A team of mismatched football players from varying professional teams are piled together to form one dream team. Sophomore Ben Brown and juniors Malachi Swartz and Jacob Sula construct their dream teams with one ultimate goal: to defeat their friends in fantasy football and claim money or bragging rights.

Two BVNW leagues are the Fantasy League of Ballers (FLOB) and Christian Hit a Parked Car. Brown is a member of FLOB  Swartz and Sula are members of Christian Hit a Parked Car.

Swartz said he got involved when invited by his friend to join a new league. He said he was interested in joining because it was something he would do with all his friends.

“My friend, Jacob Sula, was like, ‘hey guys, you want to do a fantasy football league?’ So me and a couple of my other friends were like, ‘yeah let’s do it,’” Swartz said. “So one night we all went over to his house and we had a big draft party. We had a lot of food, watched sports and picked who we wanted on our team.”

In fantasy football, participants begin the season by picking their lineup in a draft. A draft is when all the participants in the league get together at the beginning of the season and pick who will start on their team. Sula said he puts a lot of time into the draft before it happens.

“There’s a lot of stuff to do before the draft,” Sula said. “What I do is I make a spreadsheet of all the players and positions down from the highest rating and go down from there for their point projected.”

In the league Christian Hit a Parked Car, Sula said the players pick a quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, a tight end, a flex which is a wide receiver, running back or tight end, a defense and a kicker. Different leagues can also control a different scoring methods.

“[In our league,] wide receivers get points for the yards, either yards per reception league or pass point per league, which means every time they get passed to, they get a point,” Sula said.

Swartz said he checks his lineup every day to make sure his lineup is set. Players often have by-weeks or may be injured, so he said he tries to keep them off his roster.

Brown said he got involved in fantasy football because his dad and his dad’s friends were playing in a league, so Brown and his friend wanted to start one. They all got together and created their league in seventh grade and have continued for four years.

Brown said their league decided to bet money on their teams this year. They pay $5 to enter the league, and the winners split the $50 pot.

“The money is part of [why we want to win], but it’s all about bragging rights,” Brown said. “We just started (betting) money this year, but we’ve played the last few years for bragging rights. It’s always fun.”

Brown said he likes to play fantasy football because it’s something he can do with his friends because it allows them to have another thing in common with each other.

“[Fantasy football is] kind of fun because it’s something we all talk about and get really intense, kind of fight,” Brown said. “It’s fun because it’s something we all do together because we all don’t play the same sports, but I guess that’s some we get to talk about.”