Fantasy Football Playoffs

You feel that? That tingle in your stomach, that uncalled for rage towards one of your good friends, that brain aneurysm starting to form because you have been up since Tuesday night trying to figure out if the Atlanta Falcons defense can get you 7 points against a dreadful, interception prone, Bryce Young and his Carolina Panthers offense, Boy I sure hope they can….! Ahhhh those feelings can only mean one thing, the beginning of the fantasy football playoffs. Tonight marks the start of the Fantasy Football playoffs, that is unless your league is strange and started them a month ago because you have 40-man league with a 20-team playoff where your number one running back is Chase Brown from the Bengals… It also marks the beginning of people talking about their fantasy teams that nobody cares about but you and against people that nobody knows. In case you’re wondering I got third in the regular season with the most points in my league and now I’m gearing up for a match up against a team that couldn’t be hotter, kind of B.S. if you ask me… “Brett Nobody Cares!”

                Fantasy football seems to bring the worst out in everyone. From the shit talking on the chat calling people some of the worst names that you could call a human, to making fun of their wives, to even making fun of their speech impediments and the fact that they stutter through every other word… I’m fine by the way, as I push back the tears cascading from eyes… but it’s all ok because you put an LOL at the end. Some of the worst examples of fantasy players being horrible to each other come in the form of the last place challenges that are forced on people by some of the leagues. There have been some real doozies that people have come up with over the years. I was driving down one of the major street corners on the south side of the Twin Cities metro area and saw a guy dressed as the statue of liberty holding a giant sign that said “I Suck At Fantasy Football” I about died… People were honking left and right; you couldn’t help but smile at that guy’s sheer pain caused by embarrassment. He probably took Nick Chubb with his first pick… Poor Bastard… Some leagues are more brutal than that and force the last place team to get a tattoo that says, Fantasy Loser with the year… that is just mean, all because they decided to take Justin Jefferson with the first overall pick. One of the best ones I saw online was, a guy had to sit down at Chucky Cheese (when it was busy) ask for a table for one, order a large pizza and he couldn’t leave until it was all gone while every parent in the building stared at him worried for their kids safety. Now that’s just clean, family, creepy fun! My experience from getting last place wasn’t as clever as that, all I had to do was the Blazin’ Challenge and I about died because I am such a little wimp when it comes to spice. I took one bite and the waiter must of saw the look on my face because he came over at least 12 times in a minute and asked “if I was doing alright?” I smiled through my scorched red lips and spat out a sarcastic “yeah man, I’m doing great…” then he proceeded to give me a gallon of milk and a bowl of ice cream without me asking for it, I must have seemed fine… Buttttt, that won’t happen this year because I have McCaffrey… “Brett nobody cares about your second overall pick.”

There is something about fantasy that just gets under our skin, and we turn into despicable human beings. I don’t understand what happens to me, it’s like I become the Hulk, not the nice Mark Ruffalo avengers Hulk but the depressed and scary, might rip your head off for jay walking, Eric Bana Hulk. Theres is an even stranger phenomenon other than our constant mood swings that seem to form throughout Fantasy Football season, I have never seen my friends fist pump at any Minnesota Vikings touchdown in my life, not even during the “Minneapolis Miracle," they just sat in their chairs not moving and whispered to one another “that was a pretty good play” but when it comes to Josh Downs scoring a random 20-yard end around for The Colts in week 5, they will get up off their chairs and scream in joy… it’s the most confusing thing on the planet. We could make a nature documentary about the human fantasy football player in the wild.

                But why do we care so much about some random players more than our hometown teams? We can’t care this much because we want to win a $5 dollar trophy we bought at Hobby Lobby 10 years ago, where the football is held together by a couple strips of duct tape, we found in Red Greens garage. Maybe it’s the fact that we want to just bury our friends in a pile of stats and numbers so we can talk massive amounts of yarf for a full calendar year or maybe it’s the fact that we invest way too much time and money into this addiction from mock drafts to listening to hours of podcast to watching hours of YouTube videos, just to gather the most information as possible. We seem to know more about the Cardinals offensive line play than we do about our parents’ jobs. I never touched a mock draft in my life until a few years ago but then one faithful day when I opened my Yahoo app and tried it for the first time, I was fully addicted. It was like trying Walter Whites Meth for the first time, one hit and I couldn’t stop… or so I have been told… You mean to tell me that I can do the best part of the fantasy season as many times as I want; I’d stay up till the wee hours of the morning trying to build the perfect fantasy team, over and over again I would try draft after draft, I couldn’t sleep until I felt that I accomplished that feat. Then comes draft day and I couldn’t be more excited because I have the perfect strategy for the perfect team, but you quickly realize those bots your picking against in the mock drafts are much dumber than your friends and you have no shot at getting the team you want… Timeout, wait a second, Keenan Allen isn’t playing tonight because of a “Heel” injury? This is some Bull.... “Brett nobody cares about your Fantasy teams injuries…”

                As I gear up for my big 3 seed vs 6 seed match up this weekend against a team that has Kyren Williams and Ja’Marr Chase. “Nobody Cares” I am not thinking about my players match ups, even though for the most part they are all pretty good. “Nobody Cares” I am thinking about the insults that I can use to belittle my opponent, Shane. Oh, that’s right, I’m sorry you don’t know Shane, let me tell you about him, he’s a great guy who… “Nobody Cares about your friend Shane” Fine! As you gear up for your Fantasy match up this weekend, that could be for a chance to play for the Championship or it could be for a chance to play for the constellation championship, hell it could be an opportunity to play for an all-expense paid trip to Chucky Cheese. Just remember as you’re setting your line up for the last time, calling your neighbor Doug for advice on if you should bench Patrick Mahomes for Tommy DeVito, (he asked if I was on drugs) nobody cares as much about your team as you do, and nobody cares about your league as much as you do. With that being said, good luck this weekend, hopefully your fantasy team performs up to standards and you’re not stuck at some tattoo parlor getting your buddies face tattooed on your inner right thigh....