by Kevin Burton
If having one fantasy football team is great fun (which it is), wouldn’t having more than one team be even more fun?
That is the question I asked last year, in my second year as a fantasy manager. I answered it in the affirmative. Yes indeed, great big ridiculous fun! Give me more!
So I drafted three teams, the one I really care about with friends from beep baseball and two others on the Yahoo platform.
And then…
On the final day that it was possible to add teams, deep in the night, whilst my loving wife Jeannette slept-too considerate to disturb her sleep to ask such a trivial question,-and rang the bell again. I birthed a fourth team. I let my wife know in the morning.
That fourth team, the fantasy equivalent of an oops baby, ended up being the one that won its regular season behind Jalen Hurts, then lost in the playoffs when he was injured and didn’t play.
Now seemingly about ten minutes after August began, the month is somehow half through. Fantasy draft time is coming, fast!
How many teams should I have this year?
If you play fantasy football you know that Tuesday is waivers day. It’s the day you try to address needs on your roster by bidding for players that are free agents, not on anyone’s team in your league.
Tuesday was a bear last year. With four mouths to feed, Tuesday was a lot of work. Lots of research, injury reports, interpreting coaches’ comments, making my choices, then second-guessing myself incessantly. Do I want to sign up for that again?
How many teams is too many? Naturally for a sane answer to this question, I turned to other fantasy players.
Here’s a comment from Reddit:
“I’ve put so much of my time reading up on fantasy football, it only makes sense for me to use my knowledge as much as possible. I initially only planned on being in two leagues so I can focus on work come September, however, I was just invited to two more leagues. All four leagues are on Yahoo, so I considered it “too convenient to pass up.”
“How many leagues are you in?”
“Edit: So it seems the consensus is 2-4 leagues. I’m glad I’m not the only one in four. Those of you in 10, 20, 30 different leagues…get help…or a girlfriend.”
Another website didn’t answer the how-many-is-too-many question directly, but said, “Your significant other will let you know.”
On that advice I turned to my wife. She was awake this time, so no excuse for not asking her. She answered my question with a question.
“How many teams did you have last year?’
“Four”
“Two.” she said.
“Why only two?
“Because you became very, very intense in October. You were just so stressed out.”
She is referring to the old, old days when I lacked the technology required to manage teams properly. I had a flip phone and couldn’t make a roster move unless I had a computer.
So one Waiver Tuesday while we were on vacation in South Dakota, I expressed mild disappointment when our hotel did not have an actual computer in its business office. I was unhappy, sure. But I’m not sure “meltdown” is the word I would use to describe my reaction.
My wife, what a kidder!
But these are modern times. I have a smart phone now, no more flip phone. Now that I think of it, that smart phone technology may enable me to have twice as many teams as last year, up to eight!
To subtly change the subject from the number-of-teams question (because I promise you that number will be a whole number larger than two), I asked her what advice she has for fantasy football wives.
“Don’t get involved,” she said, joking not joking. She added, “Well, you’ve heard of football widows. I think there can be fantasy football widows too. ..because it took a lot of your time.”
This was not always so. Fantasy fever came upon me gradually.
On my first-ever NFL Sunday as a fantasy manager, right around 11:45 a.m. Central I got a call from my friend Rob, the league commissioner, who told me my kicker was on IR and I needed to pick someone else.
“Thanks, man!”
Now, two years later?
There is more chance of me not noticing my pants being on fire, the pants I am currently occupying, than not knowing a player is on IR. It’s hilarious to even think of now.
Speaking of fire though, we still have that burning question; how many teams…..?
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