Today, fantasy football is easy.
You open an app.
You set your lineup.
You make a waiver claim.
You check your matchup 47 times before Sunday.
Back then?
You had to work for it. Let me tell you a story of late 1990s fantasy football. I know, I sound like a boomer. But I’m just an elder millennial who remembers a simpler time.
For me, fantasy football started with an actual draft.
Not a Zoom draft.
Not an online draft.
Not even a computer draft.
We got together in person.
A bunch of guys sitting around a table, with rosters written down on paper, arguing over who should be the next pick.
There was no little notification telling you that someone was “on the clock.”
You knew.
Because he was sitting right there.
And once the draft was over, the real work began.
Every week, I had to figure out my lineup.
Then I’d get on my bike.
And ride over to the house of the guy who ran our neighborhood league.
Just to hand him my lineup.
That’s right.
Before Sunday arrived, my fantasy football strategy required transportation.
There was no app.
No website.
No “Submit Lineup” button.
If I wanted my quarterback to start, I had to physically deliver the piece of paper that said so.
And God forbid you forgot.
Your fantasy team wasn’t sitting in your pocket waiting for you to make a change.
It was sitting on somebody else’s kitchen table.
Looking back, it sounds completely ridiculous.
But that’s what made it fun.
Fantasy football wasn’t something you checked on your phone every five minutes.
It was something you did with people.
The draft was an event.
The league had a commissioner.
The standings were something you actually had to find out.
And if you wanted to make a roster move?
You probably had to call somebody.
There was no instant gratification.
No push notification.
No fantasy analyst screaming at you from your television.
Just a bunch of kids—or grown men pretending to be kids—trying to figure out whether starting the backup running back was a good idea.
And once a week, one of us might even have to get on a bicycle and deliver the evidence.
Fantasy football used to require a little more work.
And somehow, that made it feel like a whole lot more fun.
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