Issue #295: Magazines

By Derrick Ernst

July 26, 2026

Scouting Out the Competition

I purchased my first fantasy football magazine in several years the other day. Keep friends close, but your enemies closer! I could spend all day online seeing what the competition is up to, but there’s something about holding a physical copy of something that makes it feel real. That’s partly the reason why I chose to have TDF delivered in PDF form. Yes, it’s digital, but the PDF gives it some sense of physicalness that reading an article online doesn’t. Do you guys agree?

There are several flaws with companies producing fantasy magazines. The first and most significant has to do with timing. By the time the magazine hits the shelves, it’s already outdated. The content within it is being written from Mar-Jun with Jul-Aug being when they get to see if their work paid off. Another thing is that no matter how good of content my be written on the 100+ pages of the magazine, the cover and what is chosen to be put on it is the leading differentiating factor. Most magazines have a player accompanying their name across the front. Unless that player does anything for me, and many don’t, there’s a good chance I just move onto the next. You could have garbage content, but if that cover sticks out in a sea of others that all look the same, you have a leg up.

I’d have to assume that those who are seeking out a magazine to help them with their fantasy preparations are of older generations. They’re not immune from being wooed though! I’m surprised that more companies haven’t figured out that their cover is the most important marketing tool they have. Same can be said for books too. What gets you to pick out one versus another when you’re browsing the shelves at your local Barnes & Noble? The cover. I’ve mentioned several times that I’m drafting a book inspired by all the content I’ve written in TDF thus far. While my progress has slowed, I do have the perfect title picked out that: (1) catches your eye, (2) makes you think, and (3) infuriates your just enough where you want to read it just to see if you are what my title claims you to be. More on those developments at a later time.

Back to the magazines. I had a revelation flipping through mine when I got home. Every fantasy football magazine is flawed in the sense that it pushes content on you numerically. Let me explain. They all include the same stuff: rankings, projections, mock drafts, etc. How are they all sorted? From best to worst. How many people get to draft the top players at each position? Very few. Something we’ve talked about in the past is attention span (really the intentionality of making the time to want to learn, want to digest, want to get better at understanding). It’s limited. We live in a world where things are vying for our attention every waken minute. It’s one thing to say we’ll make the time, it’s another to actually do. All this to say, given the way fantasy magazines are structured, you only get exposure to the players who will be off most drafts boards by R3 (aka. The best players at each skilled position). You completely neglect the more important (mid) rounds where the meat and bones of your team take shape.

The facade is that you think you’re preparing yourself when in reality you spent your time reading about players who are now owned by your competition. The truth of it is, unless you go way off the board or a player gets injured, it’s pretty hard to mess up the first few rounds of a draft. These guys are the “set ‘em and forget ‘em” kind, yet they make up the majority of research most people fall victim to when they think some $9.99 “2026 Fantasy Guide” is their ticket to success. If fantasy magazines are a part of your process, try something new for me: Don’t begin flipping through it from the beginning, rather begin in the middle and learn about those others are have forgotten even exist.

Blink and You’ll Miss It

There’s not another sports league where you can go from relevant to retirement as quickly as you can than in the NFL. Heck, Nuke might be on NE’s coaching staff this year.