Fantasy Football's Finest

It's no secret to the 7 people that know me that I am an avid fantasy football player. Like most good fantasy players, my team loyalties have been completely blurred and I have been known to cheer for Peyton Manning to throw touchdowns against my hometown team of Houston and for David Garrard to fracture his tailbone. It's a brutal world of nerdery that as a former football player, I am at least slightly ashamed to admit that I have completely bought into. That is until I won my league championship last year. A mix of 10% football knowledge, 80% luck, 6% others' lack of football knowledge, and 4% Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, lead me to the championship, mostly on the arm of Manning and the legs of late season juggernaut Ryan Grant. For those of you who don't know who Ryan Grant is... I'll just assume that's everyone, so never mind.

With the 'real' NFL draft behind us, it's already time to start formulating draft boards for the 2008 Fantasy Draft, and in light of that, I felt the need to address a few things.

In the coming months, the general 23-45 year old working male's productivity at work should be expected to dip by about 10-12%. This is probably good news for our sagging markets, because as we all learned in 11th grade Economics, Adam Smith's Invisible Hand guides our country better than Jim Cramer. Remember when he said not to sell Bear Stearns?

Also, with less time to focus on politics and current events, the working, white male vote, the one so elusive to presidential hopeful Barack Obama, will be less dramatically impacting, because white guys will have less time to youtube snippets of Jeremiah Wright sermons and may even forget to vote altogether. Let's be honest, election Tuesday is the day after the Redskins play at home on Monday Night Football (what a coincidence) but more guys will be worried about how Clinton Portis played, busy tallying their week 5 results, jockeying for free-agent pick-ups, and writing trash talking articles on their message boards than voting. In actuality, fantasy football could ultimately be the downfall of John McCain and Republican party. It definitely wasn't George W. Come on, we all know that.

I would also venture to say fantasy football builds camaraderie between men all over the nation, and even the world. I played my championship match against a guy in Sweden who I have never met who is a friend of a friend. He and I now have a healthy banter and if I'm ever in Helsingborg, I'm sure I'll have a great place to stay.

All in all, I would say fantasy football is good for our economy, our patriotism, and our global outlook. Here's to you, guy who decided to attribute a points system to every individual recordable offensive statistic in a sport where the main goal is to smash someone's head off. If you could take the most manly, violent sport in America and make it into a game for nerds, there's hope for all of us.