Fantasy Bites!

It has been 3 years since I first got hooked on it. Year after year, the addiction only grows worse. My family and social life suffer because of it. I am unable to get off the couch. I am unable to do basic tasks during the times that I am on it. I shut out the outside world just so that I can get my fix. And although the high is exhilerating, the crash that comes after it destroys me.

I am not talking about drugs, alcohol or smoking. This is much worse. It is Fantasy Football. For 4 months of the year, it takes over my life. Everything I have to do, everywhere that I have to be, everyone that I have to speak with is skillfully crafted at the times that do not disrupt the ritual of watching football. Watch the TV screen, Watch the laptop screen. That is what my life boils down to, these wretched months. All Sundays and Mondays, some thursdays and rarely but surely even Saturdays. Analyzing performances, coming up with strategies, urging quarterbacks to throw or running backs to run. At some point, I even fail to understand why the players playing on the field are grossly unaware of how much I need them to gain one more yard or one more touchdown. At the end of the week, it either brings me unadulterated joy -- the kind of joy that a kid feels when he is spending the first 10 minutes with a new toy or brings me acute dissapointment -- the kind of dissapointment that a father might feel when his kid doesnt live upto his own childhood dreams. Either way, it takes over me. AND whatever happens at the end of the week, one thing remains constant -- the need to find a way to win next week. Celebrations are short lived. Tuesdays come and the analysis begins again. The cycle repeats itself.

So obviously when the season ends prematurely, the pain is indescribable. I feel cheated. Cheated by the player(s) whose responsibility it is to make sure that he repays my faith in him by doing what's best for my team. I feel cheated by the player(s) on the opponents team who might have had the game of his life, for betraying his projected numbers and going above and beyond. No I don't root for the underdog if he isnt playing for my team. The only underdog these 4 months is my team. And that's the only one I am willing to support. It is so weird in a sense that the team I am going to root for during the season is the team that I draft players from. It could be the Chargers one year, Ravens the next and Vikings the year after. Loyalties have an expiration date of the season. I don't know why I lie when someone asks me what my favorite team is in the NFL. For it is not the Giants. It is not the Ravens. It is certainly not the Vikings and least of all, it will never be the Jacksonville jaguars. The team that I like the most is the Tzar's Warriors. Anyone who plays for that team, I expect, to be a superstar. Even if it costs the Giants the game on occasion. That's not the worst of it. How many of us have secretly wished for a player of the opposition to have a bad game? Even at times, get injured so we can get our win.

And then either slowly or with a lightning bolt, you realize that your season is over. The next meaningful fantasy game that you will play is now 8-10 months away. It is a sinking feeling. Most people use fantasy to get away from reality. I suspect that I am going to have to use reality to get away from fantasy. They say that reality bites. Let me tell you that today, fantasy bites harder!

This day when my fantasy season is over due to a great opposing quarterback, I cannot help but try and use the crutches of reality to get over my dissapointment. It is true that it is Monday moring. Start of the work week. I have a lot of work piled up. My boss is breathing down my neck. I am in way over my head with the stuff that I have to do. Yet in a lot of ways, I have to find a way to escape to reality. It is by a million miles, the better world for me right now! Fantasy bites!