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Training Camp is underway, and that means the beginning of two major events in my life: the NFL season and another heartbreak-filled Fantasy Football campaign. Each August, it seems that I do the same exact thing over and over again: Waste 100 dollars to get drunk at the draft and chirp people for their bad picks. Although my picks usually end up being some of the worst of the night, at least I don’t have to buy the beers. Always need to find the positives in everything.
Fantasy football is one of those things that can make or break your week. You can either go into Monday/Tuesday feeling like you have a flaccid 8″, or you can go in feeling like you would be okay if life ended that day. And that’s the craziest part. It means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. Who the fuck cares if you win a fantasy football game? No one! Not one person could care less about how you did because they’re too busy caring about their own teams. They are too busy tweeting at players they have on their own teams and yelling at them because they only got 4 fantasy points that week and they were projected to have 15.
It makes you irrationally hate players because they didn’t play well enough to help your team win. Last season, I hated Lamar Miller with the red-hot intensity of one thousand suns. Yes, he may have been banged up, but I am banged up writing this column. Maybe he has eleven 300 pound, super humans chasing him around, but I was doing tequila shots until 2 a.m., and you don’t see probable next to my name on the depth chart. I don’t know Lamar Miller. He’s probably a decent human being, probably a family man who bought his Mom a house and a new car when he got signed, but I hate him. I hate everything about him. And that makes me a total asshole. He doesn’t deserve my hate. He’s most likely way, way better than I am at everything. Scratch that, I know he is much better at everything than me, except for maybe reading and writing. I will give myself the nod on those. All he did was post a two-spot in fantasy football more than once last season. He didn’t hurt anyone. He just hurt my fantasy team. He doesn’t deserve the horrible things I’ve thought about him. I probably deserve most of those things. But that’s what fantasy football does to me; it turns me into a horrible monster who shouldn’t exist in a civilized society.
My hatred for Lamar Miller is not justifiable, and I am an asshole, but there is always this season. And next season he may end up being one of the best backs in the NFL, and if that’s the case, I would be more than willing to go down on him in a public setting. That’s what fantasy football does to people.
Some players get a kick out of the tweets people send to them. Last year, Stevie Johnson of the Chargers went ahead and said he had a “Fantasy Work Team.” He gave us, normal citizens, points for everything we did in the cube that day. Made some copies for your boss, 5 points. Spilled coffee all over your desk, -3. A brilliant way to make light of all the yahoos out there chirping him for only having one catch that week.
Fantasy football makes me more of a slob than I already am on Sundays. I’m already nursing a hangover which leaves me bed-ridden all day, then add football and staring at my computer all day, and I may as well not even be a part of society.
Here is how I live my life on Sundays:
9:45 a.m.-10 a.m. Wake up with a pounding headache and no girl lying next to me.
10-11 a.m. – Sit in bed contemplating if it is even worth continuing to live life.
11 a.m.-1 p.m. – Adjust my fantasy lineup.
1-11 p.m. – Watch football and watch my fantasy team continue to be brutally bad/best team ever assembled.
11:05 p.m. – Gloat/whine about fantasy football results.
11:10 p.m. – Cry/jump for joy.
11:30 p.m. – Go to bed.
If a woman happened to observe me on a Sunday, it would destroy her libido for life.
I take losing in fantasy football very personally, but it doesn’t even matter. Even if I happened to win my league, which I won’t (as I said, too many beers on draft day), it won’t make any difference in my life. Yeah, I can brag about my fantasy football team winning, but what have I really accomplished? All I did was prove that my football guys can score more fantasy football points than other people’s football guys. People can brag about more important things like how they have actually made physical contact with a woman, or about their jobs, or about the fact that they don’t grow facial hair like a 13-year-old going through puberty. But those are just the battles we must face. .
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@RPShee
I’ve already spent too much time on camp reports. It will be a miracle if don’t get fired this fall.
What I have come to realize is that I never get as excited about a win as a do pissed about a loss. Nothing ruins my Monday like spending all day at work praying Jordy Nelson won’t get 8 points on MNF knowing he easily will.
PS. Doug Martin is my Lamar Miller. I fell for that little bastard two years in a row now. He’s the co-pilot on my all-plane crash team along with Matt Holliday.
You should join a college fantasy league. Saturdays are even better than Sundays. If there’s a PAC-12 game you need to watch, you likely will be drunkenly crying/jumping for joy at 2am.
To be honest, all that really matters in my book is the projected score. If my teams is better on paper, then I did my job.
Anyone who has Redzone knows what that does to you. It’s the greatest thing ever.
I literally spent yesterday reorganizing our league and figuring out draft day, order, etc
This article was gold.
My draft is next Saturday. This is going to be fucked.