I’ve taken part in some sort of fantasy football league since I was 12. The first league I joined was through the mail. I found it in an ad in the back of a magazine and it cost about $75 and wasn’t the type of fantasy football we know today.
On a sheet of paper, a list of about 300 players was divided into 20 categories with 15 players each. Players were listed by position (even punters), and it was up to me to rank the players from 1-15. After that, I had to rank the categories from 1-20. The people who ran this league would put that information into a computer that would spit out your roster, and that would be your team for the week. Looking back now, it was the corniest thing I’ve ever done. There was no prize money, there were no friends in the league, and you couldn’t “draft” players.
Yet I’ve been hooked ever since.
Arian Foster hates me for it.
Detractors like to point out that the NFL doesn’t have fans, that it has people who watch games strictly because of fantasy football and gambling. Take those away, and no one is watching the NFL. Purists look down on people like me who can’t recall a time when fantasy football wasn’t part of the NFL experience. People like me look down on purists because they don’t know the thrill of getting a 5-yard catch from your tight end during the waning seconds of a Monday night game to win by six-tenths of a point.
While I can’t process what it’s like to watch football without fantasy football somewhere in the background, I don’t look down upon people who don’t participate in leagues. It’s their right. I understand the need to keep something pure. But some people hate fantasy football, like Arian Foster, for instance. I don’t understand why we can’t live in a world where we accept the existence of fantasy football and agree that there are many different reasons to love football.
If I took a beautiful woman and let her spend time with two heterosexual men for a year, it’s possible the two of them would find different reasons for enjoying her company. Maybe the first man is fixated on her beauty and loves staring into her light brown eyes from 1 p.m. on Sunday until about midnight on Monday, with a slight break from 11 p.m. Sunday till 8:30 p.m. Monday. Staring for any longer would be impolite. Maybe the second man would really grow to appreciate who the beautiful woman is as a person. He likes talking to her, spending time with her and can’t get enough of her intelligence and sense of humor.
At the end of the day, if both men agree they really like the beautiful woman and the reasons don’t matter, then who cares?
In Arian Foster’s case, it’s his right as the beautiful woman to express what he wants. If he wants to be liked for who he is, not because he looks like Tyson Beckford with the charm of Robert Redford oozing out his ears, that’s OK with me too. Deep down, no one wants to be liked for superficial reasons or feel like they’re being used. We all want people to like the real us. Foster wants to believe fans like him for him, not because he led your fantasy team to a championship or because you won a three-team parlay behind a big performance.
If you’re out there mocking Foster because millions of schmucks like me help pay his salary with my three fantasy leagues and he’s ripping those people, again, go back to the beautiful woman metaphor. A beautiful woman can say absolutely anything she wants. She can call you an idiot all day and night, and you’re still going to cut off your hand to get her in your possession for 17 weeks.
However, I’d like my lady, real life or metaphor, to not have her hamstring pop every time she exerts herself. But that’s just me.
