Fantasy Football is a great way to keep up with friends and family, and you do not need to know much about football to play. ESPN runs the most common Fantasy Football leagues from Bristol, Connecticut. ESPN has millions of players in various fantasy leagues around the United States, all playing from the comfort of their own homes.
After a long fourteen-week season it is playoff time in fantasy football. This article explains how to build a team and how playoffs in fantasy football work. It can be surprising that relatively few, perhaps four, teams make the playoffs. However, this is done so there are an even number of teams in the playoffs and the playoff games fit inside the National Football League season. This article will begin with how to build a fantasy football team.
Fantasy Football Teams
All fantasy football teams have at least 5 offensive players, a quarterback, two running backs, and two wide receivers. Rather than draft individual defensive players, an entire team’s defense is drafted at once, like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Defense. The defense also doubles as a team’s special teams ‘player,’ A player accrues points when the defense and special teams in your lineup score or hold an opponent under a certain amount of points or yards. Finally, a fantasy football team needs a kicker, a tight end, and a ‘flex’ player.
Fantasy Football Administration
There are some things to know about administrating a team. First, you can trade or drop a player at any time. You may need to do that if a player or team has a bye. If you drop someone from your roster, you can add a player from the waiver wire, a player not currently on a roster. Second, you must set your lineup before the Thursday night football game. Third, if a player gets hurt you can move him to your injured reserve and pick up a new player from the waiver wire.
ESPN gives you a real-time estimate of the chance your team will win the game against another team in your league. This administration becomes important to come playoff time.
Fantasy Football First Round Playoffs
A fantasy football league may have as many as fourteen teams and four will make the playoffs. The top seed plays the number four seed and the number two seed plays the number three seed in the first round. You may think the number one seed has a large advantage in this playoff game, but it does not. The number four seed might have a player like running back Saquon Barkley, who plays for the Philadelphia Eagles and may rush for 200 yards and 4 touchdowns in the game.
Fantasy Football Consolation Game
Aside from the top four teams, the rest of the teams in a fantasy football league play each other in a consolation round. This consolation round plays out differently in different fantasy football leagues. Typically, the last seed will play the fifth seed and the sixth seed will play the next to last seed. The teams in the consolation bracket play 2 games that fill the final two games of the National Football League schedule.
So, in our example, the winning team in the five versus fourteen games would play the lowest-seeded pairing in the next game. That would be the winner of the eight versus nine, and so on. Each team will play two games in this bracket, even if a team loses its first consolation round match. It is nice that all teams get to play in the last couple of weeks of the season.
Fantasy Football Championship Game
The winners of the semi-final games play each other in the championship game. The winner of the championship game wins the championship of the fantasy football league and wins bragging rights. The loser of the championship game is consigned to the dustbin of history. What is strange is that any fantasy football league team can win a game and any team could lose a game. Any team could have a player on it who has a career-high or low game at any time. There is some skill involved, good players are more likely to score more points, like Justin Jefferson, a wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings.
Conclusion
Most fantasy leagues are starting their playoffs next weekend. Teams go head-to-head and the team with the most points wins. Generally, as mentioned above, the top four teams in the standings play each other for the league crown. The rest of the league plays consolation games. This article began by explaining how to form and administer a fantasy football league team. It is important to know these facts to operate a team and even have a chance to make the playoffs.
