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Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Why I Love Sports (and fantasy)

To follow in my esteemed colleague’s footsteps, I just want to answer a couple basic questions before getting into the juicy meat sandwich that is the AFC 2013: who is this guy and why do I care? My name is Willis but you can call me whatever you want – still searching for that catchy blogger-type nickname.  I grew up in New York City and go to school at Davidson College in North Carolina.  I love sports (big on NFL, MLB, NHL but I have been getting more into the NBA in recent years) and have played fantasy for many years.  I am well versed in the intricacies of baseball and football, both in fantasy and real life, and I have never missed a fantasy hockey final so that speaks for itself (hint: it’s all about goalies). 
My teams (just so you know my biases): New York Yankees, Indianapolis Colts, Peyton Manning, Boston Bruins.  I know what you’re going to say – dude is just a fair-weather fan.  No, the Yankees are struggling hardcore this year and I still root for them.  The Colts were the worst team possibly in history with Curtis “why are you the backup” Painter at the helm, and I watched them lose by 60 points to the Saints.  I’m still not ready to talk about this year’s Stanley Cup Finals, and when Peyton was out for a year I only looked him up on Google News every morning for 6 months.  So yeah, I may have latched onto teams that were good when I was a kid, because why wouldn’t you? That’s why the Dallas Cowboys are still America’s team even though Jerry Jones is a bad joke.  Because you grow to love a team for who they are and what they stand for, and after that connection has been made you stick with them through thick and thin.  Geographical fans are awesome and the Yankees will always be my team, but these are the others that have won my affection, and for better or worse that’s how it’s always going to be.  Yeah, sports is like marriage.  So is fantasy.  It’s fun and exciting at first, then it’s hard work and tough choices and pain and misery, and it’s forever because for whatever irrational, inexplicable reason it’s just something you never want to let go of.


A brief word on how I see fantasy sports.  They are incredibly fun and exciting, and they allow you to interact and invest yourself in professional sports on a level that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to achieve.  Sure you love your home team, but fantasy encourages you to love lots of players from lots of different teams, so when it comes to playoff time, you’ll have lots of guys you’ve loved or hated and whose success you are invested in, even if your team isn’t winning a championship this year.  It allows you to love not just a team, but a league and a sport at large.  That said, there is still a certain something to be said for drafting your favorite player and letting him carry you to a fantasy championship.  Am I going to reach in my draft way too early for Andrew Luck? Probably.  Because I have a lot of faith in him and want to be able to root for him not only in real life, but also in fantasy week in and week out.  Would I recommend this strategy to you? Heck no. Because you could wait an extra couple rounds and potentially still get Luck, or even if you don’t you could get Matt Stafford or Tony Romo or even grab a couple Eli, Big Ben, Flacco level guys and probably get ok production.  Fantasy football is all about value so reaching for a quarterback, possibly the deepest position, is just dumb. But being a sports fan means sometimes being irrational.  The most important thing is that, if you do feel like reaching for your favorite guy and you think he is going to have a big year, just do it and don’t take shit from anyone.  It might not work out, but no one can tell for sure what is going to happen.  So just do your research, decide on your strategy beforehand so you’re not second-guessing yourself, and pick your guys with confidence and pride.  This is your team after all.  In the words of perhaps the most underrated movie franchise of all-time, “There is no fate but what we make.”  This is the best time of year, when everything is ahead of us and anyone could win the championship.  Go out and draft that team that, win or lose, will sit up on your computer screen every Sunday tantalizing you with big plays and missed opportunities, and remind you what it means to love sports.

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