Every September during football’s first Sunday, I have the same realization that I have probably got in over my head with football mania. And I love it. This year it hit me during the 3rd quarter of the Patriots-Jets match up. Randy Moss of the Patriots caught a long touchdown pass. I was elated. Then I checked one of my many fantasy football teams…damn it, my brother had Randy Moss going against me in our game. The Catch-22 of football season had begun to bite me 2 hours into the season! Fantasy sports vs. my real team allegiance vs. my betting, the no-man’s land of football fandom.
In my exuberance for football, I ended up signing up for 4 fantasy football leagues. This creates a decent amount of chaos for me, because whenever there is a highlight reel of a touchdown or other big play, I rush to the computer to determine if that play was a good thing for all of my teams or not. Compounding the difficulty is my fantasy football diversification rule. I will do my best not to have more than 2 players alike on each team. That way I am (hopefully) covered from the risk of having a bunch of crappy teams if I make a mistake with one team’s roster.
You would think that 4 fantasy football teams would be enough for me. It’s not. I also tend to place a few small wagers on the NFL contests of the weekend. I love the challenge of looking at two teams and trying to figure out who is going to beat the point spread. But by adding in gambling, in addition to the 4 fantasy sports matchups I’m trying to follow, I need to not only root for certain teams to score points, but for only specific players on those teams to score points.
Wait, it gets more ridiculous. The Patriots have been and will always be my favorite team. Their performance trumps everything, I think. If I were forced to choose between the Patriots making the playoffs and my fantasy football team winning its championship, I am not sure what I would do. It is like choosing amongst your children.
The enjoyment/chaos was in full effect this past Sunday. Randy Moss scores a touchdown, Yea for the Patriots, boo for fantasy team #1. Adrian Peterson scores a touchdown for Minnesota, yea for fantasy team #2, boo for my gambling. And on and on it went, until I had created a virtual 3-dimensional emotional matrix in my head of all the outcomes. It got pretty hectic, I was forced to take a nap mid-day, although that also had something to do with Paco flying in from Denver for the weekend. What I have decided to do for the rest of the season is to only bet on games where I am also rooting for the team to help my fantasy teams. Of course, if the bet looks like easy money is to be made…
Since when is Jon from West Palm Beach writing blog entries for Scott?
Posted by: Tom | September 10, 2007 at 02:32 PM