A Fascinating Game of Fantasy Football

I’ll admit it: I’m obsessed with fantasy football. I can vividly remember the call I received from “Pepe” (aka Colin) asking if I wanted to come to his “fantasy football” draft that night. Of course, being a 7th grader, I had never heard of the game that has since spread like wildfire all over the country, and I immediately thought of wizards and unicorns commonly found in books under the fantasy genre. Knowing a good friend of mine wouldn’t call me over to waste time dealing with wizards and unicorns playing football, I googled fantasy football to get some background information on this weird little game I was about to begin. It eventually occurred to me that fantasy football was simply a football fan’s way of getting further engaged in the sport; and it was, simply, an activity that provided a football season’s worth of entertainment.

Five years and countless hours later, I find myself becoming extremely anxious for the end of summer. For one, I’ve found incredible enjoyment in the competition found in fantasy football. There is nothing better than dominating my friends in something related to one of my favorite sports. It’s not that I love being better than everyone, it’s just I always love good competition, win or lose, and fantasy football always provides that. For example, taking down the league leader after picking up Earnest Graham was an extremely satisfying moment of the previous season.

Contrary to America’s belief, I’ve determined through “sophisticated” statistical analysis that numbers do actually matter in fantasy football. This game cannot be won simply with gut feelings, but rather complex analysis of each player’s situation and ability. I’ve found myself up late on some summer nights forming spread sheets that plotted the previous year’s projected rankings vs. the actual points, which helped me determine exactly how accurate the “expert” predictions were. I eventually found after the top few picks or so, the difference between the 7th and the 10th ranked player, for example, was so unpredictable you could easily draft either one and still have the same success. Maybe next year’s AP Stats class in college will help me dig even deeper into this wonderful sport.

Most of all, fantasy football is downright fun. All of this competitive nature and fun also helps solidify friendships and provides memorable times for both my friends and family. I’ll never forget those weekend morning conference calls with the entire Diekroeger family calling in from around the country yelling at each other after the team right before them took their biggest sleeper in the draft. (I wonder if I’ll have to help Uncle Steve get his system working again this year), And the same group that initially showed up to that mysterious “fantasy football” draft back in 7th grade will still meet at the end of this summer. Thanks to this wonderful interest of mine, I can count on being told by Pepe that the team I just drafted is horrendous, only for him to be humbled by the fact that I stand above him at the end of the season.