Fantasy Football
(Draft Day)
Oh Fantasy Football, how I loathe thee.
You stole my husband's heart long ago. He's had a heart divided for at least 12 years. You've made him jump for joy and curse the TV. You've evoked more emotion out of him in one play than I could in hours of meaningful conversation. No matter, I've come to the place of acceptance. I accept that he will share his heart with me and you, in the fall months.
But now, you vile thing, have set your sights on my son. You have wooed him with your imaginary teams, hopes of winning the league, and more reasons to watch TV. He's seen Dad do it for so long, why wouldn't he want to join in the "fun"? His dream of owning a fake NFL team is finally coming true! You've combined the 2 things my 10 year old can't resist: sports and electronics. He never had a chance. He's not my boy anymore, you've made him a dude. I thought I'd have more time before this happened. At least til middle school, but no. You've made him a fantasy football loving dude. Gone are the days when we watch our favorite team play and turn off the TV when it's over. We must watch every game, on every channel, so we can check and see how all our real players did on our imaginary teams. All the while, having our computers on our fantasy league's website so we can see how we're doing overall. Then we watch Sportscenter so we can make sure we didn't miss anything our players did. Then we check the internet to make sure that Sportscenter was accurate. And after all that, we check our fantasy league to see who we played against so we can rub their little noses in the fact that our fake team is better than their fake team.
We don't cheer for teams anymore, we cheer for players. I mean, if the Titans are playing we want them to win since they're our home team, buuuut….if we have Peyton Manning on our fantasy team, we cheer quietly when he throws 5 TD passes in one game. And when a player goes down during a game? If he's on our fantasy team, we're close to tears, praying to sweet baby Jesus that he's ok. We check every day to find out how many games he'll be missing during the regular season. If he's not on our team? We try to hide our smile because now our real opponent's fake team has no chance of winning.
Hours of player research, football watching, smack talking, player trading, and who knows how many hours on the computer overall. And let's be clear, we're doing all this for the hopes of winning a fake league and a real $25. Well played, Fantasy Football, well played.