Football vs. Zombies

There are many things in this world that are frequently avoided from discussion in the work place simply because they cause tension or awkwardness amongst co-workers.  Some of these topics include religion, politics and STDs.  For example, most of my co-workers know that I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a Mormon), and although I do not try and preach to them, most of the time that my religion is brought up in a casual conversation, a strange awkwardness ensues as no one knows what to say next and someone will often change the topic of conversation as soon as possible.  Another example of recent interest was the presidential election.  On Election Day many people proudly wore their election stickers, but I did not dare ask anyone who they voted for knowing that a debate over politics would quickly follow and feelings could easily be hurt.  And clearly, no one at work cares to discuss the crazy party you attended over the weekend which landed you with a case of the crabs.  Most people try and avoid these three and many other topics of discussion as frequently as possible.

But there is one topic that is not often avoided, but probably should be, it is that of fantasy football.  Few things ignite a fire of anger in a man more than a recent loss in a fake football game.  Yet still, Monday morning rolls around and every guy wants to talk about his fantasy football team, but no one wants to listen.  No one cares that if your receiver would have caught one more pass or if your defense wouldn’t have given up that field goal, your team would have had enough fake points to knock off your opponent.  No one cares about anyone else’s team and no one wants to hear the battle stories from your weekend of checking score updates on your computer.   I currently am involved in 3 fantasy football leagues (I was in 4, but I’ll get to that story later) and like most men, I see the appeal of fantasy football.  But no one cares how well my teams did that past week and I don’t care about how anyone else’s team did either.  Yet still, everyone talks about fantasy football and the moment the games have ended, hours of work time are spent planning for the upcoming fake game. 

I have been involved in fantasy football for about 10 years.  I started when I was young co-managing a team with my dad.  But we were never any good and we would both frequently forget to update our lineups.  This lack of attention to our team caused us most seasons to finish in or near last place.  Eventually I started managing my own team in the same league and as I previously had, I forgot about my team and down at the bottom of the table each year were my dad’s team and my team.  As the years have gone on I have been asked by many people if I want to join their leagues and for some odd reason, I can never say no to anyone, and therefore am constantly involved in leagues that I don’t have any interest in being in.  It’s not that I don’t want to do fantasy football, but I simply would rather spend my time doing other things than be wrapped up in something that does not matter and often only leads to frustration and hurt feelings.  This morning as I was thinking about fantasy football, I came to a conclusion about this phenomenon that has impacted the lives of almost every American male.  I finally realized that fantasy football is not fun. 

Ask anyone, ask your friends, neighbors, family, anyone who has a fantasy football team, “When was the last time you played in a fantasy football game and when the game was over you were so happy you couldn’t stop smiling for days?”  Or ask them, “When was the last time that at the end of a fantasy football season you looked back on the year and said to yourself ‘I’m so glad I did that’?”  Let’s face it, no one really enjoys fantasy football and most people end up losing money that they can’t afford to lose.  Fantasy football has led to many disagreements amongst friends and co-workers.  Fantasy football has gone from being a game to being a second job.  And very few people enjoy their first jobs, why would anyone want a second one?

I do not mean to be Mr. Negative and hate on something that is so popular, but just because it is popular does not make it fun.  Just because Justin Beiber is popular does not make me happy to listen to his music.  Popularity should never be linked to fun.  My wife and I are avid viewers of The Walking Dead.  It is our favorite show and we watch it every week.  We started on the show late and had to get caught up by watching the seasons on DVD.  We would get so excited about a new episode that when the music would start and the credits would run, we would turn to each other and smile with joy.  We loved watching that show.  Now season 3 has begun and like many shows, The Walking Dead has started to get darker and darker.  Which to those of you who only saw the first two seasons, you may be wondering how it is possible to get any darker than it used to be?  But the writers have figured out how to do it. 

Last week’s episode that aired on November 4^th hit a new low for darkness as three of the main characters died.  Any joy that my wife and I use to get from watching this show was quickly gone as we starred at each other not with a giddy happiness but instead with a feeling of filthiness.  We both had to ask each other, “What the heck did we just watch?”  I think we both came to the realization that we did not enjoy that episode and neither of us had any desire to watch another episode of The Walking Dead.  But when the new episode aired the following week, what do you think we both did?  Like trained monkeys, we sat and watched it, which to our joy, was nothing as dark as the previous episode. 

I feel that fantasy football is very similar to our experience with The Walking Dead.  Fantasy football used to be fun and enjoyable, it was something to look forward to, but now, as each season passes, it is less and less enjoyable to the point that no one is truly having fun.  But when another season rolls around, without hesitation, we are all signing up our teams for another year and we are pumped to win some fake football games.

There was one experience that I had this year that really turned me off from the entire fantasy football experience; I was kicked out of a league.  I am one of 4 siblings, but I am the only boy. So when I got married and suddenly had brothers-in-laws, I was stoked to do dude stuff with my new brothers.  This included an invitation from them to join their fantasy football league.  I was truly excited, and although I would now belong to 4 different fantasy leagues, I decided that this league would be my top priority since I wanted to get along with my new brothers and feel like I was a part of their family.  My wife’s family is all from Seattle and therefore are huge Seahawks fans.  In the spirit of competitiveness, I decided to name my team in this league “Pete the Cheat” making fun of the Seahawks head coach who deserted his former team USC right before the team got put on probation by the NCAA.  I was looking forward to this fantasy football season for the first time in years.

But all my excitement quickly went away on the day of the draft when I saw the makeup of this league.  In every previous league I have been involved it, we usually have to manage a QB, 3 WR, 2 RB, 1 TE, a kicker and a defense.  Some of the leagues maybe have one or two additional spots, but usually no more than a dozen total starting positions.  But in this league, each team had 3 QB, 6 WR, 6 RB, 4 TE, 3 kickers, 3 defenses, and 6 defensive players! About 30 total positions that needed to be maintained on a weekly basis.  It was just too much for me.  I sat through the first 5 rounds of the draft and then had to put my team on auto-draft simply because I could not handle so many rounds.  Needless to say, I never checked on that team again and 5 weeks into the season had not made any changes to my roster.  Still, I had two wins and was not in last place in the league.  One of my brother-in-laws then had to relay a message to me through my wife that my other brother-in-law, who was the commissioner of the league, was kicking me out of the league for not updating my team.  I honestly did not care, and within a couple of days, I could no longer access that league.  I did not think much of it until a few days later I made a comment about being kicked out of the league on a message one of them had posted to Facebook, which then blew up into a huge ordeal and inevitably, feelings were hurt.  It all culminated with my peace offering: an invitation to each of them to join my upcoming WNBA fantasy league which I plan to start next year (first pick: Brittney Griner!).

I was not upset to be kicked out of a fantasy league in which I had yet to update my team even a single time.  Being a part of the league or not made no difference to me.  But it did sadden me to see that a fake sport could cause a rift between me and members of my new family.  How sad it was that something that did not matter at all, a fake football team, could be more important than family.  

So when next August rolls around and it is time to join another fantasy football league, of course I will join.  Just like when next week rolls around, of course I will continue to watch The Walking Dead.  But I don’t do fantasy football because it brings me any joy or fun, I do it because, well… I guess I have absolutely no idea why I do it, and I am positive I’m not alone in that.