Fantasy Football Is A Lot of Luck

Here's how to make it less so.

The most true axiom about fantasy football is that it’s not a season-long contest, that it’s a series of one-week contests. And that’s super true - because in most traditional leagues, you could have the second highest amount of points and lose .. solely because you are matched up against the team that scored the most points. On the other side, you can have a terrible week and still notch a win because the schedule set you up against someone who had even worse of a week.

It’s one thing when this happens in the regular season and in theory it all evens out (note: it doesn’t always even out). It’s so much worse when it happens in the playoffs, because … well, that’s it. You start Jonathan Taylor at RB, he leaves the game in the first series and poof. You start Pat Freiermuth at TE and he manages to score exactly zero points. Your entire fantasy football season is OVER.

Or … is it?

My main league - nerds like me might refer to this as my “league of record” — has two trophies, one for the traditional Super Bowl winner, and another for the team that scores the most points throughout the season. And that just makes sense - over the course of the season, that’s in theory the BEST team. (There’s another metric which is Possible Points which counts all the points on the bench and creates an optimal lineup, but we’re requiring the team manager to have a wee bit of agency here.)

We’ve had guys win the Total Points award who didn’t even sniff the playoffs due to bad luck, and we’ve had guys win Head-to-Head (the Super Bowl) with one of the lower points scored in the season. This year, the teams with the 4th-6th highest points aren’t in the playoffs, while the 7th highest scoring team is. The team in dead last in points made the playoffs but lost in the first round. Left to that, it would drive me nuts - but knowing that there is a payout for points levels the playing field.

The very best part of this is that it keeps more teams involved longer in the season. In other leagues, if you miss the playoffs, just sign off. If you get knocked out, just sign off. But if you have a chance to win the points (and we pay out through 3rd place in points overall, just like we do in H2H), you still play the waivers, obsess over lineups and listen to all those podcasts.

If you play fantasy football, you probably spend a LOT of time prepping for your draft(s), poring over lineup changes and scouring the waiver wire. Yes, there is still a ton of luck involved, but why make it all come down to one week?

If you don’t think leagues should pay out for total points, I’d love to hear why. Leave a comment and #GetInvolved.