Fantasy
As the NFL post season comes to a close in the next few weeks, I’ve reviewed my attention span as it relates to football this past season. I don’t much like what I’m seeing.
Let me explain.
I’m a sports fan… but I’m not a sports nut.
I like sports. I understand how they’re played. I have favorite teams. I have favorite athletes.
I don’t understand plays necessarily. I don’t get all facets of strategy. I’d never be a good coach.
That said, it allows me to be a more casual fan. I can turn on a game here and there and watch and enjoy and appreciate it. I’d understand enough that I’ve played fantasy sports… baseball for a few years and football every year since 2001.
Fantasy sports are stressful but they can be fun. You have to keep up with things and be on top of it enough that you can pivot on a moment’s notice.
This past football season, though, things started slow for me. I watched the occasional game and I did coach a fantasy team. But about halfway through the season, it picked up. Katie and I would turn on Sunday games and leave the TV on all day. We got k to games for teams we don’t care about. Not that we paid attention to every single play, but it was on so much that Nate would walk away due to his zero interest in football.
Knowing what I was learning about football, I was really getting into divisional standings and how each team was doing week to week as we closed in on the playoffs. I was frustrated when a team I loved did poorly and celebrated when they succeeded. Being a Chicago Bears fan, it meant that I was frustrated a LOT. Liking the Lions and Bills made up for it to a degree.
But I was also a target of friends whose primary team was doing much better, especially when they were doing better at the expense of my team. A good friend of mine is a lifelong fan of the Green Bay Packers, one of the Bears biggest rivals. He'd razz me and, after a while, it didn't come off as friendly razzing. Especially when he boasted about his team almost ALWAYS being in the playoffs. There were times I wanted to reach through the computer screen and strangle him (he's a remote friend). Some friendship, eh?
My friends who were Vikings and Lions fans, the other two teams in the Bears division, were far more empathetic because they were accustomed to not doing well just like the Bears. So despite their current success, they didn't boast too much about it knowing how little removed they were from annual failure.
The negatives are far outweighing the positives, IMHO. So I want to step back next season. I want to avoid watching games every week. I want to avoid getting too invested. I want to not have to worry about it so much. To that end, I play to quit playing fantasy football for the first time in 24 years.
There are more important things in life.
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