By Shane Frederick
Free Press Staff Writer
September 17, 2008 01:16 am
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My wife and kids would never believe this, but there was a time when I didn’t care a lick about fantasy football.
Not only did I not care about it, I was practically offended by the whole concept.
I suppose that view started on a night a group of Packers fans and a group of Bears fans gathered together to watch their favorite teams play each other in the basement lounge of a dormitory on one Minnesota’s small colleges.
While the hardcores fans were watching the game and hoping for a week’s worth of bragging rights, others with no rooting interest in the score wandered in to check in on some individual performances so they could calculate their fantasy points.
Those guys were practically run out of the room that night.
(This, of course, was before the Internet, a time when scores were compiled with Monday-morning’s newspaper and a calculator, a time when commissioners were commissioners!)
I’m not sure what caused me to change my tune on fantasy football, but a couple of years later, I joined my first league and I was hooked.
And now, probably 15 years after I joined in on the banishment of a geeky fantasy player from a room of “true fans,” I find myself the commissioner of two leagues and a member of another league.
One league is made up mostly of high school buddies and college friends; another is mostly co-workers.
But I confess: I’ve become somewhat of a fantasy football junkie.
Instead of enjoying Monday night’s thrilling, offensive show between the Cowboys and the Eagles, I only followed those players on the Rain Dogs — my team — and those on my opponent’s roster.
At halftime I had a slim lead on my rival, a fellow Free Press staff writer who shall remain nameless, and I couldn’t bear to watch anymore after Tony Romo hit Marion Barber on a short touchdown pass (yes, he had both of those guys) that gave team Foreclosure — and Dallas, I suppose — the lead.
I woke up Tuesday morning with regrets of drafting Derek Anderson and of starting Ryan Grant but also with schemes of acquiring Darren Sproles or — gulp! — even J.T. O’Sullivan.
What have I become?
Of course, I’m not alone.
You, too, are probably hooked on fantasy. If you’ve read this far, you’re probably still looking to see what advice I may have for you in Week 3. (Sorry, Rueda’s “Fantasy Forum” runs in Tuesday’s paper).
Various reports estimate that 14 million people are playing fantasy football this year, and one recent study estimated that fantasy football will cost American businesses more than $9 billion in lost productivity during this NFL season. (Let’s see ... who to pick up? Michael Pittman or LaMont Jordan? Pittman or Jordan? Oh, I’d better finish my column.)
I don’t know if I believe that study, but I do know fantasy has changed the way I watch football.
Go Rain Dogs!
Shane Frederick is a Free Press staff writer. Call him at 344-6373 or e-mail sfrederick@
mankatofreepress.com.
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