I have a confession to make. No, I’m not going to watch Chuck Liddell dance with the stars—but it’s equally embarrassing: I suffer from Seasonal Geek Obsession Disorder (SGOD), a condition generally marked by a dramatic increase in weekend television watching and box score analyzing, particularly on Sundays. I begin to notice the symptoms in late August, and they worsen throughout the winter months before they finally dissipate around January. It’s no coincidence that this is the same timeframe spanned by the National Football League season.
If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m addicted to fantasy football. Apparently, there is no cure.
I’m loath to admit this to others outside my circle of friends, even more so than the fact that I occasionally watch preseason games in their entirety.
Fantasy football can best be described as Dungeons and Dragons for jocks. You get a bunch of your buddies together and pretend you’re NFL owners, minus such headaches as salary caps, agents, and the whining of petulant prima donnas. For the uninitiated, you start by signing up for an online league, and at some point before the season opener, you pick a roster of players from the real NFL player pool for each offensive position. Next, you choose a starting lineup most likely to perform well and repeat for each week of the season. Then, you sit back and watch as you get a frustrating and painful lesson in the unpredictability of sports.
Game play is pretty straightforward. Your players go head-to-head against your friends’ players, and the scores are determined by totaling up points based on actual statistical performance. Scoring systems vary from league to league, but in my league, for instance, if your quarterback throws a touchdown, that’s five points for your team. An interception is negative two points. And so on.
This system generates an interesting phenomenon. Instead of rooting for your favorite team on game day, you find yourself cheering for your players to do well—and completely losing all interest in the actual score.
You can recognize our type. Ever sat in a bar and noticed someone (possibly hunched over a laptop) paying abnormally close attention to every single game and yelling things like “C’mon Johnson get me a TD!” and “Brady better throw to Moss on this drive. I need some points!”?
A part of me thinks this is bad for the sport. Football is supposed to be a team game, relying heavily on fan-to-franchise loyalty to survive. On the other hand, fantasy football makes boring things exciting. What other reason would there be for watching an entire Buffalo Bills vs. Houston Texans contest in the middle of November? Unless you’ve got money riding on it, there isn’t any—and in that case, you should probably do some serious soul searching.
So what’s the secret to being a successful fantasy football owner? Besides luck and number crunching that would make Rain Man’s head spin, it all starts with a solid draft. Yes, a savvy owner can pick up a few surprisingly stalwart players during the season from free-agent lists or through the rare trade, but it’s much easier to get off to a great start if you draft well.
That’s why my pre-draft preparations are as intense as any test cramming I did in school. I pore over stats from the previous year, listen to podcasts, and scour ESPN for news on depth charts and injuries, taking copious notes and coming up with wish lists of players who will ensure a solid shot at a virtual championship trophy.
This is the fourth year I’ve been chasing the dream with my Mastodons, and though I’ve improved every season, the grail has still remained elusive. I attribute this to a conflagration of the wrath of the football gods and the universal principle of pure dumb luck. Last January, I suffered a bitter close loss in the Super Bowl, and now I’m determined to finally break through.
Call me stubborn, but I’m not changing my strategy. I’ve built my teams heavy on the running backs, generally the first to go on draft day. They’re highly prized in most fantasy leagues because they touch the ball often and have a great deal more chances to score a TD than other positions. Once in a while, someone will pick a quarterback or wide receiver with the top pick, which almost never seems justified. No strategy is foolproof, though, so to each his own.
The highlight of any fantasy season is the live draft, where anything can happen. This is where all the preps pay off and you finally get the chance to outsmart and impress your friends with your “sleeper” picks. Plus, there’s always a few surprises thrown in for good measure.
This year, the lottery stuck me with the seventh pick in the first round out of eight teams—actually not a bad spot in a serpentine draft because you’re guaranteed to at least get two of the top 10 players in the league.
The first-round draft pick is the most important. It can make or break a team and sets the tone for the rest of the draft. So who to pick? I tend to flip-flop to the last minute on my first selection, like Brett Favre contemplating retirement. I assumed the top backs would be gone by then—the Vikings’ Adrian Peterson, Bears running back Matt Forte, and the Falcons’ Michael Turner—and eliminated older backs who were more likely to break down by Week 14. That’s playoff time in the fantasy world.
After some initial technical difficulties, I linked up live via webcam to my league’s draft headquarters in Phoenix, watching my buddies back home get steadily sloshed and taunting me with their empty beers. My friend Dan claimed that I had promised to pick Raiders quarterback Jeff Garcia while we were in Vegas over the summer. Even I can’t get that drunk.
I was determined to stay on top of things. For the first draft ever, I stayed stone sober. I thought this might give me a distinct advantage, especially in the later rounds when judgment is completely out the window and it’s not uncommon for players who aren’t even in the league anymore to get drafted.
The first picks went as expected. Peterson went first overall, followed by the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Maurice Jones-Drew, Turner, and Forte. San Diego Chargers back LaDainian Tomlinson was a mild surprise for the fifth pick, and the Tennessee Titans’ Chris Johnson went sixth.
Trying to hide my girlish glee, I snatched up last year’s top running back, Carolina Panthers star DeAngelo Williams, and Steve Slaton of the Texans. I followed them up with a pair of sweet wide receivers, the Panthers’ Steve Smith and Indianapolis Colt Reggie Wayne. Add to that group the Eagles’ Brian “Game Day Decision” Westbrook and quality late-rounders like New England Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker and Baltimore Ravens’ back Ray Rice, and I was feeling mighty smug. I stuck to my game plan and fashioned the core for a real contender—provided my guys stay healthy and out of jail.
Eighteen rounds and nearly three hours after it started, Draft Night 2009 was officially in the books and the trash talk could commence. In my league, there’s no money on the line, just bragging rights. Sometimes, those are the only rights that matter.
At the risk of jinxing my squad and putting undue pressure on them in print, I’m going to say it: This is the year I finally reach the mountaintop. I feel it in my bones … my football bones.
But what do I know? I’m just a bum—and that’s my view from the bleachers. Stay tuned.
Contact Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 3, 2009.