His Name Is Frank Gore

I love watching football.

The new NFL season is upon us, and I couldn't be happier. One look at me, and you wouldn't guess I was a big "sports guy". Wannabe hipster? Sure. Lovable geek? Probably. Someone who plays fantasy baseball, football, and basketball? What tipped you off, the shaggy hair with product in it? That's right, product.

Anyway, I'm really into the big three(basketball, football, baseball). Football appeals to me because of the intricate strategies involved. Football is truly a thinking man's sport. Don't believe me? Decipher this:

I Y-Motion 245 H-Swing

Every football player has to memorize hundreds of plays with terminology like this. Dumb jocks? Not on the football field. There is a reason football is the favorite sport of the US Military, with Division I teams fielded by the Army, Navy, Air Force, and the United States Marine Corp.

Football certainly requires intelligence, or at least analytical skills associated with problem solving. One could argue(and probably correctly) that it also reinforces a hive-mentality, much like the institutions mentioned above. This type of mind-set, to me, is the real problem with "jock thinking". The coach, or the general, or the president, must be followed. There is one way to do things, and it's his way.

People who "think different" or try to act independently are punished and ostracized, sometimes rightfully so. After all, to win at football you must be a cohesive team. It's when this type of thinking leaks into everyday life and discourse that it can be, well, wrong.

ANYWAY, I never could have played competitive football that didn't involve either two-handed touching or flags. Tall, spindly boys don't play football without some sort of death wish.

Since I can't play in the NFL, I play fantasy football. It's fun, competitive, and drives an interest in the sport. Billions of fans play fantasy football every year(that might be an exaggeration, but you get the idea). There is a clash, however, between sports fans who are fantasy sports players and non-fantasy playing fans.

Traditionally, you have a team. It's your team. Maybe you grew up with them, you like their attitude, or even just their uniforms¹. You and your dad cheer for them. Even your mother has a sweatshirt with the team's logo on it. You live and die by your team. Sure, you follow the sport, but you are always rooting for your team.

Fantasy players, however, have an interest in every team. When you play fantasy sports, you usually draft a team from all of the players in the NFL. So you start following the news the players on your team, hence you start following the news for lots of teams. Instead of just knowing the line-up and injury problems of your team, now you start to know these facts for many, many teams. Maybe all of them, if you are that obsessed, and many are.

A traditional fan looks at a fantasy player and wonders, "How can you not have a team? What's the point? Where's the family, the love, the loyalty?"

That's the big problem, the perceived lack of loyalty. It seems sports fans take on the value system of the sport they watch(or the value system they think the sport should have), and as I said earlier, a big part of football is the team comes first. You have to have loyalty to your team. And the Coach. And the General. And the President.

To them, it's almost like you are cheering for another country. If you live in Denver, you don't cheer for the Raider Nation. You certianly don't care what kind of numbers Randy Moss puts up, since he is the enemy. A hated enemy.

Interestingly, fantasy baseball does not suffer from nearly the same backlash from traditional fans as fantasy football does. Maybe this is because baseball has always been seen as a "past time", something fun and enjoyable, but football is seen as serious, serious business. Metaphor's for war often are.

Of course the huge differences in the games themselves also mean the fantasy versions are also very different; baseball being the most statistic obsessed sport of the last century lends itself almost perfectly to pretend teams. Football, however, doesn't translate as flawlessly. The only immeasurable aspect of baseball, from a pure numbers point of view, is defense. How do you rate one short-stop versus another? The one who makes the least errors? Well, maybe the one with more errors reaches more balls and therefore makes a few more errors, but it actually helping his team more. And so on and so on.

Football has tons of immeasurable factors that influence the game. One of traditional fans biggest problems with fantasy football, and the most valid in my opinion, is it glorifies the skill position too much. Quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, and kickers score almost all of the points in football. They gain the yards. These contributions are easily quantified. The contributions of other positions, most notably the offensive linemen, are not so easy to measure. Defensive players have sacks, interceptions, fumbles caused and recovered, but even these fail to fully convey the influence a defensive player can have on a game.

A fantasy fan who only cares about the skill players and the numbers they put up is missing out on appreciating the true beauty of football, and there are plenty of fantasy players who do this.

However, there are also plenty of fantasy players(like myself and my friends) who do know a lot about football, who loyally follow our teams, but also enjoy going head-to-head each week against imaginary opponents.

Don't hate us. I'll buy you a beer if you put up with me wondering how San Franscisco's running back did today.

¹An old friend of mine was a huge Saints fan because he really thought the uniforms kicked ass.