If you're like me you love football, are in a committed relationship with your Red Zone, have multiple fantasy teams, and put a small amount of money (really, just $20) on a pick-em league just so you can bitch about everyone else's team just as much as your own.
Yes, football is the only time of the week I'm not severely depressed about being an unemployed recent college graduate but it also leads a lot of yelling at the TV, some cheerful, some sad, some neutral (it's just fun to yell at the TV sometimes) but is this all taking the fun out football?
Each week I take a bunch of guys who are insanely gifted athletes and slot them into different positions on a fantasy team and each week one ends up disappointing me because he didn't see the ball enough. Sometimes his team wins, sometimes they don't but that player still gets harassed on Twitter (not by me though). So it begs the question, is all of this worth it? If like the old days (and by old days I mean like 3 years ago before Red Zone and possibly about 10 years ago before I was aware of fantasy sports) you would watch your team at 1 or 4, possibly get a game on the other channel at the other time, and get Sunday and Monday night football was that more enjoyable? There was no being upset because Texans are no longer trustworthy as a pick, or anger because the Colts spent a first round pick on a great young RB and are playing Donald freaking Jones instead. There was just your love for your team and getting to enjoy some great national games.
These types of leagues also force you to root for guys you wouldn't normally like to root for. For instance as a Jets fan I might have Tom Brady on a fantasy team (though I really try hard not to) and enjoy his fantasy output but still get mad when the Patriots win. And some folks might even root for a guy on their fantasy team to do well against their own team (I'm not one of those people but they exist) and it's becoming a giant hypocritical vortex in a way... who can I root for and still feel good about myself and who do I need to root for because I refuse to lose?
It now also gives meaning to those games you never thought you would care about before.. "what's going on in that 1 o clock Jags Titans game" is now something that people utter, even in Jacksonville and Tennessee whereas if this was 10-15 years ago people might not even realize it ever happened.
And really, at the end only one person is left at the top of the fantasy football summit, they're the only winner, the rest are just sorry losers who wasted their whole fall/winter obsessing over something that left them alone and cold, high and dry, and with an empty feeling for another 7 months.
But to answer the question, is it worth it? Is all this losing, and frustration and anger about super teams being formed, and stars not living up to their expectations, and rooting for a bunch of assh*les really worth using up your entire Sunday over?! Well...probably not but it's better then dwelling on your own thoughts and the 8 straight hours of commercial free football is just so wonderful with it's quad boxes and octoboxes that really at the end of the day we will always be moths drawn to the light of the NFL and the fantasy leagues and the pick-em leagues because we just can't stop ourselves from it because, just like real football, when you finally win that fantasy league and all your hard work paid off as the head coach of some poorly named fantasy team you can call yourself a champion, and only a few select people in this world can ever call themselves a champion
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