Games Boys Play

This is the time of year when everyone waxes nostalgic about all things football. I’m in the minority. I don’t particularly care for football, and I dread a little something called FANTASY FOOTBALL!

Jared is currently in 3 football leagues { yes, read it people…3 leagues! }. This is all he’s talked about the past few weeks and it is DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!

He’d ask things like, “Who do you think I should draft in the first round – Shawn Alexander or Joseph Addai?” as if I’m supposed to A) know who these players are, and B) want to support this habit in any way. The fact that I now know both of their names shows how often he’s talked about it.

I’ve decided that fantasy football is like Dungeons and Dragons for jocks { not that there’s anything wrong with Dungeons and Dragons } or better yet … Pokemon Cards for kids. Carson is currently obsessed with Pokemon and all summer he and his friend, Tyler, have been making Pokemon card trades and having Pokemon battles. Nicole and I both agreed that while the consequences were affordable, we would not get involved and would just let the boys trade the cards themselves. Of course, being little boys, they each made a few bad trades. We had to have the talk with both of them about how good trades were when both people came out of the trade happy. During Pokemon battles, they need to be reminded to play fairly and get along.

Fantasy Football seriously brings out the little boys in guys. Suddenly the men are so super competitive, there’s all this trash talking, whispers about trades being unfair, so-and-so has a better team, blankety-blank had a lucky week, and so on and so forth. This sounds eerily similar to some of the conversations Carson and Tyler have had.

“Aaron { Jared’s Dungeon Master/League Manager } wants to trade Marshawn Lynch straight up for Drew Brees! That is so unfair. Brees is a Tier 1 quarterback and Lynch is a rookie and projected at #24 overall in running backs. He should at least give up another player for him!”

Now compare that with:

“I traded Tyler his Gengar for my Rapidash and a Pikachu. That’s totally good because Gengar has +1 Evolution and does 50 Critical Damage. He even has Mind Strafe attack.”

Now aren’t Pokemon card trades and Fantasy Football trades kind of the same thing? Aren’t Pokemon battles and weekly Fantasy football competitions the same thing as well?

You’d think with this much time and energy men put into Fantasy Football, the prize would be amazing, like a free trip or major cash involved.

Nope…just bragging rights until next year’s draft.