On Fantasy Football

This is my third year playing in that ultimate American time waster. That being Fantasy Football. There are many people out there in the universe who like to rag on Fantasy Football players. As a former real football player I had never thought much about Fantasy Football. I didn't really see the appeal of it, nor did I find it entertaining when other always talked their fantasy teams and how this guy was sucking and killing his fantasy team. Anyways now that I am in the extreme excitement of the office working world I caved in and have increased my team load from two last year to three this year. I have found several truths about Fantasy Football.

1. My team always has the best team name in the league. As noted before, this is one of my great skills. Because no one can mess with a team that is 'JackedLikeEdHoculi.'

2. My performance in a league has historically been inversely proportionate to the amount of players in the league who actually played football beyond a high school level. Case in point last year's office league. 12 teams. I was the only one who had played college football. I came in dead last, finishing behind a guy who's team wasn't updated after Week 5 when he quit working here and fell off the face of the earth. This team was so horrible that its name was officially changed after week 8 from JackedLikeEdHoculi to Mega Maid because it had gone from 'suck' to 'blow.' The more former college football players who appeared in a league the less my teams seemed to suck (though they always sucked).


3. Talking about your fantasy football team is lame. I don't care. And I don't want to hear it. And I at my core don't care about talking and bitching about my team. Because the last thing you want to hear about is how JackedLikeEdHoculi scored more points than all but two teams in the league last week, except of course, for the team it was playing.

4. Talking about fantasy football has unfortunately become the universal male language of the fall. This can also be a great savior. Forced to talk to a random guy at a cocktail party, a coworker you don't care to talk to, or that really weird guy you only once met at the league draft you have few topics you could talk about. Like um, politics, or the weather, or work, or stories about wives and kids. Except I don't have a wife or kids and couldn't care any less about yours. Oh what's that? You hate your boring job? We all do, why do you think we are here double fisting the tallest beers possible? Fantasy football is a common ground to start a conversation. Any male who plays (which is most all of us who know something about the sport) can have a conversation that gets us closer to talking about real football. And I love real football. Its awesome and beats the pulp out of talking about this typical Monday rainstorm or listening to the same stories about the nag of a wife and 'oh it was so cute what my kid did last night' and 'I really hate the fans of that college who is rivals with my favorite college team where I didn't even go to school.' That all sucks and I rather attempt to shove this Bic roundstic pen through one ear and out the other than to hear about it. Fantasy football is that abort mission lever you can pull on horridly bad conversation. Punches to the face work too.