Final Fantasy

I did this one for you, Wyatt … and you too, Anna. I don’t think either one of you can realize the benefits you’re going to reap from what I’ve just done, but I like to think you’ll thank me sometime. You’ll wake up one day and it will hit you unassumingly: Wes seems more present, less distracted.

What did I manage to do? Well, it’s not so much what I did as what I did NOT do. I’ve decided not to partake in fantasy football this year. And, no this is not because I got ripped off last year in the championship game, which I did. I’m doing this because I went ahead and calculated the number of hours I spent researching player statistics, tracking game day performances, logging on to Yahoo to verify I really did score 30 points with Tiki Barber, fuming over playing Alge Crumpler in Green Bay, and fixating more over how I appeared in my profile picture than I did in real life: approximately 450 hours … give or take a few. That comes out to three hours a day for sixteen weeks of the year, plus an additional seven hours a day for Sundays. Or, in other words, that’s 18 days of my year … entirely devoted to winning a game not too far removed from the electric football board game my grandparents owned: (http://www.backtobasicstoys.com/item/productID/813/) – tons of time in preparation only to be baffled by the results.

Anna, you know I’m being cautious on my calculations. All told, there is no way to compute how much fantasy football affected me. By the time Sunday rolled around, my psyche was a jumbled mix of hopes and fears – completely consumed with hedging risks and maximizing opportunities. I would literally spend hours trying to find a kicker destined to have a breakout week. Like a commodities trader on Wall Street, I had a set of predictors: indoor vs. outdoor conditions, decent defense that would give up some yardage but not too much for a touchdown, average offense for the same reason, playing under a full moon, and kicking in same month as his date of birth (okay, I didn’t lean too heavily on the last two, but only because I couldn’t really track those stats).

Sadly, fantasy football even ruined one of my favorite ways to relax: actually watching football. Instead of napping through Cleveland versus San Francisco, I would be glued to how the tight end was performing (wait, I should probably think of a better way to say that). I would get all worked up about Steve Smith getting five more yards – as if my stress and enthusiasm were destined to change his performance. Goodness gracious, I can only imagine what Vegas feels like! Who has the nerve or stomach lining to put money on these chaotic events?

And, of course, there were the horrible effects of losing. Losing invited all the demons within to parade around rather loudly all week. As one who takes everything personally, I would somehow (and shockingly very naturally) associate the performance of eleven men whom I have never met nor ever shall meet as a general reflection upon my own worth or character. I considered sending players bonuses if they performed well. I considered hacking into my opponent’s team and altering his starting line-up. If there were a Christian version of the voodoo dolls, I probably would have considered that option as well.

Well, it’s pretty obvious by now: fantasy football was becoming a little too realistic for me. Or, the real world I was living in was becoming way too secondary, too much of an afterthought.

So that’s why I went ahead and did us all the favor and passed on fantasy football this year. I’m hanging up the cyber-cleats. You won’t even know they’ve been packed away, but, boy oh boy, you’ll be more than thrilled when you realize your ol’ man has gone from fantasy freak to just another arm-chair quarterback. It’s one step back into the real world.

Wes