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(Fantasy) Game On 3

I've mentioned it before, but my family and I play fantasy football. The first season we did this, we had hilarity at the draft, and people were demanding that we start the whole thing over. We also had people who had never once cared about football rooting for individual players. All in all, it was a good time. Heck, I even joked that we should institute a fantasy league for a reality TV show and I wasn't laughed out of the room.

Well, that was last year. Now that it's a year later, that means it's time for another round of fantasy football. This time, we've got some one-year veterans who are chomping at the bit to go, and the Mild Fiancée is also in on the fun. As you can imagine, this has led to all sorts of fun.

Now, I'm hardly an expert in any of this (as the performance of my fantasy football teams can attest to), but it's been fun imparting some knowledge to the Mild Fiancée. There are terms that I have taken for granted for so long that I've forgotten they are specific to (North American) football. For example, I immediately know what "WR" means (wide receiver) and what that person's job is (usually, to catch the ball). It gets even more confusing when you start tracking a player's participation in practice; how many of you would immediately know that "LP" meant "limited practice?" I certainly didn't, at first.

In fact, this led to my favorite comment so far about the whole ordeal. The Mild Fiancée was describing her level of personal connection to the players, and she busted out, "as far as I know, these are fictional people." Well, that makes sense. If you haven't grown up watching football, you're not going to have any ties to the teams or to the players. They might as well be elves, orcs, and wizards that you're drafting. It certainly changes the visual, doesn't it? "Um, in the second round, I choose the wizard from Midgard. It says here that he's got a really powerful enchantment, so I'm going to go with him."

However, that doesn't mean that we haven't all gotten in to it. On some level, we're all a little bit competitive. And if your wizards and orcs are winning, you want them to continue winning. Just as my sister-in-law did well last year, the Mild Fiancée is doing well this year. She's in the top few teams, and if the playoffs were to start today, she would be competing to win the whole thing.

Incidentally, that has led to my second, third, and fourth favorite comments about this whole thing. My second favorite comment came after the Mild Fiancée lost a game, and she tumbled out of the first place slot. She complained about her team doing poorly, and I reminded her that she was still in the top few slots. Her response made me laugh out loud: "yeah, but I grew used to my 1st place life style." Yup, fantasy football had become a way of life for her. In fact, she now puts a reminder on our shared calendar to set her lineup every week.

The third and fourth favorite comments came back to back, in a conversation with my sister-in-law. I'll just lay it out so that you can see it in all its glory:

Sister-in-law: "You two are cheating. I know it. Collusion!"
Mild Fiancée: "I just drafted from the top of the list!"

It's worth noting that this conversation happened before the season even started. We had just finished drafting, so we had yet to see how players would do this season. Basically, this was a pre-complaint about cheating. I did find it odd that the thought came so quickly to her, though.

The response was really what made it such comedic gold, though. Most fantasy football websites will give you a projected ranking of players, so they basically provide you with an ordered list of players. If you're relatively new to the whole process, like the Mild Fiancée, you might lean on that list heavily. In fact, that's pretty much all she worked with. The response wrapped all of that up nicely in a bow, and made me laugh out loud.

So, yeah. Fantasy football with the family is fun. I can't wait to see how the season turns out.

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