Curious to hear some thoughts on this but fantasy football seems to be one of the few games out there that has a very stark illusion of skill/control that is hard to overcome. If you lay out games in a spectrum, with things that require 100% luck (bingo) on one end and things that require 100% skill (chess) on the other end, fantasy football is firmly on the luck side (I’d say it’s probably 99% luck or more if you are in an active league) but the odd thing about it is that it still feels like there is a lot of skill involved.
The best comparison I can come up with is going to the casino to play slots with your buddies, but you’re always spending a few hours beforehand doing research on what slots pay out the most over the last 3 months, how to precisely time the lever pull, etc… And then after you win/lose money, you start analyzing what you did right/wrong for the night. It’s like you know in the back of your mind that slots is all luck, but the illusion of control/skill is so high that you keep doing research, browsing forums, asking “experts” their opinion, etc…
To close this post out, all the above makes this game oddly frustrating since you are winning/losing a game of bingo but it feels like you won/lost a game of chess.
It’s chaos theory, the ability to manage the unmanageable better than others. Comments have mentioned poker which perfectly example this.
You have to play your personal lineup choice, which within itself carries choices based on projection/probability, matchups, bench options, the weather, as well as other factors.
You have to play other managers, think not just weekly matchups but the whole league, think waiver wire, trades, well times blocks.
You have to battle yourself in terms of deciding if you’re playing for now vs later, it’s a marathon after all. Do I sacrifice a risky lineup this week for a possible better lineup later? Does this bye week warrant a trade? Do I drop a lotto ticket now for a streaming flex?
You have to battle the unforeseen, the unpredictable. Did your 2nd pick tear his ACL? Do I even want his handcuff? Did Antonio Brown just take his jersey off and walk off the field? Did my player just get arrested for murder|manslaughter|Domestic Abuse? Did that player just die on the field?!
And at the end of the day, it’s Any Given Sunday. Any team can beat any other team, in any type of gamescript. The ball is the shape of a lemon, for goodness sake…it takes one bad bounce and the game changes on a dime.
You just have to manage the unmanageable better than about a dozen guys.