Fantasy Pigskin
September 15, 2004
by Brendon McCullin

It’s a Thursday night in September, after midnight, and I’m watching the end of the NFL’s season opening match-up between the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts. It’s a good close game featuring two very good teams, but that’s not why I’m still watching it. I don’t have any rooting interest for either team and aside from the fact that I’m a fan of professional football I don’t care that much about the outcome.

Tonight, though, I’m rooting for Patriots’ running back Corey Dillon and Colts’ kicker Mike Vanderjagt. As a matter of fact, I’m hoping they both play the game of their lives. Why? Because I recently drafted both of them for my fantasy team. Unfortunately for me, Vanderjagt misses a field goal at the end of the game, costing my team valuable points. The kick also would have sent the game into overtime, which could have provided even more of a statistical boost. As the kick sails right, I add some expletives to Colts’ quarterback Peyton Manning’s one-time characterization of Vanderjagt as an “idiot kicker.”

Welcome to the world of fantasy football!

While fantasy sports have been around for a while now – since the late 70’s when some baseball writers and editors came up with Rotisserie Baseball – fantasy football has exploded into a full fledged phenomenon. The Fantasy Sports Trade Association estimates that about 15 million people play some form of fantasy sports, and of that number roughly 90% play fantasy football.

It’s rise in popularity – thanks largely to the plethora of easy-to-use Internet sites that take the hassle out of running a league – has turned it into a cash cow. Every major Internet site seemingly offers fantasy football. Every sports publication or site has sections specific to the fantasy game. There are television and radio shows devoted exclusively to discussing it. In recent years, there are more preseason publications for fantasy football than there are for the real game.

Even the NFL itself, always the first to downplay the effect that gambling has on the popularity of its game, has embraced fantasy football (which is a sort of “gambling lite”) offering leagues through their Internet site.

Why the explosion for fantasy football though? Rotisserie Baseball has been around longer and has the benefit of using a game that has an entire cult following devoted to its statistics. Well, much like some of the other ancillary activities that have become inextricably tied to football – like gambling and tailgating – fantasy football just kind of lends itself to the football experience.

Football is hands down the most popular team sport in the United States. It’s brutally violent and played by men that are larger than the average pick-up truck, making it perfect for mainstream America. However, for all the flash and fury, the fact remains that there’s an awful lot of downtime in the sport. Teams only play one game a week and most plays in an NFL game only take 5-10 seconds to complete. Where gambling and drinking have long helped fill the gap in action, fantasy football has become a safer option for many fans, both the usual zealots and their more casual counterparts.

Because of the passion that football inspires, especially the intense loyalty that people have to their favorite team, the biggest problem that fantasy football typically presents is a “sleeping with the enemy” syndrome. For example, say you’re a Dallas Cowboys fan and you’ve been conditioned to hate the Washington Redskins. When it comes time to select players there’s a decent chance that at some point the best player available will play for the archenemy Redskins. How do you handle this moral dilemma?

Some fans can’t manage that emotional swing and intentionally stay away from players on certain teams. Most fantasy football aficionados however become very good at compartmentalizing, reasoning and, if necessary, denial. The thinking goes that it’s okay to root for certain players as long as your team wins or it’s fine to pull for those players on the weeks that they aren’t playing your team. Sound reasoning to be sure, but it’s still disconcerting when you notice the lone New York Jets fan in a sports bar that isn’t loudly cursing Tom Brady, quarterback of the hated Patriots, for throwing another touchdown pass.

As with everything else, lots of football fans take playing the fantasy version to extremes. Some figure that if owning one team is fun then owning 5 or 10 teams will be even more fun. Other guys use it as an excuse to leave their wife and kids to fly to Vegas for the weekend so that their fantasy league can hold its player draft.

In offices all across the country big chunks of each week are spent with coworkers discussing their fantasy football teams. If companies ever started blocking access to ESPN.com on their computer systems, there’d be widespread revolts from the executive offices on down to the mailroom. Fantasy football is the kind of obsession that cuts across most cultural divides.

Then again, there are certainly worse things that a guy could become obsessed with – booze, drugs, and strippers named Mercedes to name a few. With the way reality is, it certainly can’t hurt to add some fantasy in here or there. As long as a modicum of perspective is maintained, it really is quite a bit of fun and a good way to enjoy some camaraderie. Just make sure to draft the right “idiot kicker” when the time comes.

(Brendon McCullin is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine)