It's 3 days away from the New Year, and last night mine and pretty much 99% of everyone in the world's fantasy season has ended. It has been a grueling season for me with both teams failing to reach the playoffs, even though one of them I had the 4th highest point total in the league, but I digress, I think I'm over fantasy it's gotten to the point of absurdity where I will be up to 12:30 am hoping for Buffalo's Kicker to kick a field goal because I'm down by 2 points. It's not good for the soul to be rooting for Buffalo's kicker at 1230 am on a school night. It's way too stressful. I was bbming a friend of mine who I thought at one point would spontaneously combust if Sidney Rice didn't catch the ball for 13 yards. I had a visual of his girlfriend with a luggage and their dog walking right on out, as he sat there sweating on the couch in his Sidney Rice jersey. This isn't normal, no one should have this much stress on them for a useless Monday Night game.
I promised my work league champs that I would give them a little write up. Team Fugani for the second year in a row made it to the championship game, after last year's disappointment was geared up and ready to go this year. The team has 3 owners which is utterly ridiculous, has weekly strategy meetings, and has the quant guys at Barclays analyzing match ups on a week to week basis. Granted, they have done their homework and through landing the #1 pick, making some shrewd trades, and some key in season pickups like Miles Austin were able to land in the championship game again this year, but unlike last year this year they emerged victorious. Even though I have been trash talking them since the Pierre Thomas debacle of 08, which was right up there with the market crash of 08 in my mind, I give them credit for running a A+ franchise and for winning the Stock Loan Fantasy Football League.
So why do we do this, why will I probably do it again, I get thrown off my diet on Sundays, I'm not sleeping, I spend time agonizing over questions like who would be a better 3rd receiver Johnny Knox or Bernard Berrian, I end up out a few bills, I openly root against the Giants if I have someone on my team playing them, and I end up having to write columns praising a three headed owner. Here are a few reasons.........
1) The Draft- It's an excuse for 12 guys to get out get really drunk, eat really bad, and to trash talk each other about their lack of football knowledge, an analogy for my female audience would be Sex and the City viewing parties and analyzing shoes, only thing I can think of that would equate to what we do. We spend our time preparing like we are studying for the SAT, and some of our proudest moments in life is getting that sleeper who you have been studying and analyzing for months in the 6th round. Pure Bliss I tell you. We have now expanded from having a draft night to making a draft weekend out of it, hell I can't think of a better bachelor party idea than a Las Vegas weekend on Labor Day weekend with 3 days of vices followed by a draft on Monday in a suite.....the idea has me excited right now, Ray, Carl are you listening?
2) Opening weekend- Is there anything better than having your newly minted drafted team all ready to go, and then having 1 pm hit having your laptop going at the same time and just unleashing your team? I think not, it's like a good version of the first day of school
3) Playoffs- Even though, I knocked the hell out of it, is there any better feeling than watching Sidney Rice get that 13th yard to win a fantasy football championship and then spending 8 months trash talking your buddies about your awesomeness.
4) Your significant other- This is more of a negative, from their standpoint they will never ever get it, it's sort of like us with show pillows we will never understand their importance. Unless the girl is cool and openly roots and pulls what the wife in the League does and blackmails fellow owners into making unfair trades. It's always fun to see the perplexed look on their face when you try to explain to them you need 20 points to win and how you can get those points, bottom line is simplify it if Player X catches the ball a lot, we can go away on a nice trip!
So now its late December, I'm sad Fantasy Football is over, once again my teams were beat, combination of bad luck and drafting guys like Matt Ryan in the 3rd round. I'm a little beat up on fantasy but I'm back next year Team Redemption I hope will finally Redeem itself!
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P.S. I just got an email as I was writing this next year's draft is tentatively set for 9/6/10, im psyched
