Fantasy Flings: Would You Cheat on Your Wife (or Husband)?
By Some Random Broad on Nov 01, 2012 with Comments 0
Even Sandy can’t keep the LCG down. Here’s the second post from our newest contributor Some Random Broad. She’s also become our most prolific writer of late…a reminder that I’ve got to get back on it. Anyway, read her stuff. It’s quality. Sums up why I’ve been out of the fantasy game for a few years now.
Would you cheat on your wife (or husband)? No? Then stop cheating on your football team. How do you cheat on your football team, you ask? The answer is simple, and many of you probably already know it. Fantasy. Football.
This virtual competition in which people manage professional football players in a pseudo-managerial role has done nothing but deteriorate the allegiances our grandfathers worked so hard to instill in their children. I understand that everyone has an escape from the stressful reality of the office, family, or life as a Browns fan. However, we need to stop living in an alternate reality where flesh and blood athletes are seen as pawns, meant to produce feats of great strength and skill so that you can keep bragging right over Cousin Tony in Minetola. Eli Manning is in fact the quarterback of the New York Giants, but no, DiscountDoubleCheck, I don’t think he’s at all concerned about what defense he’s facing in your “matchup” this week.
As a disclaimer, I should add that I have a fantasy football team. Every week I do my homework; I check the injury reports and analyze my matchup, all in an attempt to put my best guys out “there”. But guess what – those guys are going to be out there no matter what. What we need to realize is this; these men are paid to play on the field. It’s disappointing to me that we’ve started evaluating players based on how they perform within the context of our own, generally irrelevant, virtual duels. An athlete shouldn’t be remembered solely for how many fantasy points they earned you this week. That game-winning grab late in the fourth quarter (Tennessee Titans, Week 7…anybody?) might have been his only 9 points of the afternoon – and I understand he projected at 28 – but diluting the actual moment (and a win), because you fell short of slaying “TinyTimsTerriers,” is just wrong.
Speaking of the Titans, Grantland’s Chuck Klosterman wrote an article called “The Chris Johnson Problem,” focusing on the emotional roller coaster to which fantasy football aficionados are subjected. After proclaiming his love for Fantasy, Klosterman admits that it changes our perception of living, breathing athletes (in this particular case, Chris Johnson). Perhaps the greatest observation he makes is this: “A die-hard Titans fan might feel betrayed by the way Johnson is playing this year, but at least that fan loved him once; a fantasy owner never cares about the past, because he or she has no connection to anything outside the present.”
Our teams, our New York Giants and New York Jets (or what’s left of them) are our past, present and future. Our fantasy football teams live in a perpetually fleeting moment. Our teams consist of the guys who run through the tunnel Sunday after Sunday, season after season, winning games and hopefully a Superbowl or two. They sweat and bleed to win a game for the Bears, or the Chiefs, or the Saints, so I can only hope you’re not under the illusion that Adrian Peterson is churning his legs for “Wayne’s Warriors”. They deserve to be remembered for the countless hours they put in at the gym, not for the 21-point week they had.
One of the biggest issues I have with fantasy is this; people forget the importance of the game at hand. You shouldn’t be thinking about how the Seahawk’s defense is performing when Ahmad Bradshaw is getting in petty quarrels on the sideline because he’s so pumped up. You shouldn’t care how many points Randall Cobb is earning you over at Lambeau.
This week, I dare you to go to sleep thinking about tomorrow’s game, not tomorrow’s match up. Put down your phone, and stop refreshing that page – your team is on.
