The Fax of Life: Fantasy Football

Week 4 was the bye week for the Carolina Panthers. Aside from a tangential investment in the Bills, I was staring down the barrel of an autumn weekend wherein I had no rooting interest in pro football. My mind wrestled with this idea while my liver wrestled with the lack of booze being delivered before 10am. I looked at the morning pregame shows somewhat like a dog does its bowl after you change its food. Then it struck me: I had the bestest rooting interest of all on a bye week. I’ve got Fantasy Football!

A lot of us play Fantasy Football, so no need to tread all over that ground. This has more to do with how fantasy football effects a football fan’s bye week. A little background: about a month ago, on that first Thursday of season, I was asked to join yet another Yahoo! league. I attempted to say yes, but Yahoo! had a different approach. Turns out I had hit the limit of Fantasy Football teams Yahoo! allowed one person. In essence, Yahoo! was politely telling me to get a life.

Some might scoff at the amount of fantasy football I’m playing, what with the picks leagues, the survival pools, points leagues, and whatnot. Those people would be called “sane”. However, the notion of having that many teams becomes meaningful when your 0-3 team is mercifully given a week off. Suddenly, like every week, you find yourself rooting for something quaint: football.

Well, technically, football and beer.

The only player I coveted this draft season was Drew Brees. I got him in almost all the leagues, and he’s performed admirably, if a little inconsistently. Aside from Mr. Brees, I didn’t much care whom I got. I followed the usual gameplan going after WRs early after a solid starting RB. The result of this was five fantasy teams that rarely share players. The result of this situation is that every week the same players are both helping me win, and are helping to defeat me. Never is this more true than in a bye week.

I sat on my couch and eagerly watched the StatTracker and watched my teams successes and failures, often at the hands of the same people (Drew Brees). I had reached critical mass. I’d divided zero. I found myself sublimely cheering on the simple, tangible idea of “football”. By and large I didn’t care which teams won, all I cared about was that it was a gloriously chilly day in Los Angeles, and I was enjoying my favorite sport.

The Bills game was inevitably a letdown, but watching that sort of game with the 1 LA Dolphins fan is ethereally adorable. It was a game the Dolphins and Bills fan who was hosting us had dubbed “The Toilet Bowl” and the game lived up to its name. As the evening wore on and Pittsburgh and San Diego entered a shootout that would push some of my fantasy teams on to victory, some to a precarious perch before Monday Night’s Game, and sealed some losses to the recordbooks, I drifted merrily to sleep. I slept the sleep of babies, and woke up with the dawn sky. It was a new week (barring the Favreathon) and that meant a new beginning. The Panthers had a horrific first three weeks filled with the gut-punching losses. With two weeks off and a comparably winnable schedule over the next 3 weeks, I find the pilot light of hope has ignited yet again.

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