There's a first time for everyone playing fantasy football. If this is yours, welcome! You're going to love it, and more importantly, you're going to love football even more. Fantasy football can seem overwhelming for beginners, but we can make it simple for you. Just follow these steps and we'll have you playing fantasy football in no time.
How to play fantasy football
Fantasy football isn't very complicated. You select your own team of players, setting a lineup every week. Then, you watch as they run, pass, catch and score touchdowns, all of which are worth fantasy points. Every week, you are matched up against someone else in your league, and whoever has the most fantasy points that week, wins! Then, the following week, we do it all over again. The final few weeks of the NFL regular season are the fantasy playoffs, which work just like in the big leagues: Make the playoffs, then win to advance, or lose and your season is over. It's that simple.
Want to learn more? Field Yates wrote a beginner's guide to fantasy football specifically with new players in mind.
Fantasy football drafting for beginners
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You've probably heard plenty about fantasy football drafts, and how fun they are. Yes, simply put, draft day is one of the best days of the year, and some fantasy football fans prepare for it for months, while others cram like it is the SATs. But you don't have to. The truth is, most of the work is already done for you. We rank all the players you need to fill out your team, in the order we'd take them, and we also project hundreds of players so you can see how many fantasy points to expect. You can even set your team to "Autodraft" if you are drafting online, and we'll pick you a competitive team you can feel good about.
Now, if you do decide to draft yourself -- which is half the fun of being in a fantasy league in the first place -- that's not to say there isn't nuance in drafting. If the top player available is a quarterback, and you already have one, that might not be the best pick. But don't worry, you don't need to dive into your first draft unprepared. We've made it easy for you to practice with our mock draft lobby, where you can try your hand as many times as you'd like before the real thing.