10 Things He’s Embarrassed to Tell You About Fantasy Football
IT MAY SEEM LIKE HE’S TALKING ABOUT IT ALL THE TIME, BUT THERE ARE A FEW THINGS HE ISN’T SAYING—THAT HE HOPES YOU’LL NEVER FIND OUT.
1. He looks at his starting lineup while on the toilet.
You can add and drop players, check scores, and view Bye weeks...all before you flush. This is Steve Jobs’ eternal legacy.
2. The “fantasy football draft” holds as much allure as sex.
But not just any sex -- wedding night sex, birthday sex, makeup sex, and Christmas morning all rolled into one.
3. Most of the game is luck.
Fantasy football is less about “skill” and more about who gets the lucky bounce that week. We all imagine ourselves to be savvy General Managers who can create order out of the chaos, and we’re all delusional.
4. He spends more time reading about fantasy football than he does the news.
Syria’s civil war? The housing crisis? Fuzzy stuff. But ask him about the Broncos’ backup wide-receivers and prepare for an earful.
5. He’s in more than one league.
It’s one thing to have a fantasy football team, but he might have team(s), plural, and sometimes even three or four, which means that he’s rooting for and against the same players at the same time.
6. He loses more than he tells you.
It’s simple math. We all like to say we’re winners, but only half the teams can win, which means that half of us are lying.
7. He cares more about fantasy football than reality football.
He won’t admit this to you; he might not even admit it to himself. But his emotions tend to rise and fall with the fate of his fantasy team, not his reality team. That said...
8. Sometimes he goes through the motions.
No one’s a cliché; no one’s a cartoon. We’re not always geeking out about fantasy football, and sometimes, when you ask about our team, we might feign a little excitement.
9. He once had a “team name” he’s ashamed of.
Every year, we name our teams something funny/inappropriate/tacky. Sometimes we cross the line—I guarantee you that at one point, he has. Ask him.
10. You would do just as well as he does.
His deepest and darkest secret. Fantasy football websites are now so advanced, so automated, that you can quickly get up to speed, draft a team, and have an equal shot at winning his league(s)...even if you know little about football. He knows this. (And maybe that’s why you’re not invited to play?) Test this theory. Challenge him. And come join the madness...