My tips on how to keep fantasy football fun and maintain your mental health.

This is a word for word copy/paste from my post 2 years ago. It's this time of the year I think it's most important to remember.

Over my 15 years of FF experience, I have learned how to keep my expectations realistic, stay relatively calm, and do what I love to do on Sundays…relax and watch football.

Remember, this is just a game, and it is supposed to be fun.  In the scope of your entire life, how you finish in fantasy football should have almost no bearing on your overall happiness.  This goes for all sports really.  I never understood the sports fans who let a team of people playing a relatively meaningless game determine their attitude, and I grew up as a Bengals fan in the 90’s, so I know what constant disappointment feels like. 

If you would like to enjoy watching football more and playing FF more, I recommend trying to follow the steps below to make game days more enjoyable.  After all, that’s why we play, isn’t it? 

1. Don’t follow every fraction of every point scored throughout the day.  Watching stat tracker or something equivalent is only going to cause you more stress while watching games. 

I did this in my first couple of years myself.  Once I stopped watching every fraction of a point scored my attitude and enjoyment greatly increased.  Watching all of the lead changes and projection changes will just cause you to focus more on watching the points vs watching the games, which is what SHOULD be more fun when playing FF.

2)  Avoid looking at your opponents lineup.  I will look at my own lineup throughout the day, but I avoid looking at what players my opponents have.  Watching your opponent’s players scores is going to take away from the joy of watching games.  This is especially true during night games when only one game is being played at that time. 

If I log on to a phone app, or a desktop, I will squint my eyes a bit or even cover the area I know shows my opponents lineup until I can get to the tab/page that shows only my team.

If I do look at their lineup, I usually wait until the first group of Sunday games is over, or just before Sunday Night Football.   If I am getting beat, one feeling of doom when I look in the afternoon/evening is much better than dozens of feelings of doom every time I see one of their players score.

3.  Ignore projections for your team (and theirs) before & during games.  These change fast, and because they do, will only serve to give you false hopes or fears. 

I typically ignore the pregame projections of my own players/teams as well.  Projections are just guesses based on match ups, history, and any “news” about a players availability or usage.   Anything can happen.  Game plans can change when a team is up or down big.  Injuries can happen.  Defenses might double or triple cover a good player.  I tend to go with my gut, play the more talented guys, and manage my expectations when a particular match up isn’t good.

 4)  You are going to lose a few games, we all do, expect it.  An undefeated season is extremely rare.  Remember that all that really matters during the regular season is making the playoffs. 

Depending on your league size and playoff structure, 9-5 might get you there.  10-4 almost certainly will.  Hell, 8-6, which most would call a bad season, could slide you into a 6 seed.

Once the playoffs start, anything can happen.  I’m sure we’ve all seen the 13-1 team get eliminated in their first playoff game as well as the 8-6 team win it all.   I believe that 70% of making the playoffs is skill, 30% is luck.  Once the playoffs start that flips to 30% skill & 70% luck.  Outside of getting a bye week, your overall record has very little bearing on what happens in the playoffs.  Just focus on getting there first.

 5)  Don’t freak out after your players under perform, ESPECIALLY in the first few games.  It’s all about what they do for the year.  Even the top players have bad games or slow starts.  Keep playing them. 

Guys like George Kittle are a good example.  There will be 2-3 games every year he is used as a blocker and scores less than 5 points.  There will also be games  that he puts up 25+ points and wins you your match up.  You are not going to predict what those games are, just keep putting him in your lineup if he’s healthy. 

THIS IS ASSUMING NOTHING MAJOR HAPPENS LIKE A RECEIVER LOSING HIS ELITE QB TO INJURY OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

I don’t know about everyone else, but after I won a couple of championships, and realized it really wasn’t that important in my life, I began to put less emphasis on the outcome of my fantasy football teams.  I enjoy FF MUCH better now and I hope these tips can help you enjoy it more too.

If you have any tips that have helped you limit stress and make watching football more fun, please feel free to share them with us. 

Good luck to all this week, and this season.  Football is back baby.  LFG!