For those of you wondering if I am possibly suffering (again) from delusions of grandeur, the answer is 'no, I'm not'. I do actually know that I'm not a real football team runner-guy. The difference between guys that run real football teams and the guy that runs my fake football team (which is, me) is that the guys who run real football teams live and breathe this stuff. There is no 'getting home from work, doing the routine, and then sitting at the laptop to pick your poison'- these guys are living it. LIVING it. They go to workouts. They watch football all the time. They sit in meetings about football. They get paid lots of money. They probably get free team gear.
Me? I don't know the meaning of the word 'workout', I can only watch football when Dora isn't on, I sit in meetings about people that do not function within the norms of society, and I get paid lots of money. Oh wait, that's right. I don't get paid lots of money. But other than that- we have a lot in common. We both run football teams and we're both white males.
The point of all this is that real football owners put in lots of blood, sweat, tears, and time to make their football teams the best they can be. Now, you can't always tell this- trust me, I'm a Lions fan- but I have to believe they do. Because if I knew, or even suspected, that real football owners approach their teams with the same non-chalance that I am approaching mine this year, then I think I would freak out and move to the mountains.
To get to the mountains, you go over the glowing (probably radioactive or at least magical) and precariously placed wooden rope bridge, through the lake (because the idiots that made the road didn't think to make the road go around the lake...or at least finish the bridge), and then up the...wait, is that a mountain? Really? It looks like more of a foothill to me.
Obviously I'm not the real deal, because I barely put any time in at all. During some downtime at work this morning, I looked over the list of rankings at player position, made a few adjustments based on some whimsical beliefs, and tried to think about how I plan to approach the draft (do I pick RBs with my first two picks- or a RB then a QB? Should I even have a plan?), but by and large I really didn't pay attention.
I blame most of my apathy on the lockout. There was no offseason to speak of, no minicamps, no "voluntary" workouts, no real football news to keep me wired in during the months when all we have is baseball- and, as I pleasantly found out, women's soccer.
But the millionaires and the billionaires were able to graciously put aside their differences for the good of their wallets...er, the game, just in time to hastily put together some training camps and get some preseason games done. And now, here we are, on the precipice of another wacky up-and-down year where I spend Sabbaths with my eyes glued to the screen, pressed to the floor in fervent prayer- Lord, please allow Dwayne Bowe to score 32 points tonight against the Rams!!! And how did I prepare for this coming disaster? Simple- I didn't.
The kicker of all this is that we are a pay-to-play league this year- and I still didn't do my homework. Actually, this is probably the least prepared I've ever been for a Fantasy Football draft. And I'm paying money to do this. I'm paying money to show up unprepared. It's like college all over again.
This is not to say that I am just now realizing that I am a bad owner. I think the seeds of this idea were planted a few weeks ago.
During the back-and-forth to determine the weekly order for the waiver wire, one of my fellow owners accused the idea of resetting it every week based on record (that way, the worst teams get first dibs on the best players still available) of being Fantasy Football socialism. He said that bad teams were a result of crappy owners making poor picks/trades, and should not have the opportunity to take good players away from the deserving good.
And boy oh boy, I was ready to light up his Christmas tree. I had a well-thought out and exhaustively researched post written about all the factors that go into having a quality Fantasy Football team- your schedule, the schedule of your players, your opponents players schedules, placement of bye weeks, schemes, injuries...and in summary, I was able to condense all that into one word- luck. You don't need to be a student of the game- you just have to be luckier than everybody else.
Of course, all that is a moot point now that I realize I am, in fact, a crappy owner. Seriously, I am not any good. It's one thing to try and be poor at something. It's another to not try. And it's a completely different third thing to not try and be poor at something. Oh, what's this- I'll take bachelor number third please, for 500 Alex.
My team is going to hate me like the Cleveland Indians hated Rachel Phelps in Major League. At this point, all I can really hope for is that they come together under the common cause of hating me and go on to win the league. I won't even mind if they do the 'every time we win, we peel a section' thing, although it might be better if they did it in reverse. We're trying to win here, people, not create an army of Post Traumatic Stress Disorderites!
So with my first blog of the Fantasy Football season out of the way, I am ready to get my draft on. Go Snow Flurries!!!
PIC: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/96/dora2.jpg/sr=1
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