My Beautiful Dark Twisted* Fantasy (Football Team)

This year, a mere few weeks ago in fact, I embarked on that hallowed game among (mostly) men known as fantasy football. It's strange that the fantasy I think about the most involves Aaron Rodgers and a guy nicknamed Greg the Leg instead of say, something involving Kate Upton and a slutty schoolgirl outfit. My vision of fantasy football was mostly what I had seen from multiple seasons of the FX (now FXX) show The League: A bunch of maladjusted guys clowning each other and doing horrible things just to get first crack at Adrian Peterson. I had figured it to be a marriage ruining, life altering, all consuming venture that concluded in the carrying out of some disgusting, embarrassing act that must be done to appease the Fantasy gods. There are whole shows on ESPN, entire podcasts and websites dedicated to whether or not Tom Brady should be benched this weekend or what matchups will yield the most points. Fantasy Football is a big deal. More people than you would ever imagine play fantasy football. People who know not one iota about anyone in the NFL play fantasy football. But the beauty of it is that it basically plays itself. There are projections, research, and ranks courtesy of ESPN, the NFL and the dozens of experts that basically tell you what to do, who to play and where to put them. It's all math, it's all about numbers and the website does all the work for you. You don't need to watch one second of an actual game on television and you can still win your league in a landslide. Now, the fact that there are programs for fantasy football that do all the work for you is not lost on me. The eggheads, the nerds, they are perhaps always expected to be players of games of skill and intellect, games that require work and attention to be constantly paid. The fact that this sports game that casual-at-best fans can excel at is so popular will further divide the the two camps.

It's no secret among friends and family that I enjoy following sports and I receive my fair share of jabs about it. For most of my friends, the athletes in high school were the bane of our existence, the source of all pain (physical and psychological) and irritation. And today still, sports is the antithesis of nerdy, intellectual pursuits among my friends, there's still a dividing line, an us versus them mentality. We also play Dungeons & Dragons each week, which also receives its fair share of backhanded comments and outright laughter. They're both games, they're both fantasy (in one definition of the word or another), they're both subjects that the general public is favorable towards** but I didn't tell people for months that I had been embarking on a game of D&D with my friends and the fact that I have joined a fantasy football league is applauded and has actually brought me closer with friends and coworkers. People ask me about it, ask how it's going, express their desire to play next year. The same people openly mock us for playing D&D, crack jokes, don't even bother to understand the most elementary of concepts about it. Now, of course, I'm lot lamenting the fact that Dungeons & Dragons isn't as popular as football, I know it isn't and never will be. In fact, Dungeons & Dragons and its players are the anti-football and anti-jocks, they're both on opposite sides of the societal spectrum and there is a very small percentage of crossover. Although, 3/8 of our D&D group play fantasy football, which the other 5/8 could not care less about. D&D night is Thursday, which coincides with NFL Network's Thursday Night Football. Worlds colliding!

The excitement for me is exactly what the name infers, the fantasy aspect of it. Frankly, the amount of time I've spent sitting in front of my computer staring at my 8 starters and 6 bench players is embarrassing. Watching the points add up every Sunday is one of the most anticipated parts of my week. And watching the stats rise and fall each week is fascinating. Add in the concepts of adding & dropping players and putting together trades with other players to create the perfect team and it becomes borderline addictive. Watching the stat line rise for Marshawn Lynch last Sunday versus the best team in the league was amazing. 98 yards rushing, 2 touchdowns, 37 yards receiving & 1 touchdown for 31.50 fantasy points. That is beautiful. Aaron Rodgers throwing for 480 yards and 4 touchdowns for 47.70 points, the most of any player in the NFL last Sunday is beautiful. I had a bounce to my step at work that night. It's great watching something I put together dominate so much. You'll laugh, I'm laughing, but it's true. This is a concept that can be achieved in many other ventures, writing fiction, video games, etc. But this is the perfect, simplest form of putting together a team, something I love watching happen. It's why Marvel put all their best heroes together to form The Avengers. It's why Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables is so enjoyable, or Ocean's Eleven, or The Magnificent Seven. Putting the best and coolest group of people together to fight a common enemy is a universally enjoyable practice.

So, tonight, these interests will intersect. While my ragtag group of adventurers defends itself against a hoard of the undead***, hoping to get off the island and make our way somewhere else in search of adventure and fortune, I will be constantly checking my phone to follow the events of the second half of the Chiefs-Eagles game. I have a stake in this game as one of my starting receivers is Desean Jackson, a player that I don't like on a team that I don't like but who I'm hoping will go off for 200 yards a few touchdowns against a team that I actually like and hope will prevail. The split in interest between D&D and NFL is not exclusive to me but it is rare and it's something I have no qualms about expressing. Just as I look forward to Sunday and my team of football players, I look forward to Thursday and my group of misfits, miscreants and thieves. I like having one foot in both worlds.

*It's not all that dark or twisted. Marshawn Lynch's nickname is Beastmode, that's about as close as it comes.
**This could be a bit of a stretch, but I'm going on the logic of how successful and popular TV shows like Game Of Thrones and movies like Lord Of The Rings are. And the NFL is a multi-billion dollar a year business, regardless of how many people I know "don't get it."
***The undead, the topic of a previous LDB,BL post, is an interesting topic, one that I'm more okay with than Christopher. It's an effective tool, an easy enemy, an ideal that is hard for anyone to be in favor of, therefore, the heroes will be heroic and defeat them on the way to their ultimate goal. The best stories about the undead, whether they're zombies or vampires, are not really about vampires or zombies, they're just a tool to have blood and gore and action sequences. If the story is good, that will be the focus, and smart audiences will care but that's why The Walking Dead isn't a good show. The episodes that the public likes the most are the ones that have the most zombie kills whether or not the characters are doing anything in their lives that we actually care about.