Are you Ready for some Fantasy Football?

Like all good fantasy games, one just needs a good roll of the dice.

Last night I attended my first of two, or possibly three, fantasy football drafts, and I'm here today to tell you the good and the bad of playing fantasy football.

I love fantasy football. It is so much fun. There is so much more good than bad while playing fantasy football. I love the drafting process. I think it is great to try and figure out who you are going to take, not in the first round, that is easy, but in the later rounds, when the pool of good fantasy players really thins out. I had a good time last night trying to figure out what third or fourth receiver, or second string running back I wanted to be on my bench in the 13th round. I really like the fact that I get to act like a GM basically. Now, I fully understand that a real GM's job is incredibly hard, and it has to be one of the most taxing things ever, but being a fantasy GM is wonderful. You get to pick the best players in football to be on your fantasy team. There is no wondering, "whose going to be my third stringer, that I will have to pay 6 figures", you get, at the very worst, back up tight ends that sit on your bench all season. It is so easy.

For example, I had the 8th overall pick last night, I took Cam Newton in the first round, but in the second round, I wanted a running back, and I had to choose between guys like Thomas Rawls, Latavius Murray, Eddie Lacy, Jamaal Charles and Matt Forte. They are all starters that will see the field a ton, so I picked Rawls. He played at Michigan for three years, and he was a beast last season, replacing Marshawn Lynch, so I pulled the trigger. It may have been a bit early, but who cares, it's fantasy football.

That's why being a fantasy GM is so much better than being a real GM. I also never have to worry about losing my job as a fantasy GM. I can take big risks, like taking QB in the first round, or drafting an unproven running back in the second round because I think he will have a good year, and I don't have to worry about an owner firing me. You know why? I'll tell you. I'm not only the GM of my fantasy team, I'm the owner too. I like this as well. Every decision is wholly mine, and mine alone. I don't have 6, 7 or 8 people telling me different things, I just have my own thought on my own picks. It's the best of both worlds. I make the decisions, and I have to live with them. For people who complain about their fantasy players, the next time you start to whine, remember, you picked these players because you are the owner and GM. You made the choice. I don't want to hear whining, unless a player gets injured.

Another thing I truly love about fantasy football, anyone can play. Fantasy football is literally a toss up. People will say that there is strategy, they are wrong. There is no strategy. This is all blind luck. Fantasy football is pretty much the same thing as picking teams in "March Madness". My wife, four or five years ago, used to laugh at me for playing this game, she called it. Now, she is the commissioner of our league. She is fully invested. She never liked football, barely watched it before she met me, but now, she is fully into fantasy football. She sits and watches Red Zone Network with me whenever one of her players has a chance to put up points for her team.

It's not just her that got heavily involved either. She has recruited friends of hers to play in our league. These friends have no interest in football, but due to my wife's blind love for the game, she has convinced them to join. She always tells them that it is fun, you need no strategy, you don't even have to draft your team, auto draft can do that and that it is oddly, but also very good, friendly competition. They have all played in our league for the last 5 years. Fantasy football is like a community of football and non football fans. That may be the best thing about it. I love fantasy football.

There is some bad as well. It can be frustrating waiting around for a live draft to end. Last night was the only live draft I do, and it took over 2 hours. I was told that was the fastest draft they have ever had. Going into minute 85 or 90, I was done, and I wanted to go home. I still have three picks to make, but it was all the waiting. The live draft is a bummer because there is no time limit in between picks. I much prefer online drafts because you can set up a time limit, ranging from 15 seconds to 1 minute. It goes so much faster. Last night, we would wait anywhere from 5 minutes to 15 minutes between each pick. It was very frustrating. Some people didn't even know when it was their turn, this also made me angry. There is also the worry of injury to a high draft pick. Anything can happen on the football field, and losing a high pick, someone you count on for a lot of points, they can go down in week one, and your team could be toast. I'm nervous that Cam Newton could get injured because I drafted him so high. Same with Thomas Rawls. But, that's life in fantasy football.

The last thing that angers me, or makes me upset, I find myself having to root for players on teams I despise. I loathe the Seahawks, but I want Thomas Rawls to succeed. That is a weird feeling. I will also find myself actively rooting against players I like on teams I like because I have players on other teams going against them. The week that I have Newton going head to head with Aaron Rodgers, the QB of my favorite team, I will root for a Green Bay win, but for it to be because of their running game or their defense, not because Rodgers had a big game. That is another curse of fantasy football. But, as I said earlier, the good outweighs the bad.

I love fantasy football, and I will continue to play it until they no longer provide the service. It is a lot of fun, and I highly recommend that everyone try it at least once in their life. My mom even tried it once, and she had a good time doing it, so anyone can have fun. Go out and be a GM and owner and enjoy a season of fantasy football. I bet you will grow to love it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. His fantasy team Bush did Harmabe is going to get their legs swept by the Cobra Kai. Ty has a twitter, go follow him @tykulik.