Ready for Some Football!

I love football. I love football season. I grew up a Philadelphia Eagles fan, and they have been breaking my heart for years.... but I keep coming back for more. Perhaps since the Eagles have given me the gift of potential (without the bonus of actually, you know, WINNING a Super Bowl), I have gotten more and more into Fantasy Football, where I can feel some of the glory of victory, and have only myself to blame for defeat.

Not everyone knows how Fantasy Football works, so here's a quick tutorial: a league is made up of owners each of whom draft a "team" made up of actual NFL players. Each week, each owner selects a Quarterback, Running Backs, Wide Receivers, Tight Ends, a Kicker and a team defense to start. Points are accrued based off of how the player performs in the actual NFL game. For example, Donovan McNabb had 79 passing yards, 2 passing touchdowns, 27 rushing yards, 1 rushing touchdown and 1 interception on Sunday. This translates to 17 Fantasy Points:

1 point for every 25 passing yards = 3
4 points for every passing touchdown = 8
1 point for every 10 rushing yards = 2
6 points for every rushing touchdown = 6
-2 points for every interception = -2

The total score of all of my players is matched up against the total score of another owner's players each week: that's the matchup.

Now, every league has a different scoring system. This happens to be the scoring system for my ESPN league, where I'm commissioner. I also play in another ESPN league, as well as a league on Yahoo and one on FoxSports. It's sometimes hard to keep track of all of my players, but it's so much fun on Sundays when EVERY game matters.

I love Fantasy Football because even when my Eagles lose (which affects my mood so much more than it should), I still have a chance to be a Fantasy winner. It also keeps me in regular touch with friends from all over the country- even though we may not all work together anymore, we've been playing Fantasy Football for almost 10 years and will continue to meet up every fall to draft our players, and smack talk each other upon victory. It also keeps me in the loop of the NFL- I know which players are good and which ones are fading, which means that no matter where I am, if football's on, I'm part of the conversation.

After this weekend, I'm 2-2 in my Fantasy Leagues. The Eagles had a resounding victory, though, so I came out ahead. On to next week...