Fantasy Football

Isn't it funny how every single male on the face of the planet plays fantasy football? You can be standing in line at the grocery store and mention to someone that you drafted Peyton Manning in the first round and expect that he'll know exactly what you're talking about. ESPN has dedicated hours of air time to "preparing" us for "draft day" and there are a half dozen magazines and probably twice as many web sites that will list for you precisely who you need to take and when. Bars are routinely rented out for groups of arm chair quarterbacks to make their selections and guzzle PBR, and wives are left fuming. It's become a surprisingly huge industry.

My question is why?

Essentially, at it's core, fantasy football is about stats, so logically that would lead one to believe that to have an interest in the game you must be interested in the mathematical performances of out-of-market NFL players on a weekly basis. So does every fantasy player care if Nate Burleson hauls in 8 catches in week 4 but only for 36 yards and no TD's. Clearly not. I (obvious statement coming) am a huge football fan, but I honestly could care less if Drew Brees throws for 400 yards with 8 TD's or 100 yards with 4 interceptions (unless he's playing against New England), and yet fantasy football has dominated my limited internet access for the past 2 weeks. Am I a hypocrite, a stat junky in denial, or just very very bored? Okay, I am very bored but that can't be it.

So here are some reasons that I think fantasy football is so huge.

1. It makes football more interesting. Let's face it, if you're a real fan you only truly care about one team and their game. Sure you'll watch the Colts play the Cowboys at 1 but really you're just waiting for the Pats v. Jets game at 4. The other games are chances to heat up the wings and get a good angry buzz on before kickoff. But throw some fantasy implications into that Colts v. Cowboys matchup and all of a sudden you're glued to the TV with StatTracker open on your lap top and a printout of your lineup on the TV tray next to your nachos. It's only natural that you are more interested in something when you have a stake in it, and fantasy football gives all of us something at stake in nearly every game and on almost every play.

A quick sidenote, how much of a bombshell is fantasy football for the NFL. It must attract hundreds of thousands of viewers in fantasy playoffs to meaningless week 16 games between two out of playoff contention teams as long as there is a statistical stud on the field. It must have at least marginally boosted the ratings among casual fans.

2. It's like IMing without being a post adolescent odd-ball and e-mailing without needing addresses and something worthwhile to say. Every league comes with a message board which, since most leagues are organzied by groups of friends is more often used to keep in touch than for actual football discussion. I know for me personally I am in 2 leagues, one with my friends from high school and one with my friends from college, were it not for these leagues I would likely be in far less contact with them than I am. It's easy, non-commital communication. You don't feel like an idiot calling your buddy just to chat (guys don't do that) and it's much less effort than tracking down everyone's e-mail address, you just throw up a quick note while you're setting your line-up for the week and voila, you keep in touch with friends throughout the country. Not to mention you get to talk smack but with the advantage of being able to think about your responses for a few minutes, i.e. if you're not that quick on your feet you can still rebut a moronic statement without stuttering and looking foolish.

3. It gives you poor office folk (by the way I'm looking at the sun setting over Hyannis Harbor from the restaurant office right now, God I love managing...) something to do while you're slammed in a cubicle / office for 9 hours per day. Work for an hour, check the waiver wire, put up a post, propose a trade, wow look it's lunch time, work for another hour, set the line-up for the weekend, bam it's happy hour. They should do a productivity study on how many man hours are lost each year between the middle of August and the end of the regular season, it's probably a negative billion dollar a year habit. Toss in cigarette and bathroom breaks and fantasy footballers with habits and small bladders might not work a single minute through the entire fall.

4. It's "competitive". Okay it's not as good as playing touch football or pick-up basketball but there is a certain degree of satisfaction that comes from winning a fantasy game, especially if you crafted your lineup perfectly based on bye weeks, match-ups, home field advantage, and the like. And if you didn't there is still satisfaction in beating that guy who never looks at his lineup and still thinks that Emmitt Smith is a viable fantasy starter. You know every league has that guy, that when you're looking at the schedule you just check off his weeks as wins because you know that whatever his lineup is at the beginning of the season it's going to stay that way regardless of injury or cuts or acts of god.

5. It gives idiots like me something to talk about on lazy Thursday afternoons in September when they're managing very quiet restaurants staffed entirely by Polish immigrants whom they can no longer stand to be around without ear plugs. Some might call this the same thing as number 3, only in my line of work, and I guess that would be accurate. Procrastination applies to everyone I guess, even those of us whose work is essentially procrastination from growing up.

So there you have it. Next time someone asks you why you play fantasy football, send them here and they'll understand. Or maybe, if that person is your boss you will be fired.

Good luck this season.