Win Your First Fantasy Football Tournament in Three Ways

In 2018, 100 million people tuned in to the Super Bowl. This is a huge number considering the pressure the NFL has received over the last year from public controversies. Because not everyone can catch the TV screening of many of the games, reports say that just the online streams set a record high of 2 million views in 2018.

Together with the shift to online streams is the growing interest in fantasy football. This is basically a computer game that is hinged on the actual performance of players and teams in real-life leagues. People who play in this act as managers of teams.They need to have a good understanding of football, though they don’t really have to be physically good at it.

If you want to succeed in fantasy football, you can prepare for each virtual tournament by following the steps outlined below.

Know the players, especially their statistics.

As the virtual team’s general manager, you will oversee everything, even the drafts. In any sport, the draft is one of the most exciting events. In the NBA, teams are actually willing to give up money or even some of their current players just to get their hands on the most promising rookies. The same can be expected in fantasy football, even if it’s just virtual.

If you want to get the most out of the draft, prepare for it. Read everything about the players who are up for grabs. Know their past performances, and then pay close attention to their statistics. There are websites that comprehensively show fantasy football rankings of each player. The figures that they show there are not perfect, but they are the most reliable predictors of any player’s value.

Avoid counterfactual thinking.

No matter how much data you process, your projections will always assume a risk of failure. You’ll trade someone who turned out to be superstar. You’ll sign up someone who is promising on paper but actually fails in actual games. These things happen. And the last thing you would want to do is to beat yourself up on your ‘mistake.’  Winners rise above the losers not because they don’t make mistakes. but because they accept them and move on from them.

When you make stumble, the question that you should ask is “What now?” and not “What could have I done?” The first one prepares you to pick up the pieces and move forward; the second one just pushes you to replay your error over and over again, distracting you from the more important things.

Take risks.

Being a manager is about taking responsibility for an enterprise’s success, and fantasy football is serious business that draws in significant amounts of money. Risk is nothing but a natural part of any venture. You must learn not to be afraid of it so that you can manage your team more effectively.

In fantasy football, the risks that you may take are the trades that you do with other teams. Because the fantasy player’s value is hinged on his real-life counterpart, the actual team’s treatment of the player provides clues as to how you should deal with him in the fantasy world.

Looking at data takes a lot of work. However, you must learn to consume and digest data in order to understand the tradeoffs of your every move. That’s how you learn to ultimately determine the worthiness of your instincts.