your backup QB will score more points than him at least once and you’ll want to drive to Green Bay to shame him.  I don’t recommend this. 
5. Learn how to spell Aaron Rodgers.  (Don’t be fooled…there’s a “d” in there.)  Learn how to pronounce Bilal Powell.  Familiarize yourself with nicknames of players like J.J. Watt.  This way you just seem mildly incompetent.
6. Be ridiculously on top of this fantasy football thing for the first few weeks.  Then, when you get discouraged because of an inevitable loss, stop trying for a couple weeks.  Hope that your husband is kind enough to be checking on your team periodically to switch our your BYE players during your emotional slump.
7. Marvel that your team is doing marginally better than you hoped, and renew your enthusiasm.  YAY FANTASY FOOTBALL!!  BEST HOBBY EVER!!! (stuff like that.)
8. Start using fantasy football language in your everyday conversations: “Can’t believe my RB scored over 25 points this week!”  “My backup QB got a passing yard bonus.”   “Hey look! A football!”  Things like that.
9. When/If you make the playoffs, act completely natural.  Blend right in.  Every morning of the playoff weeks, look at yourself in the mirror and say: “Well hello there, Fantasy Football Genius!” Pretending to put “eye black” on and making intimidating faces is optional.  (Looking up the phrase “eye black” before blogging about it is not optional.)
10. You’ll probably tank before the championship game, so keep a running list of excuses in your back pocket as to why this happened, so as to divert from the obvious issue of your massive ineptitude.  (Ideas: Blame the loss on your opponent’s unusually high defensive points, on your inexplicably high percentage of player injuries, and if nothing else, remind everyone of the injustice of your auto-draft from day 1.

If you follow these simple rules, you’ll end up 7-6-0 losing in the last round before the championship game with a stupid score that looks like this.  (I’m blaming Aaron. And also J.J. Watt for the excuse of needing “surgery”.)