Fandom in sports can be an amazing thing. It can bring people together from all different walks of life. It doesn’t matter if you’re a doctor, a construction worker, a teacher, a waitress or a banker. If you root for the same team, you’re all part of the same family, celebrating with a group hug when you win or crying on each other’s shoulders when you lose. Rooting for the same team can forge unbreakable bonds.

But while fandom certainly has its merits, there is no place for it in fantasy football.

Why? Because your objectivity is tainted. Not only do you have difficulty looking at your own team’s players without bias, but you also start looking at the players of your team’s rivals with the same disdain in fantasy as you do in real life.  

If you’re a Cowboys fan, are you remembering the problem Amari Cooper had with drops in recent seasons or are you just looking at the guy who had 10 catches for 217 yards and three touchdowns against the Eagles in Week 14? Do you even remember how he finished the season with just 13 catches on 23 targets for only 83 yards and no touchdowns? Still, you’re ready to pull the trigger in the third round this season.

One of the reasons we urge you to complete a mock draft without taking a single player you like is for just this reason. When you’re high on a player and really want him on your team, not only do you elevate him in your personal rankings, but that paranoia of potentially losing out on him in the draft consumes you to the point where you start drafting him earlier and earlier. When that starts happening, you become blind, not only to his actual value, but to his perceived value as well. You take him in the fourth round of every mock you do, but when you don’t take him there, suddenly you see him falling to you in the fifth. If you don’t take him there, does he drop to the sixth? Just because you love the player doesn’t mean everyone else does.

Your “homerism” can also work against you in the other direction. If you’ve been bleeding Jets green for years, does that loyalty keep you from drafting Julian Edelman or James White ? Your hatred for the Patriots may be warranted in reality, but when it comes to fantasy, are you passing on a great value because you hate the team or the player?

What if you’re a Steelers fan and you have the opportunity to draft either Le’Veon Bell or Antonio Brown ? Are your hurt feelings going to prevent you from doing so even if they fall to a better value? As a Giants fan, are you going to avoid Odell Beckham because he pushed to the point where the team felt it was better off without him? Hopefully not.

Or think about it this way -- you love the double points you get when you stack a quarterback and a wide receiver in fantasy, right? Imagine the double-resentment potential when you stack your favorite team? If they lose in reality, chances are you’ve also lost in fantasy. That makes for one angry Sunday, doesn’t it?    

Ultimately, yes, we want to put together and win with a fantasy team loaded up with guys we want to root for. It is, after all, still a game we are playing. But what fun is losing week in and week out because you loaded up with your favorite team’s players and passed on your most-hated rivals regardless of their talent?

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been watching the Bears since Walter Payton was in the backfield or have stuck with the Rams through every move to a new city or you followed the Colts from Baltimore to Indianapolis. Your team allegiance should be locked away whenever it comes to your fantasy team. You’ll be a much more successful, and probably happier, player in the end.