This is a post about fantasy football
This is a post about fantasy football
Maybe you have told stories about it. You have definitely heard stories about it.
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Here's a prediction: in the next couple years, the most annoying story that will frequent everyday life will be the person (a guy, most likely) regaling you with his sports betting bad beat. He'll tell you why he made the bet, likely in exhausting detail. He'll tell you why it was a sure thing and how close it was to hitting. He'll belabor the point of just how unlucky he was.
As sports betting becomes mainstream, people will be more comfortable talking about it in everyday conversation. And the more comfortable people feel discussing their activity on Draft Kings, the more you will hear about their wins and their losses.
It will mostly be the losses, because I'm not sure if anyone has let you in on this yet, but sports gambling isn't set up for the gamblers to be successful.
What does this have to do with fantasy football? I'll tell you, dear reader. These tales of sports bets will replace the person (a guy, most likely) telling you about his fantasy football team in the top spot for annoying story you might hear in polite conversation.
In today's Kanefabe Newsletter:
Some meandering thoughts about fantasy football which, as you might have guessed, often isn't about football at all.
On we go.
The top pick
Christian McCaffrey will be the number one pick in fantasy football this year. This kind of thing is never unanimous, of course, but some years it gets pretty darn close. I think it's a fun exercise to recount some of the names who have been near-universal number one overall picks over the years.
In no particular order, and relying only on my own memory of the years I have played fantasy football:
Marshall Faulk
Priest Holmes
LaDainian Tomlinson
Adrian Peterson
I don't know if I ever had one of those guys on my team. I want to say that I had the chance to draft Faulk for a fantasy team at one point, mostly because I remember that he was one of my favorite football players as a kid. But other than that, I don't recall any seasons where I had the obvious top guy on my team.
I had Christian McCaffrey last year. Don't worry. I will heed my own words at the beginning of this post. I will refrain from bragging about my fantasy football team.
Just kidding. I went 16-0.
The podcast
I started my current job nine years ago. That was a time associated with a general sense of nervousness and uncertainty. It was nothing specific about that job, which was and is great. That's just the deal with being new at a job.
It's kind of the worst.
In search of something comforting and familiar around week two on the job, I opened the podcast app on my phone. I was looking for a fantasy football podcast to listen to over my lunch, and I checked if there were any new episodes of my favorite at the time. It was called Fantasy Underground, and it had been dormant for some time.
Out of curiosity, I then searched the app by the name of my favorite host/analyst on that show: Christopher Harris. I found the aptly named Harris Football, a new project started right around the same time that I started at my new job.
With about a week's worth of episodes to catch up on, I listened to the first episode and caught up quickly. It has been a regular part of my life, a staple in my daily routine during football season, for the nine years since. It's my favorite podcast.
In the last few years, Chris Harris has offered the following description for his show: it's about fantasy football, but it isn't really about fantasy football.
Let me take a moment now to give a tip of the cap to him for that mantra.
Metaphors > Box Scores
That's what my t-shirt said, accompanied by a picture of a running back carrying a red balloon.
Some 10 years ago, Harris had described running back Trent Richardson trying to find the hole as equivalent to a balloon slowly bouncing against the side of a building next to an open window.
I loved that shirt, and I loved explaining it to people, even if I think a lot of people ended up wishing they hadn’t asked.
What it’s really about
Fantasy football can be one of those meaningless things that has meaning. It can do that by bringing people together.
It's an icebreaker at work. It's something to joke around about. It's an excuse to talk about fun stories, the star players, the surprise stars, and so on.
Fantasy football can also be one of those meaningless things that brings out an ugly side in people. It can turn up the volume on egos. It can bring out the sides of people that can't let something go. It can become a seemingly endless exercise in people trying to win arguments.
I would like to think I have reached a point where I am zen about fantasy football. It's something completely and utterly outside our control, after all. Just like anything that involves watching sports, I'm not sure something like that should be anything other than fun.
I used to argue about fantasy football. Those were tiring days. I don't think I ever really won an argument.
Back when I worked in a cubicle, I had a printout of some of the pieces of wisdom offered by comedian John Hodgman on the "Judge John Hodgman" podcast. It was the "settled law" from the podcast.
One of my favorites: "Be mindful of the work you leave for others."
Another favorite, relevant to this fantasy football conversation: "Stop trying to be right all the time. Because you are mostly wrong."
OK, here is the official fantasy football preview from the Kanefabe Newsletter.
I understand why Derrick Henry (now on the Baltimore Ravens) isn't a top-5 pick anymore, but I think people are going to get that level of performance out of him.
There are a lot of uber-talented, young wide receivers going in the first couple rounds of drafts. Guys like Garrett Wilson, Drake London, and Marvin Harrison, Jr. I think one of them will hit the ceiling to justify the pick. I just don't know which one. I think a lot of people will wish they had taken a safer running back instead.
There are so many dang receivers who might put up the same numbers as those guys.
Patrick Mahomes can be a weirdly frustrating quarterback in fantasy football. I think he's going to be a world destroyer this season and win some people their leagues.
With one more tip of the cap to Harris Football, I'll share his insight and turn it into a prediction. There will be at least one team offense that is surprisingly bad, and at least one team offense that is surprisingly good.
That's because it's hard to predict situation, and we (collective we) stink at it. But here's a situation prediction anyway: I think the Packers might fall on hard times this season. They're so young, and they will probably still be a good unit over the course of the next few seasons. I just think there might be some growing pains.
One of the leagues I participate in is a big family league. Participation is varied at this point. Many people auto-draft. But it's still a fun thing for family to do together.
I manage a team with my uncle. Our team name is "Hurry Hurry." That name dates back to the season that we had peak Peyton Manning as our quarterback. He was on the Broncos. He yelled HURRY HURRY a lot. He lit the league up that season. It's a fun memory.
It's one of those things where I didn't change the name after Manning retired simply because I didn't get around to it. I also couldn't really come up with a better name. Now, all these years later, I'm happy we just stuck with that name.
More than predicting results or winning games or dunking on our friends and co-workers, that's the kind of thing that makes fantasy football fun.
That might even be the kind of fantasy football story you enjoy hearing. And in a few years, people will long for those stories as they try to avoid the beat by beat of some dude's parlay.
