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September 07, 2008
I hate fantasy sports
At the risk of offending half of the males in this country, aged 18 to 35, I'm going to say it: I hate fantasy football.
The NFL is back. For the first time in what seems like an eternity, the Bills opened the season with a win. NFL demigod Tom Brady apparently tore his ACL and is out for the year, meaning the New England Patriots are at a serious disadvantage. And what's going on? Some schlub is bemoaning the demise of his fantasy football team, which probably has some stupid name like "John Madden's Hershey Squirts."
I see why people like fantasy football. It lets you pretend you're a general manager, and you can boast about how you "totally called" that so-and-so was going to have a monster season. But it's not for me. There's too much of a time commitment. I like football, I really do. But I have no interest in learning who every team's nickel cornerback is. My idea of a great Sunday in August does not involve sitting in my buddy's apartment, conducting a fantasy draft.
And I will not ever be like the guy I see who brings his laptop to the bar to keep track of his fantasy team as he watches football games on TV. If this happens... Please, break the nearest bottle of beer over my head, and tell the officer who comes to arrest you that you did it to save me.
Then, as always, there is the conflict-of-interest issue. The Patriots are universally reviled. Everyone except Patriot fans should be reacting with glee that Brady is out for the year. Instead, people are complaining about how it affects their fantasy team. I refuse to play fantasy football, because I do not want to root for despicable teams like the Dallas Cowboys, as their tight end happens to be on my fantasy team.
But, the fantasy advocate might say, you can root for the player but against his team. No you can't. Cheering for a particular player to succeed can't be separated from cheering for that team.
As for Tedy Bruschi, pictured above, his likeness inspired this particular post. You see, as I was perusing the Bills message board this evening, somebody wrote this rambling missive about fantasy football:
I'm in a fantasy league with individual defensive players where the bulk of our points come from solo tackles. Early in the season, I sift through all of the box scores to see who is getting a bunch of solo tackles. Along with solo tackles they also list assisted tackles. Assisted tackles are vague and players usually don't get many of them. For instance, London Fletcher had a good fantasy day today with 12 solo tackles and 5 assisted tackles. It's normal for the elite linebackers to often get about a third to a half as many assisted tackles as solo tackles. Five assisted tackles was highest in the NFL this week. Well almost highest. Rodney Harrison had 7 solo tackles and 7 assisted tackles for New England. That was only second highest. Bruschi had 2 solo tackles and a whopping 10 assisted tackles this week. I searched around for background on awarding assisted tackles and found this:
"Tackles (solos and assists) are not an official stat, as you noted, so every stadium's stat crew awards them differently. Some crews (STL, ATL) award assists extremely rarely, others award assists to the second player in on nearly every tackle. The only consistent aspect of assisted tackles is that, while two players may be given an assist (and no solo awarded) on a given play, there's no more than two players credited with an assist on a single play and never more than one assist when a solo tackle has already been awarded. There's probably some criteria for judging assisted tackles given to the stat crews, but I don't believe it's been made public and it's clearly applied differently by everyone anyway."
Dear lord.
entry no. 1208
Posted at September 7, 2008 10:01 PM