Fantasy football is a bit of a waste of time. It's not like chess or Go or even poker which can be played at a professional level. All fantasy football players are hobbyists and the hobby can easily become meaningless. It's meaningless because most of what we do is unconscious. In general, people play fantasy football for fun, they are unconsciously working with their emotions. For whatever reason; they need a break, relief from work, to cheer up but knowingly or not they are working with their emotions. Actively and consciously gaming bring meaning to fantasy football. This requires always being conscious of the dice/emotions, which fuel our reactions. Meaning in fantasy football comes from controlling emotions, particularly extreme and confused emotions, generally called tilt.

There are other meaningful schools of thought. Most are based on risk management, which is useful for real life, unlike a competitive ranking. In my opinion the best is an equity based system called the "school of no dice". This was a term coined by a great coach called Spence, aka dionysian. He is one of the rare coaches who does not play fantasy football for fun. His theory replaces dice with equity, the value of a risk and chooses, "the maximum gain on average", every time. Individual dice rolls no longer matter.

My wish is to take this school a step further, beyond gain and loss, to how to we attribute value in the first place. The emotions and the too often tragic game state that arise are most interesting to me. Tilt is why fantasy football is not suitable for children. It's more like playing with fire. We can have positive tilt when we're feeling lucky. Most people enjoy winning, this is perhaps also the addictive side of the game. There is also negative tilt where, due to disappointment, one no longer makes logical decisions. These are both real and somewhat harmful but they form the basis for how fantasy football can be a meaningful hobby. The game becomes a way to practice working with emotions, which drive our subconscious before, during and after a game. It is the unconscious reason most coaches sat down to play in the first place.

I encourage you to take calculated risks and also get upset when your players die. It's not by ignoring our emotions that we will control them but by becoming familiar with them. On the positive tilt side, a calculated risk would be knowing that the rolls so far have been below average because you have been counting the block/removal results or simply recognizing the game is lost unless some player does something heroic this turn. And when Nuffle says, "No", then the roleplay aspect of the game can help. Perhaps that player turned up more drunk than usual or simply missed practice last week. I believe it is beneficial to mourn the departed because all our players are potential heroes.

What's also important is to recognise the difference between what is possible and not possible. Some parts of the game are defined: the pitch is defined, movement and turns are limited, some actions are only allowed once, there is a maximum and a minimum for players on the field and on the line of scrimmage. Most importantly, positioning must be done properly; there are ideal or textbook patterns which work best. Now, fantasy football is a bash game because when you block you have more 2-die, dice roles with a reroll. Hell, there would be no blood if it wasn't! Blocking is the only 2-die role you can reroll. Assuming a strength and skill advantage, the chance of failure is minimal, quad skulls is basically as sympathetic as Nuffle gets. However, it's not exactly no dice, it's conservative risk management. No dice, for me, means that the dice become as important as the fluff, the painting, the social aspect or perhaps the archetypes that make fantasy appealing. 

Rolling dice is a bit of a waste of time. It is perhaps a necessary evil but one that easily becomes meaningless. For me meaning comes from the ABCDEs of fantasy football: Always Being Conscious of Dice-Emotions. Perhaps I am suggesting the "Alphabet" school of fantasy football.