I haven’t heard from my fantasy football league yet, but I gotta admit I’m getting psyched about the challenge. Our league is a pay league; a group of football watchers who plunk down a fee to see which of us can collect the best ‘point scorers’ in the NFL. I know many NFL players, beat writers, and even fans consider Fantasy Football to be a powerfully stupid activity. It is literally football out of context. We’re betting on the skills of individuals (and occasionally defenses) in a team sport. So, this post challenges the myths and stereotypes of Fantasy Football. I seek to validate what I’ve come to enjoy as my ‘paper sport’. Fantasy Football is a colorful extraction of an intrinsic part of professional football.
What is fantasy football? It is a bet. You bet on how well players will perform against a given team under a very specific set of variables in a given week. In essence, fantasy football team owners are laymen NFL scouts. We determine mismatches and orchestrate lineups in order to take advantage of those mismatches. This little step made the Patriots great. Now I’m not saying I’m like the Patriot coaching staff, but I am trying to be a student of the game in that same fashion in order to play a game that is both fun and earns me a little bit of coin just in time for the Super Bowl party.
I know this post tries to make fantasy football team owners seem more than we are, but I enjoy playing and I do learn more about the game from it. Fantasy football makes me a better football coach to all of the kids I lead unto the field on saturdays. That has to be worth something.