Me and Tom Brady’s Wife: A Word on Fantasy Football

Can I talk to you for a few minutes about fantasy football?  It isn’t often that I use the words “fantasy” and “football” in the same sentence, and when I do it usually has something to do with Tom Brady’s wife.  Not so in this case.  Those of you who know about the internet have probably already guessed that the fantasy football I’m talking about today is the kind where people form leagues, assemble teams made up of NFL players, and then compete against other teams in their league while accruing points based on the weekly performance of the NFL players on their team.  It is every bit as nerdy as it sounds.

Fantasy football represents the latest in a long history of things created by nerds which were then appropriated by normal people to use as we see fit.  Facebook, pop rocks, and Death Cab for Cutie are a few other examples.  Whereas fantasy football was once the realm of people who were bored with Dungeons and Dragons yet still confused by human interaction, it has now been embraced as an acceptable leisure activity by whole legions of men who occasionally speak to women and have never seen Tron.  Even more surprising are the scores of young women – Dakota Fanning and Malia Obama among them – who have joined fantasy leagues, though it is speculated that most have only done so in order to have an explanation for their repeated Google searches for “Mark Sanchez + fantasy.”

Since fantasy football is both mainstream and divorced from reality you may have already guessed that I am an enthusiastic participant.  In fact, having enjoyed a modicum of success in a league last year, I made the questionable decision to join two leagues this year.  This pretty well guarantees I will spend more hours of my week thinking about fantasy football than I spend on, for example, sleeping.  And in no way is that depressing.  I look at fantasy football the way I look at eating a Double Down from KFC: probably not the healthiest addition to my life, but a damn good time while it’s happening.

For the people who've always thought bread would taste better if it was meat.

Like all the best things in life (i.e. money, alcohol, women) fantasy football has the power for both good and evil.  Similar to the Double Down, there are strong reasons to do it (cheese, bacon, chicken, do I need to keep going?)  and strong reasons to avoid it (temporary paralysis as your body attempts to process what you’ve put inside it).  I provide below, for your consideration, an analysis of the best and the worst thing about fantasy football.  In so doing I hope to help you make an informed decision about whether or not fantasy might be right for you next season.

CON: Stress.  From September until January fantasy football is the source of perhaps 95% of the stress in my life.  For those of you with families, jobs you care about, or cars worth more than $4,000 I realize this may sound ridiculous, but stress is stress; I don’t care where it comes from.  The problem with fantasy football is that you can no longer care about your team.  You have to care about every team.  Sunday afternoons are no longer as simple as “if the Packers win, I’ll be in a sociable mood.”  Now it’s “if the Packers win AND Randy Moss gets at least 8 catches AND Phillip Rivers doesn’t throw an interception AND Tim Hightower gets at least two touchdowns AND Greg Jennings gets over 100 yards AND the Philadelphia defense holds Detroit to less than 10 points AND none of my players get injured AND my fantasy opponent underperforms then and only then will I be in a sociable mood.”  If that sounds stressful, imagine the bi-polar mess I become when the Packers are playing the Eagles and I need the Packers to win for me to be happy about life but I need the Eagles defense to recover four turnovers for my fantasy team to win.  I imagine it’s probably a lot like George Bush Sr. felt during his son’s presidency.  He loved his son, but he also loved America and only one could come out on top.

PRO: Ball busting. Fantasy football provides an excuse, venue, and opportunity to make fun of your friends.  This is significant because ball busting is for guys what watching Oprah is for girls (i.e. all we ever want to do.)  It is through the breaking of balls that modern men establish their place in the social order.  It is also in this way that they let everyone know how ridiculously, astoundingly straight they are.  Basically, guys don’t feel right about themselves if they’re not making one of their boys feel worse about himself.  Fantasy football helps this process along by mixing sports, latent athletic insecurities, and message boards.  It’s the perfect storm of trash talking.  I’ve been in leagues where the actual football was an afterthought when compared to the time and energy spent drawing attention to the fact that your opponent has a tiny package.  This may seem extreme, perhaps juvenile, but when you consider the fact that a man’s self-worth is inextricably tied to the performance of his fantasy team, it will begin to make sense.  Guys like fantasy.  Guys love football.  The one thing they like better than both is telling their friends what a buncha homos they are.

Fantasy football stresses me out like nothing else in my life.  But it also affords me the opportunity to ridicule one of my buddies for drinking Bud Light Lime, having sex with dudes, and just generally being super gay.  And for that, it will always be worth it.

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