The Phantasy Menace: Fantasy football is stupid and I can quit anytime

It was already week two of the season when I scrambled to get a fantasy football league together with some guys who either did not understand the concept or were already in legitimate leagues.

By week three, it wasn’t looking good.  Half the people I invited never even received the automated email from ESPN.com yet  (ESPN sucks by the way – more on that later), and the rest were losing interest as I lobbied the holdouts like I was starting a pyramid scheme.

In a way, I was. I needed to get my fantasy football fix on and I needed them to keep it going. But between explaining the fantasy league concept to diehard football fans that acted like my near deaf aunt learning “the internet”  (I’m learning the computer!), and convincing the others that playing for money better justifies cyberstalking millionaires having fun, my attempt at a league sputtered and died.

I started so late because, as a Raiders fan, I sort of don’t like football. I mean, how can one respect oneself as a Raiders fan when the Disney Sports Network and its accomplices lazily default to file footage of maladjusted cozplayers that look like they are attending a Gwar renaissance fair? But, I digress.  I haven’t paid too much attention to the NFL until I discovered fantasy football last year, so I accidentally filtered the pre-season NFL buzz through a Raiders fan’s ears instead of as a newly-born fantasy football fan.

My first season of fantasy football came the previous season and was rough and glorious.  The league was started by my buddy’s co-workers who instituted into their league inept collusion, regular trade molestations, bet welching, and a trash talking standard that would make Dane Cook look like a legitimate witty human being. Oh yeah, and two quarterbacks: genius.

Inaugurating my entrance into this league of clucks, I promptly drafted Chris Johnson in the first round because, guy’s gotta go prove himself after holding out for a monster contract, right? After promptly falling to last place, I dropped out of the commissioner’s good graces when I counter-offered Peyton Manning for my top WR’s with a multi-player deal involving his mom and under-aged sister.

I, of course, parlayed their animosity by winning every side bet I made (a taco lunch, a 40-ouncer, a sixpack, and $10) and, of course, got paid up for none. Quality guys, these Orange County folks.

Going into week seven of the current season, I had barely noticed that the NFL still existed since the debunking of Raider Nation’s “Al Davis is the sole obstacle to Raider greatness” theory. But then I got an offer I couldn’t say “F*ck yeah!” to fast enough . . .

By Tim T.
Contributing Writer for The Daily Sports Herald