two truths and a lie

Current Mood: unsure

If you're sick of reading about football here, seek another blog, because that's what I'm into right now.

Bengals, I am upset at you. The Browns were terrible 1st week. Carson Palmer, step it up.
I'm somewhat upset with Notre Dame. Sort of. Hell, I don't know what to feel anymore.

Also, my new favorite college football player.

Now, onto the main course:

I'm trying really hard not to be upset with myself over fantasy football for two big reasons.

1) Apparently, I suck at it.

I read up on strategies, I researched my draft picks, and I was 1 of the two people that showed up to the draft (the other was Jenny). Then, each week I studied my players and opponents, carefully selecting the optimal players for my team that week. Result?

Week 1: lost to the Zombies, 103.1 to 65.3
Week 2: lost to Bill Vedra's Banana Phones, 126.7 to 59.9 points

Now, we've still got like, 14 weeks. And I hate to think that two bad weeks means I should trade away all my players and start anew, but still. Jenny's kinda in the same boat. We both are losing terribly to auto-draft picks without lineup changes. Alex said that we've fallen victim to "the Girly Syndrome", a similar setup in March Madness where amateur college ball analysts (read: fans) lose to [typically] girls who pick teams by jersey color or mascot cuteness.

2) I hate what I've become.

Whatever I've learned about football from playing fantasy football can't be worth my changed attitude towards the game. Before, I was normal. I rooted for my favorite teams, and cheered harder at a well placed block or an exciting play. I might even trash talk a bit about a rivaled team. Still, it was all in good fun and I never genuinely wanted bad things to happen.

Now?

Now I trawl the Fox Fantasy pages looking for injured players like Gollum's precious, eagerly hoping that my opponent's players will take a career-ending injury during their games. I'm actually cheering for a dude to take a hit, and for what? So that I can shave a few points off my opponent's team score? Have I sunken so low?

I mean, before, things were simple. Let's say I was rooting for the Saints to beat the Colts. In the past, I'd cheer for Drew Brees and his team to do well, and might even commend a nicely executed play on the other side of the ball. Now, with fantasy players, my loyalties aren't so well defined. Now it's entirely possible to want the Saints to win, but my fantasy players on the Colts to have a great game. It's almost like wanting to fix the game, where both sides score a ton - particularly my fantasy players, but I still get the satisfaction of my favorite teams playing.

Right now I feel a little like this guy (towards the end of the video):