You could be using Generative AI to build a business, solve global problems, or gain an unfair advantage over your fellow fantasy football team owners. SUCKERS.
Why learn all of this AI if you can’t taut your fantasy football acumen over your friends, family, and coworkers? I am here today to teach you how to use the most powerful language model ever created to gain this competitive edge and WIN at fantasy football. Stop being the embassrement of your peers and go DIAMOND.
Your “Average” Approach to Fantasy Football—And Why It’s Lame
So you’ve been playing fantasy football for a while now, and you think you’ve got it all figured out, right? You’ve got your spreadsheets, your late-night ESPN sessions, and maybe you’ve even paid for some premium “expert” advice that promises to make you the Bill Belichick of your league.
News flash: That average approach might work when you’re tossing a football in the yard, but when it comes to fantasy leagues, it’s about as effective as a screen pass against the ’85 Bears. You know what I mean—predictable, easily snuffed out, and usually ending in disappointment.
Average Strategies
The Gut Instinct: Ah yes, the good ol’ “gut feeling” about a player or a match-up. Sometimes it works, and you’re the hero of the week. Other times, you’re left wondering why you didn’t just flip a coin.
The Bandwagon Jump: Your friend won last season by drafting a rookie quarterback who blew up, so you’re all in this year on the latest hot prospect. Except your “sure bet” is now on the bench, and you’re searching for scraps on the waiver wire.
The Analytics Nerd: You’ve got spreadsheets, pivot tables, and Python scripts analyzing every player’s yard after catch, and still, you lost to Terry who picked players based on their astrological signs.
What makes Fantasy Football interesting. Or, what makes it ridiculously frustrating.
Injuries: Your star player tearing an ACL doesn’t care about your spreadsheets.
Bye Weeks: Forget to adjust your lineup for bye weeks and watch your points take a nosedive.
Underperformers: Stats can’t always predict when a star player will suddenly become a benchwarmer.
Game-time decisions: You can’t always be online checking for last-minute changes. Well, maybe you can, but should you?
Meet ChatGPT—Your New Secret Weapon for Fantasy Football
I bet you’ve never heard of ChatGPT… non-stop for the past 8 months all of the time, on every channel, media outlet, and cooler conversation. I have used ChatGPT to create sophisticated chatbot applications to write a letter to my car repair shop. In all cases it has been helpful.
ChatGPT is a generative pre-trained transformer. It generates text in response to a prompt. A prompt is an input that you type in that can vary from a simple question to thousands of words of context.
Before you start planning your victory parade at the end of your season, keep in mind that ChatGPT isn’t a magical crystal ball. It’s a tool, and like any tool, it’s only as good as the person using it. But unlike your lucky rabbit’s foot or that weird pre-game ritual you have, it actually provides concrete, actionable advice.
10 ChatGPT Strategies for Dominating Your Fantasy Football League
- Optimized Drafting: Use ChatGPT to generate a custom draft list tailored to your league’s rules and scoring system. Ask it about sleeper picks, risk factors, and team-by-team analysis for a fully optimized draft experience.
- Real-Time Lineup Decisions: On game day, query ChatGPT for last-minute lineup adjustments based on player injuries, weather conditions, or other game-day variables that might affect player performance.
- Trade Evaluations: Before pulling the trigger on a trade, consult ChatGPT for a data-backed analysis of the players involved, taking into account your current roster composition, the schedule ahead, and the long-term value of the trade.
- Waiver Wire Wizardry: Each week, ask ChatGPT to identify under-the-radar players who are ripe for the picking on the waiver wire, including those who might benefit from upcoming match-ups or injuries on their teams.
- Performance Projections: Use ChatGPT to get weekly player performance projections based on current stats, upcoming match-ups, and historical performance, helping you make informed choices for your starting lineup.
- Bye Week Balancing: Consult ChatGPT for advice on how to navigate the tricky waters of bye weeks. Get recommendations on which free agents to pick up for one-week stints and which players are droppable for short-term roster flexibility.
- Trending Players Analysis: Ask ChatGPT which players are trending up or down in value. Knowing who’s hot and who’s not can be crucial for trade negotiations and roster management.
- Rest-of-Season Outlook: Midway through the season, consult ChatGPT for a “rest of season” analysis for each player on your roster. Make data-backed decisions for the second half of the season based on projected performance.
- Social Media Sentiment Analysis: Inquire about the general sentiment around certain players based on news articles, social media, and other public opinions. Sometimes public perception can influence trade value, and you can use this to your advantage.
- Fantasy Playoffs Strategy: When the fantasy playoffs are on the horizon, use ChatGPT to get a detailed strategy for your potential path to the championship, including which players to target in trades or on the waiver wire, and strategic advice on match-up plays.
Let’s get specific
ChatGPT doesn’t really know about your specific situation or even current data, but you can provide context that will help you rationalize a decision. In my league, Jeff is always offering me trades. I 100% assume the trades do not benefit me. This year, I am going to use ChatGPT to evaluate the trade and see which way the trade favors. In order to do that I would have to enter as much of the context as possible to have ChatGPT reason on the trade.
Trade Evaluation Example
Let’s say that I am being offered Trey Lance for Justin Fields. ChatGPT has no idea about their latest stats, so what I do is past in some stats from Fantasy Data. I tell ChatGPT that I have been offered a “fantasy football trade” and identify each player as “offered QB” and “my QB” and paste their associated stats. The 2023 season hasn’t started yet so I just pasted in their fantasy stats from the past two seasons.
ChatGPT quickly processes the pasted data (even if it not formatted well) and provides an analysis and a recommendation.
ChatGPT tells me that Jeff is trying to cheat me which is what I have always thought. NO THANK YOU, JEFF.
Based solely on the numbers provided, keeping your current Chicago QB appears to be the better option. He’s currently performing at a high level, especially when it comes to fantasy production. However, if there are other elements to this trade not provided (like additional players or picks involved), those could change the evaluation.
ChatGPT on Jeff’s Fantasy Football Trade Offer
In other words, keep your garbage, Jeff.
Step-by-Step Guide to Unfair Dominance
I assume that some startup is about to launch to make using Generative AI and Fantasy Football easier, but I still think you should explore this directly from ChatGPT. Learning how to write effective prompts, refine, and interrupt results are transferable skills. I implore you to try this out with any hobby or activity and build up this experience.
Access ChatGPT
First things first, go to the OpenAI website or wherever ChatGPT is accessible from. Sign up or log in, and you’ll be greeted with a chat interface. It may look basic, but you have just accessed a very powerful chatbot that can help you with anything. This is the blessing and curse of ChatGPT, it will speculate on anything that you type in. It is always helpful—use ChatGPT to get a rationale, clues, threads that you can research. In each case, provide as much context as possible. You can have it compare abstract things like weather data, times of day, social media posts, or whatever you can find about your players. The blessing is that it will try to make an analysis with anything that you provide.
Name Your Team
As I previously explored, ChatGPT is awesome at Generating the Perfect Fantasy Football Team Name. Try some options and get creative with your prompts and keep trying until you find some gold.
Draft Queries
Start the real work by asking questions to help with your draft. Remember to paste in specifics. Use ChatGPT to learn about drafting, strategies, and scenario planning.
- “What are PPR draft strategies?”
- “I am drafting 5th in a 10 team league, what advice to do you have?”
- “Who should I draft first in a PPR league?”
- “Tell me sleeper picks for this year’s draft.”
Weekly Line-Up Picking
Your main fantasy football management, is picking a lineup for each week of your league’s season. You will have roster of players on your bench and have to pick your starting lineup. You are going to get yourself into a lot of 50/50 situations. I have turned to Google, Twitter, and random voices on Yahoo forums to figure out who I should start.
- “Who should be my starting QB this week?”
- “Which two WRs should I start this week?”
ChatGPT will give you a rationale, a framework if you will, and might help you find which player is the better start.
Waiver Wire and Trade Assessments
On Tuesday or whenever your waiver wire opens, it’s time to consult ChatGPT again about the waiver wire or trade offers. To me, this is where you win or lose fantasy football seasons. Picking up players on the waiver wire fills in your bad draft spots and also is the place you find sleepers who are ready to perform.
- “Who are the best waiver wire picks for Week X?”
- “Should I accept this trade offer: Player A for Player B?”
Mid-Week Check-in
Check in mid-week to ask for any updates based on practice reports or unexpected player news. Paste in some news, have ChatGPT evaluate it. Paste in some of your Thursday night stats, and ask for advice. Etc.
- “Are there any must-add players before Sunday?”
- “Any of these injuries should I be concerned about?”
Real-Time Adaptations
While watching the games, keep ChatGPT handy. If your key player gets injured, ask:
- “Who should I target on the waiver wire as a replacement for my injured player?”
You’ll be first to react, leaving your league-mates bewildered and jealous.
Playoff Domination
Before your playoffs start, do a comprehensive strategy session with ChatGPT.
- “What’s my best strategy for the fantasy playoffs?”
- “Which players should I target for a strong playoff run?”
Victory Lap (Optional but Recommended)
After you’ve won your league, feel free to thank ChatGPT or ask for some epic one-liners to drop in your league’s chat to celebrate your well-earned victory. Revel in your glory—you’ve earned it!
With these strategies in hand, you’re not just playing the game—you’re gaming the system. Let your league-mates scratch their heads and wonder how you became a fantasy football oracle overnight. The answer, my friend, is ChatGPT, your unfair advantage on the road to fantasy glory.