Fantasy: Not Just a Kid's Game?
September 05, 2006
We are only 48 hours away from the start of another, hopefully exciting, NFL season. Of course, when your team is considered a Super Bowl contender like mine is, you will feel a little extra giddy. What about if you're a fan whose team is not expected to be much of a factor, like, oh, say, the Tennessee Titans? Here's a team that still isn't sure who their starting quarterback will be after a month of preseason games. Pretty frigging pitiful if you ask me. I'm disappointed in longtime coach Jeff Fisher, perennially one of the NFL's best, for his indecisiveness. So what do you do?
Enter fantasy football, the phenomenon that has really captured the imagination of the male-sports fan since the start of the new century.
As a man who has entered his 30's, I've started wondering just how much longer I can keep up this hobby. I've been running my own league since I was 17 and a senior in high school. My 12-owner league has been the model many who run in our social circles try to emulate, and often fail. I'm quite proud my league enters it's 14th season, especially since a lot fizzle out after a couple of years. For as much fun as us guys have on that summer day where we all convene in one location, drink beers, grill food, and spend 3 hours or so "drafting" our team, I've began to see real life creep into the scheduling these last two seasons.
This year, the big issue was Nern's wedding. We had the day-long bachelor party one weekend, the wedding another, and his honeymoon keeping him out of the a third. My other friend, Big O, has a wife, a young daughter, and another baby on the way, on top of a 4+ hour drive, so he may never make it out to "The Draft" either. We managed to squeeze a Saturday in, but Big O had to draft via phone from his house (also due to the fact he had to go to a wedding reception that evening). All the while, some of the guys' girlfriends tagged along because they wanted to be able to spend time with their men instead of losing them for a whole weekend day. It was quite exhausting putting this year's draft together, and I think this is just a precursor of what's to come.
So if you're a woman who didn't turn away from this post because I opened up with football talk (open up your horizons; it's for your own good), or if you're just a novice and an outsider to this past time, I'm going to try to fill you in on just what your husband or boyfriend is doing.
- Fantasy Football is not pornographic. I know a lot of people think "sex" when they hear the word "fantasy." That's not what this is. Although, the annual Lingerie Bowl can be considered fantasy football. Anyway, the fantasy end of it is due to the fact we are playing out the role of a football teams GM, drafting our own talent for the upcoming season. No, we're not really recruiting players to play for us each Sunday. We're just taking their names and putting them on a sheet of paper and calling it our "team". While some funny guys may try to use pornographic team names like "The Bald Beavers," this is not some pornographic activity.
- Know the initials LT, LJ, and the name Shaun Alexander. If your man (or buddy) is picking in the top 4 or 5 picks of his league's draft, you'll be hearing him go on and on about the decision of who he should take: LT, LJ or Shaun Alexander. LT is short for Ladainian Tomlinson of the San Diego Chargers; LJ is short for Larry Johnson of the Kansas City Chiefs, and Alexander is another stud player for the Seattle Seahawks. All three of these guys put up monster stats in 2005, and are the consensus most coveted players to have on your team. Their position is running back, and if any of them get hurt and your boy drafted the one who gets injured, don't be surprised if he goes into a season-long depression.
I know, because my season's hopes ride on Shaun Alexander's AND Larry Johnson's legs in two leagues. - The draft is a great excuse to get together with the guys. I know there are guys out there who can't go into the shitter without the question from his woman of where are you going? For some guys, there just aren't many opportunities to cut the apron strings and get that testosterone level up. Draft Day is one of them. Where else can 10-12 guys sit around, razz each other's lack of football knowledge, forget their troubles, and be MEN? If your league is smart, you'll set the date a least a couple of months in advance, and those owners who have a dominatrix for a companion can use this excuse a lot of my friends do:"It's a tradition!" No one likes to fuck with traditions.
- Stats = points. That's how the game is played. Each league has a scoring system. I won't get into it because every league's scoring system is different, but let me put it to you this way: you have to be fucking Steve Hawking to figure out how many points one player got you. Trust me on this. Do yourself a favor and don't ask how a fantasy football owner knows how his players did. You'll only hurt your brain and get dizzy. Simply put, it's based on the stats of the players you drafted and put in your active lineup each week, & you get credit for points based on deviations. The total points of our players are totaled and we compare them against the owner we're matched up against that week. To put it like John Madden, the team who scores the most points will win the game.
- No more than 1/2 hour to an hour a day should be spent on fantasy football. I hear all these horror stories how people spend hours a day on their computers, cutting into productive time at the office, scouring the internet for tips on improving their fantasy football team. If someone close to you is in that group, get them some help. Seriously. I read news blurbs about the NFL in general during my lunch hour, paying special attention to anything involving "my" players, then maybe I'll read a little more at night. That's it. I'd prefer spending my time doing other things like looking at pictures of Lindsay Lohan's cans, drinking out of beer cans, or fondling Batgirl's cans while drinking from a beer can.
5 quick and easy points. I've done two drafts this season, I'm quite happy with one team (the one I drafted tonight in my work league), and very nervous about the one I drafted in early August for my 14-year one I've been doing with my friends. I'm probably too late to analyze fantasy football as most drafts are over, but maybe as we head into the Sunday games, I'll give you the rundown of my teams.
Yeah, to the outsider this all seems childish, and as 30-year old man I can see that. Still, it's sometime about the kid in all of us. The trick is to not let that kid take your life over full-time.
posted by That 30's Guy @ 11:17 PM,
