.jpg)
I can blame my son for having given me the bug. He invited me to join his league three years ago. I used to enjoy watching football on television with him, but whenever he got the remote control, he would incessantly flip channels. I know, it's in the guy genes to do that, but he was flipping from game to game, looking for his fantasy players and trying to see how they were doing.
It struck me that he was not enjoying the games anymore. He was enjoying the efforts of the players, and not the results of the team. He was interested in his own interests, and the NFL was just a conduit to those selfish interests.
To some degree, I had it nailed.
But I eventually accepted his invite to fantasy gaming because as a fan, I have always thought that somewhere in the back of my fan;s mind, I was a better GM and coach than the ones doing it for real. This is essential for fantasy players - you got to channel your inner Tony Dungy or Jerry Jones.
Scotty explained the technical side - pick players in each skill position and track those players in each week's game. Your team gets points based on the performance of those players. You win if the team you are matched against scores fewer points than your team does.
You get to pick players to "start" (players whose points will count) and who to "bench," trade other teams for players, check the waiver wire and adjust your lineup based on injuries from week to week.
It has enough variants to make the game interesting, and it give you a little extra incentive to pull for teams or watch games you might not have watched.
Ask the wives or girlfriends that become football widows if that is a good thing or not.
We held our fantasy draft a week ago, and 11 of the 14 league owners came together for an afternoon party and live draft. I attended via Internet, which was an adventure in itself. I got the first overall pick, which sounds like a good thing since you get the best player out of all the NFL players, but it can be a drag in that the picking order was serpentine (from 1-14 and then back from 14 to 1). I could not pick another player until everyone else had picked - twice.
I am still glad Adrian Peterson is running for me.
It is important to note that the people in the league are friends, most of them buds since college. That is something a little different than most fantasy leagues, made up of casual acquaintances or virtual strangers who are bound only be their love of football and their common egotistical belief that they are the evil genius of gaming.
Strangers, throwing down against strangers, will compete every weekend this fall on the backs of real athletes who will be playing for their usual motivations. Is this a great country, or what?
I have got to admit that I have drank the Kool-Aid of fantasy football. I won the league last year and I really want to do it again. There is luck involved, but just enough skill that you can take some pride in your results.
And interesting dichotomy exists among the NFL Folks. The analysts, coaches and purists of football hate fantasy football because it dilutes the team effort and enhances individual effort. The players, to some degree, share that philosophy. But most of them are players in leagues.
Football is the only fantasy game I play. No golf, baseball, hockey or basketball leagues need to contact me for a further conversion to nerd-dom.
This is not World of Warcraft. This is reality.
Really.
I mean it.
Reality.
