A high school classmate of mine contacted me this fall, after watching my TTU Red Raiders remarks on Facebook, wondering if I wanted to play fantasy football, seeing as how I seemed to sort of like the game and followed teams pretty closely.
"I don't know....how does it work? I'm not very good with games."
He explained the concept and told me how to sign up.
I figured it could be another long winter and besides, the league he was putting together had old classmates of mine that I hadn't been in contact with for 20 years. It could be interesting. What the heck...okay, I'll sign up.
And a monster was born.
For those of you who don't know about fantasy football, it's basically where each "manager" (person who joins the league) drafts players from all over the NFL for different positions. So you could have a 49ers quarterback, a Cowboys running back, a Broncos wide reciever and so on. They're real players in the NFL, but you pick them for your pretend team. There are a couple tricky things, here, though. If someone else in your group has already picked them, you can't. You can pick someone else and try to trade for that player, but that's not usually going to happen if they're amazing players.
The DRAFT is an evil, tense process. It's a timed deal, a certain amount of time on a specific day in a specific order. I signed up for the league about 4 days before our draft occured, so that means everyone else had been doing research on players all summer but I'd only been reading up on them for a couple days. You have to know about ALL the darned players for ALL the positions because most of the time you won't get your first, second or even fifth choice....you've got to be ready to pick from what's left, if you're not high on the draft, which I wasn't. I had lists, highlighted and notated, starred and :( -ed, read ESPN like the daily news, asked friends...it was ugly.
My draft was ugly. I really did end up with a lot of second-string players, sleepers, a couple young-and-shaky-prospect quarterbacks, 49ers that no one wanted (but now are DYING to have). I was upset...the whole thing had taken place in 16 minutes, players like Aaron Rodgers flying off the shelf like Tickle-Me-Elmo dolls at a Black Friday sale, and you all know what kind of shopper I am! And I'm shopping for football players, now! Sheesh...
My team was named Hail Mary, completely appropriate because a Hail Mary pass in football is a long shot, desperate attempt, throw into the wild blue and hope for a miracle sort of thing. It was the longest of shots, this fraggledy little team.
I had the 49ers defensive line, because no one wanted them.
I had quarterback Matthew Stafford, maligned and distrusted because he has spent most of the last 2 years on the bench with injuries.
I was running back heavy, (literally) with Darren Sproles, Michael Bush, Reggie Bush, Kendall Hunter, Ricky Williams...they were all that were left!
I had nothin' for wide recievers, and fought that position to the end.
My tight ends were Vernon Davis, the only superstar at the time on my team, and Antonio Gates, highly recommended but shaky future.
My kicker was from the Atlanta Falcons and pretty unimpressive on the stats, but again, no one wanted him so I took him in desperation.
The way the machine works, then, is that your fantasy players get points based on the number of yards made on a play, completed passes, making a touchdown, stopping a play from the other team and so forth. It's based on their real life performance, so fantasy football owners end up needing three televisions and two computers to watch all their players around the country, if they are that competitive and obsessed.
Turns out, I AM that competitive and obsessed.
I know.
That comes as a total shock to no one.
Seventeen weeks of weeping, wailing, celebratory dances, standing up and yelling, gasping, stomping, couch-coaching.
Seventeen weeks of roster shifting, nail biting, head banging on the desk in front of the computer, arm pumps, lucky jerseys, sneaking peeks at scores during family/friendly gatherings.
Seventeen weeks of back and forth banter with my classmates who, as it turns out, are as competitive and obsessed as I am.
I lived and died by the projected points.
I dropped a couple players and picked up a couple more unknowns.
Matthew Stafford made like a superhero, as did my running backs. The 49ers shocked everyone by blowing out of the Bay and winning game after game. Injuries to superstars caused my second string players to be put in positions of power and they came through, week after week, bless their hearts.
And Hail Mary made the playoffs, #4 out of 16 teams.
Two weeks of playoffs and we were in the championship game, the league Superbowl!
That was yesterday and the entire world shut down while I watched with sweaty palms, game after game, stats bouncing all over the place.
Hail Mary WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And handily, 254 points against 157 points!
It was at a cost, though.
My kids walk around flinching, intermittantly hollering "Go Sproles!" and "Who's got it better than us? NOBODY!". My husband has endured the endless updates and now when I open my mouth, he says (before I utter a word) "Oh, good. Way-to-go." My FB friends-if-they-still-claim-me are thinking of either joining a fantasy football league to see what the obsession is all about, or blocking me.
The fantasy football season is over.
I won. I got a call from the commissioner, congratulating me.
I'd be all empty and let down about the end, except that the 49ers are in real life playoffs for the first time in I can't tell you how long, and I'm wearing my old Joe Montana jersey around, hoping against all hope that THIS will be their year!
I'll keep you posted...
:)
Oh! in an interesting side note: My friend (who shall remain unnamed here) that talked me into this mess, gently taunted me when his team played mine that I'd better put on my big girl panties for that weekend, because I was going down. I challenged him to a bet in which the big girl panties would be worn and photographed by the loser, for all the world to see. I won. This is my blog and I want the record of that win posted here for all time and eternity. This is what fantasy football will do to seemingly normal, logical people:
It was a sweet moment. I was hoping for white, but this is pretty good, too...