It’s that time of year again! Fantasy football is a game based off of real life NFL games where players handpick the players that they think will perform the best. Most fantasy football leagues are coming to an end and losers are starting to prepare for their punishments.
Fantasy football punishments can vary from league to league but many punishments can go from 0 to 10 quickly. The more tame punishments could be the 24 hour Waffle House challenge where you spend 24 hours at Waffle House but every waffle you eat takes off an hour. They can go all the way to more extreme stuff like wearing or saying something crazy in public for attention.
One of the premier fantasy players at the school Phillip Pelzer, has been playing fantasy for 10 years and said it was “sad and depressing when he lost his league”. Pelzer, a football fanatic, has always enjoyed playing and feels that it makes watching the games more enjoyable.
Another elite fantasy player at our school is Caleb Williams (‘26), a student section leader, golfer, and baseball player who has played fantasy football for 6 years. Williams loves coming up with punishments. However one problem with many leagues, especially with younger people, is the loser not always coming through and Williams said, “It’s kinda annoying because I don’t get the satisfaction of like that would be me if I would’ve lost”.
Leagues have many ways of dealing with individuals that skimp on their punishments such as, kicking them from the league the next year or cutting them off from the friend group almost completely.
Running a league and coming up with a punishment can be a very stressful task, from vetoing unfair trades, all the way to making tough decisions on who is in the league only a select few can successfully manage a league without issue. However, Eamon Blanchard (‘26) who runs a smaller league with his friends, says he has always enjoyed it with an impressively small amount of stress. Blanchard says “I don’t really have stress from it because I enjoy being the commissioner.”
Fantasy football is one of the most popular games during football season and it comes as no surprise that there are many leagues across the school, with many different players all indulging in the same activity. At the end of the day it all comes down to having fun with your friends and even if sometimes it goes pretty far, all players end up making memories that last a lifetime.
