Fantasy? More Like a Nightmare

I hate fantasy football. I could stop writing after that sentence and feel like everybody who reads this has all the information about me they will ever need. But for the sake of this being a blog and not a Facebook status, I'll elaborate.
I am a Green Bay Packers fan, in love with the organization that manages to be one of the most successful in sports while located in the smallest market. I love Lambeau Field, the training camp tradition of local kids bringing their bikes for the players to ride from the locker room to the practice field, the pot-bellied beer-guzzlers in the stands dressed in camouflage and blaze orange, and the fact that the team is actually owned by the fans. I love the history of the team from Curly Lambeau to Paul Hornung to the Majik Man to that Norse god who goes by the nickname "Bloodline". I even like the ugly green and "gold" (yellow) color scheme, the creation of which probably went something like this:

Guy in charge of team colors: "Man, I'm having trouble deciding on the team colors for the Packers."
Guy in bar: "Well, what did you have to eat today?"
"The usual. Cheese and asparagus."
"Problem solved."

  Most of my friends profess to love the Packers as well. But I fear that a group of them is lying. The fantasy football guys. You know the sort. The guys who get together before the season to hold their fantasy draft, poring over stats and projections of no-name players from other teams. The guys who can't sit down, watch a game, and cheer their innards out for their favorite team anymore. The guys who tell me that "it makes ALL the games interesting". The guys would change the channel from the end of an important Packer game to the Bengals-Texans game because they have a receiver on their fantasy team who is on the Bengals and doesn't even start but may catch the last-second Hail Mary pass in a blowout. I hate this with a passion.
I used to go over to my friend "Robert's" (his actual name IS Robert but by using quotation marks, you will think that it's a fake name and not know who I am talking about. But I double-cross you by using his real name in the quotation marks. I should be a CIA operative) house on Sundays to watch football (Packer games) with a bunch of guys. Great guys. Some of my closest friends. But it devolved into the big screen being sectioned off into eight little squares with a different game in each square. Once in a while someone would say "Hey, my backup running back from the Jaguars just gained 8 yards. Switch to that game so I can see the replay." And you know what? Everyone was on board with this. They didn't even care. They weren't even watching the TV. Every single one of 'em had their laptops out, watching the stats and numbers accumulate. They weren't even watching the game(s)! They were watching NUMBERS pop up on a frickin' computer screen! One guy was even monitoring two laptops, one for each league he was in. Two different sets of numbers. Football "fans" not realizing that they are, in fact, huge nerds. I'd be willing to bet a million dollars that if a monk, who hadn't done anything for six years except stare at the ground, was placed in front of one of those computer screens, he would soon begin to manifest the effects of extreme boredom. I quit showing up to Robert's house on Sundays.
My plea to you is this: Decline all invitations to join a fantasy football league. Football will remain pure and fun, gut-wrenching and exhilarating, a roller-coaster of highs and lows. The highs are a pure, happy delirium and the lows, while awful, beat becoming a soul-less automaton staring at numbers on a computer screen.



Real estate note: Interest rates have dropped again. Borrowers who are able to do a conventional loan with good credit can get 4% over 30 years. A 15-year mortgage may me able to be under 4%. If you or somebody you know is thinking about buying a home, now is the time. We may not see rates like this again. Feel free to contact me anytime with referrals or questions.

Chris