Sports aficionados and rookies alike are playing fantasy football, which allows team owners to run a football team — from draft day through the playoffs.
Malibu football fans are tuning into Thursday, Sunday and Monday night football, and one of the reasons is to watch how their fantasy team players are doing.
“It was so addicting, I was missing out on my son’s sports games” Malibu Health Club fitness guru Brad Norris shared. “I was more excited watching games on TV. I have to wait until he goes to college to play again.”
Norris said that he hasn’t played fantasy football in five years.
One Malibu resident who currently runs a team is Seth Casden. Casden is a part of a 10-team league that has been playing for 12 years. Six or seven of the members have played every year since the inception of the league.
Though Casden is local, his league is spread throughout the country. There are members that live in New York, Portland, Seattle and Long Beach. This is made possible through using a mobile app to track team members and results from the games. Yahoo, ESPN, the NFL and CBS all offer apps that allow users to set up an online draft, make trades among members and track who wins weekly matchups.
These apps give up-to-the-minute updates on player’s injuries, game scores and individual players scores. Apps will track scores throughout the season, so fantasy team owners can check in at any time to see how their team is doing compared to their leaguemates.
Draft Day
One of the most crucial days for fantasy leagues is draft day. This is where all of the team owners pick the players who will be on their team for the season — although trading and picking up players throughout the season will change the initial lineup. Top picks in this year’s draft included Adrian Peterson from the Minnesota Vikings, LeSean McCoy from the Philadelphia Eagles and Jamaal Charles who plays for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Each app offers a rated list of all of the available players, and team owners draft until their lineup and benches are full. The number of slots for quarterbacks, wide receivers, kickers and tight ends as well as the bench varies from league to league.
“This year I was in Switzerland and the draft was scheduled for 3 a.m.,” Casden said. “I had to work the next day and had been working all day, but I set an alarm.”
Casden ended up waking up and telling his league members he had to sleep, but he still wanted to participate for the year, so he was set up to do an auto-draft. His teammates went through with their draft, and whenever it was Casden’s turn to pick, the best available player was automatically drafted to his team. The result of having an auto-draft was that at the beginning of his season, Casden started with three quarterbacks and five kickers, when most fantasy team owners choose to draft one of two players for those positions.
“It was a total fiasco, but I’m 7-0 … I haven’t lost a game. It’s the best I’ve ever done,” Casden said. He says the next closest to his record is 4-3. In all 12 of the years that he’s been a member of this league, he’s only made the finals twice.
And fantasy football has been difficult for team owners this year. Peterson, the first overall pick for many leagues, is out, possibly for the rest of the season, as he goes to trial for child abuse charges. Between that and Ray Rice, who was dropped from the Baltimore Ravens because of a domestic violence case involving his then-girlfriend and now wife, violence off of the field is greatly affecting what is happening on the field.
“Domestic violence has been going on as long as people have been living together … I hope this triggers growth and improvement in consciousness and serves a wake-up call,” Casden said. Casden shared that he didn’t draft Peterson, but his brother did and he is having a rough season because of that choice.
But Casden is used to having a difficult season. Outside of fantasy football, “I’m a Miami Dolphins fan, so I’ve been suffering for a long time,” he joked.