There I was, standing in front of my television, screaming like a madman to encourage the men in helmets I saw moving before me. "Come on, Randy!" I screamed to Randy Moss as he sprinted toward the end zone. In he went, and the Patriots scored another six points on the Chargers. But anyone who knows me would have found the whole situation rather unusual; I like the Chargers and strongly dislike the Patriots. This was nonsense. This was madness. This was fantasy football.
Yes, I finally decided to take the plunge. It's not the first time I've ever played this game, but the last time was years and years ago, so I consider this to be my true birth into the brave new world of living vicariously through large, sweaty men. I decided to give it another chance because it seemed like a good opportunity for bonding among my housemates. After all, this is "what men should do." I knew this for a fact the minute I printed out my draft "cheat sheet" and it had a Hooters ad on the top.
The draft, of course, is the beginning of the fantasy football experience. This is when you sit down with your fellow league "owners" and select who is going to be on your squad for the coming year. I obviously don't know for sure, but this must be what it feels like to go out with your girlfriends to a nightspot and scope out the men in the place:
"I wanted Shaun!"
"Well, too bad, I grabbed him first!"
If your friendships can survive the nervous glare-fest that is the fantasy draft, you know you all are close indeed.
Then the next step is to choose the lineup of players you want to "start" for your team. The points they generate for the squad are based on their performance in real life, so this means that what the game comes down to is predicting which players will do well in that particular week. Most fantasy owners thus spend hours consulting stat breakdowns in an attempt to make the best predictions, which are, of course, almost never correct. This is why you shouldn't play fantasy football against your grandmother -- sooner or later, she'll be doing a victory jitterbug while you hang your head in shame.
The odd thing about fantasy football is the way the games themselves come to take on secondary importance. I spent all of Sunday in a frenzy, keeping constantly updated on the latest scores from around the country. By the end of the day, I realized I'd been plugged in to football most of the time -- and I had no idea who had won any of the games! I can't help but think that, as legions of us sit in front of the television rooting for a team to get behind so the quarterback, who is on our fantasy team, will start throwing more passes, Johnny Unitas is spinning in his grave.
There are, of course, numerous other ways to get in on the fantasy sports experience. A quick look on the Web popped up fantasy baseball, basketball, hockey, racing, soccer and yes, golf. The way the trend appears to be going, we may eventually reach a point where we can have a tiny, hand-picked group of men and women playing all sports on Earth and the scores don't matter, while the rest of us get live updates and bench people from our cell phones on the way to the fridge.
Why can't we try out this format in other areas of life, since it generates so much excitement? How about fantasy mailmen? You would rack up points for every successful delivery, which could be doubled for the complicated stuff, like overnight mail. Points would come off if your guys messed up addresses or missed a pickup or brought too many of those envelopes full of useless coupons. I can just imagine the conversations now:
"Well, I started Thompson for last week, and he was absolutely taking it to them with the Amazon packages, but then a dog took him out in the second quarter."
Clearly this fantasy phenomenon is here to stay. And I won't deny it has indeed brought the members of our little league together, albeit only to exchange trash talk about our mad prediction skills. Just remember there is another reason they play the games, one that has nothing to do with helping you humiliate your friends and relations. And should you find yourself screaming at a man on TV about his carries, calm down and go take a few carries of your own.
Matt's column runs biweekly Tuesdays. He can be reached at waring@cavalierdaily.com.
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