I was in a fantasy football league for over 20 years now. It started out as a 10 team league snake draft with coworkers/friends. It eventually got up to 12 teams. We went away from snake to auction draft about 15 years ago (if you’re still doing snake, I highly suggest auction if you’re in a half way serious league.) We eventually introduced keepers where you had to pay the greater of $5 or 25% to keep him (max of 3 years of keeping); this put a premium on rookies and being able to pick up new talent on waivers for cheap. It also made you not be able to keep Adrian Peterson if you paid $80-$90 for him, so it gives teams a fair chance the following year for studs. I think one year, someone picked up Kamara for $0 off waivers and got to keep him for $10, $15, $20 in subsequent years. We had people leave the league and picked up new folks along the way. In the beginning, we used to talk smack weekly but over the last few years, there was little smacktalk within the group; think people just got old/married/had kids and had too many other life committments.
I remember my buddy and I used to go to BW3’s 30 minutes before the first batch of games and stay there for 7 hours. We’d get wings but then mix it up and get the shrimp caesar salad. Pretty sure we tried everything on the menu back then. So glad they had unlimited soda refills back then too. Eventually we moved away and just started to watch Red Zone at home, which was more convenient and less embarassing.
Anyway, this year, we had 5 people drop out of the league and that was just too big of a change. I think I would have been the only one left from the original 10 teams. Sure, we could have found 5 more people, but I think at that point, the dynamic of the league would have shifted too much. So after weeks of thinking about it, I decided to just end the league.
This past weekend, without a reason to watch Red Zone for 6 hours, I found myself with a lot of free time. I also didn’t watch the Thursday night game and only watched half of Sunday night’s game. It was just a big relief to not dedicate so many hours watching Red Zone. So if you’re thinking this might be your last year of FFL, let me just tell you that life will be just fine (better even) on the other side.
I quit fantasy football 6 years ago. Best thing ever. I’ve been running a NFL pick’em league against the spread for the last 14 years. Grown the league to 38 players. I don’t watch the games, just read about them. Doesn’t take up much of my time but still satisfies the competitive itch.
You’ll eventually graduate to betting the games straight up. And you’ll be a prisoner of Red Zone once again.