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  Date / Time: 12/16/2008 6:48 AM UTC

  Fantasy? More like a farce
  

  Found this nice little article from about three years ago, interesting facts...I really like the article..
  

  Stand back. I'm about to commit treason, heresy and other various forms of slander in the eyes of the nation's rabid NFL fans:

  I hate fantasy football. Hate it. Hate it so much that I refuse to capitalize the f's, as if it's a sanctioned league unto itself. And if you're wondering, no, I've never played it. Never wanted to. Never will. Thanks for asking.

  Every year about this time, with everyone's fantasy drafts just around the corner, I'm deluged with people wanting to know some inside scoop or tidbit of information that might help them assemble their roster. I try to help. I really do. But my heart's not in it, because I really detest the whole idea of fantasy football.

  My standard line is that I have enough trouble keeping track of everything NFL-related in reality, so there's no time for extending my work world into the realm of make-believe. But that's not really the whole story. The truth is there are a lot of reasons why the fantasy game just doesn't appeal to me.

  And yes, I realize this rant qualifies as biting the hand that feeds me.

  While the NFL has truly been America's favorite pastime for the past 40 years or so, the rise and monstrous popularity of fantasy football in the past two decades has fueled interest in the league to unparalleled heights. It's not a stretch to say the voracious appetite that NFL fans have for information -- a hunger that helps keep me employed -- is at least partly attributable to the fantasy craze.

  I know that, and appreciate the paychecks, but I'm still not a fantasy guy. Here are my top 10 reasons why:

  1. It changes how you watch a game. We all have some experience with a person who has perfectly illustrated this point from time to time. Being a fantasy player means you can't see the forest for the trees. Rather than watching a game in its context and meaning to the standings, fantasy folks often ignore the big picture, focusing only on how their players are performing around the league.

  Every week in press boxes around the NFL during the regular season, I can easily pick out the fantasy players among my fellow reporters. They're the ones who are ticked off that Pittsburgh's Jerome Bettis just scored on another 1-yard touchdown run. Not because they're anti-Steelers, but because they started Duce Staley in their backfield and needed the all-important six points in their quest for the final playoff berth.

  Point-spread bettors have been doing the same thing for decades, of course, watching a game not for who wins or loses, but for who covers and who doesn't. It's like tuning into NBC Nightly News not to find out what went on in the world that day, but to count the number of times Brian Williams uses the word "Pentagon.'' It elevates the irrelevant to a level of real importance.

  For some, staying attuned exclusively to the bottom line isn't enough. But until they start giving out a big shiny silver trophy for point-spread winners and fantasy championships, keeping track of the winning and losing teams is enough for me.

  2. It glorifies stat accumulators at the expense of team players. All you need to know about what's wrong with the fantasy game can be summed up in this fact: Because of his superior statistics, Colts quarterback Peyton Manning is far more valuable in fantasy football than Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. Never mind that Manning can't beat Brady in a real game to save his life. Manning is 0-6 head-to-head against Brady in his career, including losses in each of the past two postseasons.

  But it doesn't matter in fantasy-land, where some numbers are far more significant than the final score.

  3. It makes heroes out of problem children. Randy Moss is a heck of a fantasy player. But that didn't keep the Vikings from deciding he was all-too-expendable this offseason. Fantasy players don't really care if Moss leaves the field with two seconds remaining and a kickoff still to come. They don't care if he sows turmoil in the locker room, becomes a headache for team management, and gives his quarterback nothing but trouble.

  Moss wasn't special enough to make the Vikings a Super Bowl team, but he does rack up the fantasy points, and that means all is forgiven by the millions of players who draft him every year.

  4. The geek factor. Sorry, but we have a name for people whose primary source of entertainment stems from stuff that didn't really happen. They're called Trekkies.

  In the immortal words of William Shatner, playing himself at a Star Trek convention on Saturday Night Live, sometimes I'd like to shake a couple of the fantasy players in my midst and say, "Look at you people. Did you ever kiss a girl?''

  5. The death of the NFL offseason. I realize this is a purely selfish one, but I happen to believe that in most things, less is more. I blame fantasy football for the NFL game's current status as a year-round, 24/7 national obsession. If there really is an NFL offseason any more, I don't know when it takes place. Maybe the two or three weeks before training camps open, but even then, there's still something going on that creates a headline or two in Paul Tagliabue's fiefdom.

  Whatever happened to the quaint notion that you can't miss something if it never really goes away?

  6. It's ridiculously and unfairly skewered toward offense and touchdown-makers. Any game that makes short shrift of the skills of a Dick Butkus, Deacon Jones, Bubba Smith, Lawrence Taylor or Ronnie Lott and what they contributed to the lore of the NFL is hopelessly out of whack in my estimation.

  Defense still wins championships in real-life football. But in the fantasy game, defenders are bit players, in place only to be scored upon by all those coveted offensive stars. It's like trying to put together a baseball team with no concern for a pitching staff or fielding. The balance between offense and defense is one of football's greatest strengths, and makes it the ultimate team game. But not in fantasy world.

  7. All those confusing and divided loyalties. It's not enough to follow the league and root for your favorite team any more. Instead of having a team to live and die for -- say, the Bears -- fantasy players must now root for a division rival's quarterback, because, well, Daunte Culpepper was their second-round pick.

  Is nothing sacred?

  8. The expert phenomena. Fantasy football transforms average fans into quasi-general managers, and Lord knows we've got enough experts to go around in today's world. Some of them even write about the NFL on the Internet.

  I wouldn't have as big a problem with fantasy football if it really was a nice little diversion, something to keep track of while you're watching the real games unfold. But why do we need the game within the game, when the diversion overwhelms the importance of our original diversion? Folks take fantasy football so darn seriously that all else seems to pale in comparison.

  Get real, people. It's not so difficult or tedious.

  9. The money aspect. I'm shocked, shocked to learn there's gambling going on in this establishment. I'm no Pollyanna, but it seems to me that the money gets a little bigger every year in every league. Fine. I know it spices up the action on the field and makes everything more interesting to watch. But, and I'm not breaking this story, money tends to corrupt a thing or two in this world. You can look it up.

  And the anti-gambling NFL reeks of hypocrisy for its embrace of fantasy football -- which you can play on its NFL.com site -- albeit without money being involved. That's as rich as the league looking the other way all these years when it comes to the Vegas betting lines, even while it maintains its staunch no-gambling policy.

  10. The trendiness of it all. Some times I think everybody loves fantasy football but me. Which just might be a good enough reason alone to walk into the wind or swim against the tide. I mean, somebody has to register dissent. It's still a very American principle, isn't it? After all, popular opinion isn't always right. And conventional wisdom sometimes isn't either.

  Just throwing out some facts that I believe in, it is getting way to complicated and why in the world pay for something that was free once before....Capitalist I say!!

  http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/don_banks/08/24/inside.nfl/index.html

  
  
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