When I was in high school, one of my teachers had a sign up in her classroom that said, "All I Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten." To some extent, I think that statement is true, and I also think it's true of a sport we all hold near and dear to our hearts. Yes, that's right, I'm talking about fantasy football.
Fantasy football? A "sport" where people maneuver real players on a fake team to try and score more points than other similarly-obsessed managers who are also maneuvering real players on a fake team?
Yes. Fantasy football is a far more educational pastime than you think. Consider some parallels to life that I found in my years playing:
1. You have to take risks. I took so many risks in my draft this year, that Yahoo! projected me to finish in last place in my league. They thought my team was bad, though I disagreed ....
2. Sometimes things don't work out. Last year, I chose David Johnson as my first-round pick in a full-point PPR league, thinking that his pass-catching abilities combined with Kliff Kingsbury's offense would make him a top player.
They didn't. Johnson caught just 36 balls on the year, and only started in 9 of Arizona's 16 games. It's just like when I didn't get into my first choice of colleges, which is probably something that happens to a lot of people. So, yeah, sometimes things don't work out, but ...
3. ... sometimes they do! This year, I thought about choosing Clyde Edwards-Helaire with the fifth-overall pick, even with Alvin Kamara available. Luckily, I ended up celebrating as the Saint went marching into the end zone 21 times. It's kind of like when I got a job in sports media right after I finished grad school. Things worked out!
4. Life is a game of chance. At the end of the year, my team, despite the projections, went 13-3 and took home my first-ever fantasy championship, helped along by the aforementioned Kamara, super receiver Calvin Ridley and rookie standouts Justin Jefferson and Justin Herbert, not to mention late-season acquisition Jalen Hurts. But what if, say, Brandon Aiyuk had become the top rookie wide receiver instead of Jefferson? Or if I'd shed my early, risk-taking strategy and grabbed a more-proven Mecole Hardman off waivers instead of the newest star Viking wideout? It was all chance.
Fantasy football really is a fun game, and we are lucky to have the luxury of playing a game on our devices for fun. Its lessons were and remain a microcosmic reminder of the things life teaches us each and every day, and perhaps one of my bigger disappointments right now is that I have to wait until 2021 to do it all again. Until then, remember that sometimes things don't work out ... but sometimes they do!
