Fantasy Addiction

I have a severe addiction. I get angry for no tangible reason, I have mood swings that rival any princess from My Super Sweet Sixteen and just recently, I have started staying up at night thinking about my addiction. I am addicted to fantasy football. I have a problem.

I have been playing fantasy football for over 15 years - my first team consisted entirely of Miami Dolphins, I was a homer, but the game was simple and I could just root for my favorite team and my fantasy team in one easy stroke. Fast forward to yesterday, where I sat down at a bar with my friends to watch the Dolphins vs Bills game. My friend, a rabid Bills fan, remembered that I had Fred Jackson, the Bills starting running back on my fantasy team, and I noted that I would be okay with him scoring against my own Miami Dolphins. I have now accepted that part of my universe revolves around a fictional team (The White Devil, named after what NFL players think of the commissioner, Roger Goodell) and that I can root against my lifelong favorite team as long as overpaid members of my fictional team inflict the damage.
I am not entirely addicted to fantasy, although perhaps this is a sentiment that would set me back in my 12 step process. I am (only) in two leagues, which compared to some friends is downright frugal. I only bet $50 combined between the two leagues, and in one league I already made my money back this year. So theoretically, I will only lose $20 this year - or in Sweet Sixteen terms, the price per minute of renting an elephant. Financially and league commitment wise I probably only invest an hour or so a week, not including Sundays.
Which brings us back to yesterday. Yesterday, my girlfriend and I met up with another couple (the bills fan and his girlfriend) and later on two more of my friends came. There were six of us and 3 of us played fantasy football, although not in the same league. This way, there was some understanding of the irrational lapses when one player drops a ball or doesn’t even get to touch the ball. We arrived 30 minutes before kick off of the early games and left as the whistle blew on the late games. Total hours spent at the bar: 6:30. My girlfriend, a pretty big football fan, was beyond bored by the 2nd quarter of the afternoon games, the other couple left halfway through the first game, and thus there were only 3 of us remotely interested in the TVs. This is my Sunday, every Sunday.
The lethargic feeling that comes from sitting stagnant all day, refreshing your phone every minute and forcing your eyes from one TV to the next, is overwhelming. After a day at the bar, I fight the urge not to binge eat myself to death. Somehow binge eating seems to make up for the fact that I did nothing all day long, like eating that extra slice of pizza will trick my brain into saying, “Hey, at least you ate 6 slices of pizza today.” On a day like yesterday, it wasn’t my own self hatred to draw attention to my addiction. It was the looks on my friends faces.
Example 1: The Bills fan was repeatedly surprised about how much I knew about the Bills roster. I noted that I only spend about an hour per week on Fantasy Football, but that does not include the weekly routine of reading MMQB, TMQ, Grantland and every single Miami Dolphins article I can get my hands on. If you count those and the amount of hours that my TV is stuck on ESPN, perhaps the hours per week multiplies to 10. My friend was nearly incredulous that I would know that his team’s back up center got injured last week, and that’s why the Bills mishandled several snaps. This was an early indicator yesterday.
Example 2: As I was watching the Chargers/Bears game I had 3 players involved in the game - Bears’ Matt Forte and Jay Cutler and Chargers’ WR Vincent Brown. My friends were all cheering for the Bears with no higher purpose, they just LIKED the Bears. Meanwhile, I was rooting for Jay Cutler and Matt Forte to score. On an early touchdown opportunity Matt Forte, arguably a top 5 running back in the league, was nowhere to be found on 5 straight plays. Here lies the problem - not only did I rage when his backup got the TD after fumbling on the previous play, I had to explain to my friends why I was so upset. (My given reason was that I had both the Bears’ running and passing options for an offensive TD - I was almost guaranteed to get points somehow). The fact that I even had to explain this to compensate for my actions shows that maybe I’m too wrapped up in football. As the game progressed it only got worse, I yelled at the TV when the Chargers’ QB didn’t even bother to look at my open receiver, I got down and prayed for the first time since high school that Matt Forte would score (he didn’t) and it was then that I saw the looks of horror in my friend’s face. He looked at me as if I had lost my mind, my response was to tell him he didn’t understand because he doesn’t play.
Example 3: The culmination of this weekend and my awakening was my actual fantasy matchup. It’s one thing to get mad at players and condescend the TV as if it were a human, as if your words could change anything, but to get mad at a fictional game, that’s legitimately insane. In my main league, I had reeled off 7 wins to start the season, my team looked great. I proceeded to lose the next 3 games - including one week by one point. This might have been slowly building. So as I look to stop my losing streak and clinch a playoff spot, I play a team that scored a measly 58 points the week before (if I had played him last week, I would’ve won). I will not win this week. The team that could only muster 58 last week will double that this week. To make matters worse the team that I lost to last week, only managed 59 points this week (I would’ve have beaten him this week). This is part of the game of fantasy football, you get different matchups and sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don’t. My immediate reaction to this unfairness was to spend an inordinate amount of time going over the leagues records this year to see who would beat who each week. In fact, writing this entire paragraph, trying to justify my fantasy record is crazy. If you lose in fantasy, move on. Now, I have lost my mind.
After watching ¼ of the night game last night, I realized I needed to stop checking scores and thinking of scenarios that I needed to happen to make a win possible. We turned off the game and watched Elf. I checked the scores after Elf and realized I would not be winning thanks to an amazing game from a 3rd string WR for the opposing team (sense the hatred here?). This drove me crazy, I couldn’t fall asleep for hours and when I woke up I realized that this was way too much effort over an intangible fantasy game. Fantasy Football is a celebration of two great things - men beating each other savagely and men getting together to celebrate men beating each other savagely. Yesterday, I enjoyed neither. I painstakingly sat through 6 hours of games, only to leave disappointed (even though my Miami Dolphins won for the third week in a row) and then complained externally(and perhaps more so, internally) about how those games would reflect on my fantasy team. When the joy in those two things are gone, it’s time to move on. Perhaps now, I can finally save up my money and time for the more important things in life, like renting an elephant.