Living the Fantasy
As Fantasy Football season approaches, with drafts looming, I dusted off my column from last November about the Pros and Cons of Fantasy as it effects the NFL as a whole. I thought it might be relevant as the new season awaits. Enjoy.
I’m sitting in my living room with my friends on a Sunday afternoon in November, and we’re watching my favorite football team, the New York Giants. I’m wearing my Giants number 27 jersey*, and the game is close. The Giants have driven all the way to the 1 yard line of the Atlanta Falcons, and a touchdown here would be vital in what is a huge game for them, since a victory will revitalize their playoff hopes after a long losing streak. On first down, Eli Manning hands the ball off to Brandon Jacobs, who rumbles his way into the endzone to give the Giants a 21-14 lead. My friends clap and celebrate. I yell “GODDAMNIT!!!” to the TV screen and kick the bottom of my seat (and that’s the G-Rated version of the story). Folks, welcome to the world of fantasy football.
*The jersey isn’t of Brandon Jacobs; it’s actually of Giants mega-bust Ron Dayne. Just roll with it.
Fantasy football is the obsessive game that many NFL fans play throughout the regular season. For any football fan living under a rock for the last decade, let’s give a very, very brief outline of what it is, because I’m not a fan of telling you, the reader, something that you already know. Each team consists of about 8 to 11 players each week, which are drafted before the season, consisting of a quarterback, 2 to 3 running backs and wide receivers, a tight end, a team defense and a kicker. Obviously, teams have players from many different teams. Points are awarded for a certain amount of statistics that each player on the team amasses: for example, if Chris Johnson rushes for 120 yards, has 70 yards receiving, and scores 2 touchdowns, he would have a 31 point day, which is an outstanding day in fantasy. Most leagues operate in a head-to-head format, where you face an opponent, and whichever team scores more points that week wins. The season is usually twelve to fourteen weeks long, and then there is usually either a two or three week playoff in December, the last few weeks of the regular season. Got that? Good, let’s move on. I consider myself to be a rather good fantasy football player (or owner or coach, if you will; I’m not really playing anything per se, I’m just inserting guys into the right positions to succeed), and this week, week 15 of the NFL season, is the finals in one of my leagues and the semifinals in the other two. Since the fantasy season is reaching its apex, the time has come to ask one of the questions that many NFL fans who aren’t big fantasy guys wonder, and one that fantasy players must think about every once in awhile: is fantasy football good for the NFL? Let’s address it in a debate of pros and cons.
PROS
The exposure to all 32 teams in the NFL based on fantasy football is immense. Because of how widely spread across the league people’s teams can be, fans need to be fully invested in all eight divisions, because it’s never known where the next great fantasy player will emerge. As a Giants fan, I usually would never have any interest in the AFC West. But, I have Antonio Gates on two of my teams, had Matt Cassel for awhile, and have played the Broncos Defense for a good amount of time. Plus, the rise of Jamaal Charles as a top fantasy running back in Kansas City has made him a star the last few weeks. I don’t have him in any of my leagues, but would I even know who he is without the use of fantasy football? My increased knowledge of the players in the NFL due to fantasy is incalculable. I’m going to do this off of the top of my head right now. This is obviously a written column so you can’t know if I’m telling the truth, but take my word that I’m not looking this up or cheating in any way. You trust me, right? I’m doing this completely from prior knowledge.
The third wide receiver on the Miami Dolphins is Davone Bess.
The backup running back for the Cleveland Browns is Chris Jennings.
The backup quarterback for the Houston Texans is Rex Grossman.
The starting tight end for the Seattle Seahawks is John Carlson.
The backup running backs for the Atlanta Falcons are Chris Snelling and Jerious Norwood.
The third quarterback for the Oakland Raiders is Charlie Frye.
The second wide receiver for the Detroit Lions is Bryant Johnson.
The fourth running back for the Washington Redskins is Quinton Ganther.
How would I possibly learn these things if they weren’t for fantasy football? Why would I ever want to know this information? These are the things that I learn. The increased exposure to these guys is amazing. Do you think that in the 60s or 70s anyone from New York had ever heard of the third wide receiver for the Dolphins or the Browns’ backup runningback? I don’t think so. The fact that all of these players are more notable is a strong step forward for the NFL, and I can’t imagine that they’d complain about that.
In addition to the exposure to players, how about the importance of meaningless games that are huge for fantasy players? Last week, CBS showed the Dallas vs. San Diego game on national TV, two of the better teams in the NFL playing for fairly high stakes in their respective conferences. Was I watching this game? Yes, but I had my eyes on the Gamecast of the Tennessee/St. Louis game, one team on the outside fringes of contention and one that is completely incompetent, more than on the TV. I needed Chris Johnson and Rob Bironas to perform well to earn a playoff victory, and I needed to avoid a big day by the Titans defense. All three played very well, and it resulted in a high-scoring shootout of a fantasy matchup. After this game, I had to watch the aforementioned Quinton Ganther to see if he would put up enough points to cost me a playoff victory, in a truly irrelevant game between Washington and Oakland. He had a great game, but didn’t do quite enough. This is a great thing for the NFL. Without fantasy, I wouldn’t have even remotely cared about either of these games, but the implications made them vital to my Sunday. For family reasons, I couldn’t go out to a bar where each game would have been shown on DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket. I really, really missed it. The rise in fantasy football has increased the demand for Sunday Ticket, and the monopoly that DirecTV has on it has made their services more and more desirable. It may have even kept them in business, with the rise of digital cable threatening to undo them. The NFL is able to charge DirecTV a boatload of money for excusive rights to the package, and I’m sure those prices will only go up. For these two reasons, fantasy football is a huge moneymaker and greatly helps the NFL’s popularity.
CONS
The essential problem with fantasy football is that, while it increases the popularity of the sport short-term, in the long run it decreases loyalty and takes away the personality of the league. This last week, I had no fantasy implications within the Giants/Eagles game that was on NBC on Sunday night. I can’t begin to explain how refreshing it was to be able to sit and root for the Giants without worrying about how their success would impact my teams. The NFL’s foundation was built on loyal fans that would come to stadiums to support their teams 8 times a season, no matter what. In what other league are there waiting lists for season tickets that are decades long? Part of it has to do with the fact that going to 8 games a season is far more realistic for a middle-class person than going to 81 baseball games or 41 basketball and hockey games. But, the other part of it is an intense dedication to the local teams, a bond that unites a region unlike any other rooting experience. The process of going to a football game is so much more glorified than that of going to any other sport, because of the tailgate and the experience of camaraderie that doesn’t exist elsewhere. When the brand loyalties fade due to conflicting emotions because of fantasy football, what do you have left? Plus, let’s face this inevitable fact: fantasy football is a young man’s game. I have a feeling that many people above the age of fifty wouldn’t have the time nor patience to scour a waiver wire to find Davone Bess, or stare at a computer screen for hours and follow a dozen different games per week. I’m sure the demographics for who plays fantasy football right now skews towards people in their teens and mid-twenties, and that may be a biased number since fantasy football wasn’t prevalent in the way that it is now when these older people were younger. But the fact remains that, due to work and family, an older generation likely won’t have the time or patience to follow fantasy football. They’d want to follow their favorite team for three hours a week on Sundays. If their loyalties have been so badly disoriented from years of following other teams, who says that this will be as appealing? I know for a fact that I gave up playing fantasy hockey a few years ago because I wanted to only watch the Rangers, and purely root for them. It has made my fan affiliation stronger than ever. I definitely don’t feel as strongly about the Giants, and fantasy is a large reason.
The other main issue that I see is the androgyny of the players in the league when all that matters is accumulating numbers. I listed before that I can rattle off the top of my head various obscure players at nearly meaningless positions for teams that I don’t particularly care about. But does that mean that I know anything about them? Do I know what type of runner Chris Jennings is? Could I tell you if Bryant Johnson is a possession receiver, a longball threat or a guy that runs over the middle fearlessly? Absolutely not. All I know is their names, what they do, and how they can impact my fantasy season. This doesn’t even only apply to the lesser-known players. Let’s take two of the greatest runningbacks to have played in my lifetime: Barry Sanders and LaDanian Tomlinson. I grew up watching Sanders, and have been witness to Tomlinson’s entire career. With Sanders, I remember his ridiculously long runs, and how he would make cuts with his ankles that would make people miss. I remember his dashes into the endzone and his style when scoring, although he would never truly show up the opponent. Pretty good recollection for a guy I would only see a few times a year, right? But when I think about Tomlinson, I can’t say that I recall anything about his running style, the length of his runs or his overall demeanor, besides jumping into the endzone and wearing very dark-tinted helmets. I remember his stats. I remember that he carried a lackluster fantasy team of mine all the way into the finals one year, where I had no right to be, given the rest of my team. I remember that he would put up 30 points a week for me with regularity, but I don’t remember how he did it. Somehow, I don’t think telling my grandchildren about the week LaDanian Tomlinson carried my fantasy team will hold very much weight with them, in the same way that our grandfathers told us about the time they saw Ted Williams play the outfield or watched Jim Brown run. The personality of each player gets taken away when all that matters is their numbers, and that’s a shame.
CONCLUSION
So, we’ve realized that fantasy football is great for the NFL on a week to week basis, but it may not be that great down the line. For each week, it’s great because it keeps the fan base involved with the whole league. For example, two weeks ago I went to the opera on a Monday night. I needed Aaron Rodgers to outperform Ray Rice substantially in order to advance in the playoffs of my league. Throughout the second and third acts of the opera, a rather good production of The Tales of Hoffman, I actually felt nervous about how Rodgers was producing. When each act ended, I raced into the lobby to check my cell phone, and was joyful in that he succeeded in advancing my team in the playoffs. The fact that the NFL was on my brain to the point that I was nervous during an opera can’t possibly be a bad thing for the league.
This Sunday is the finals of one of my fantasy leagues, and the semifinals in my other two. The Sunday night game is between the Minnesota Vikings, a team that will definitely have the 2 seed in the NFC and is basically playing out the string until the playoffs, and the Carolina Panthers, a completely irrelevant team. Normally, I wouldn’t have bothered watching this game. I have Adrian Peterson, Minnesota’s star runningback, on all three of my teams. Wild horses wouldn’t be able to drag me from watching this game. My singular focus will be on Peterson, and I will hope that he can deliver me a championship. An interesting wrinkle will be that in one of my games, my opponent will likely start Brett Favre, Bernard Berrian, Percy Harvin and Visanthe Shiancoe, aka the rest of the Vikings offense. He likes to call it ‘the Vikings sweep’. I’ll be rooting for and against the Vikings at the same time, since I’ll want Peterson to succeed and everyone else to fail. It will make for a nerve-wracking, obsessive Sunday night, and fantasy football is responsible.
The one thing that swings fantasy into the Pro side for me is its schedule. Fantasy football will wrap up by the time New Years hits, as most leagues end by week 17, to account for the top teams resting their best players in the last week of the season. Except for some new formats that have fantasy leagues in the playoffs, there is no fantasy football throughout the NFL Playoffs. This lets the game itself shine. In the Giants’ incredible run to the championship two years ago, I remember each and every moment of it as it should be remembered: for the great football moments, and not the great fantasy moments. Lawrence Tynes was redeemed for missing two relatively easy field goals by making his last one; I remember the joy that we all experienced when the Giants won the game, not being upset that his misses would have lost me points if I had him on my team. I remember David Tyree’s circus catch in the Super Bowl for its pure athleticism and luck, not for the approximately 3.7 points the catch would have given me. I remember Plaxico Burress’ game winning catch for the impact it had on all of us, not for a 7.8 point grab. Fantasy football is the perfect mix because of this. It makes games that we wouldn’t care about matter. It makes me bit my nails due to the production of Quinton Ganther. I rejoice in the meaningless catches by Donnie Avery towards the end of blowout losses for the St. Louis Rams. But, it also lets us have the best of both. We can have the celebrations of statistical victories in nearly useless regular season games. But it saves the best for the real thing: the true celebration of a favorite team’s success in the playoffs, when it matters most. And that’s all that we can really ask for.
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