my fantasy team is better than yours
(i wish i could say that it was my fault)


i haven't said anything about it to this point in the season because i didn't want to jinx anything. i hope you'll forgive me for letting my geek flag fly for just a couple minutes. as of yesterday morning, i won my fantasy football league's regular season crown. woohoo!!! for real. you can check out the proof right here. there i am. the proud alabama asianmen. 10-0. just like some other team i am fond of...hmm. we won't bring them up just yet. obviously, i have now jinxed myself. but that's ok. i couldn't contain myself any longer. and considering i could lose my last three regular season games and still win it all (due to head-to-head beat downs of the two current 7-3 teams), i say screw it. why not gloat, right?

for the uninitiated, fantasy football is fairly simple (in theory). you and your buddies draft teams made of real nfl players. their real stats are then manipulated into a fantasy format that allows for you to be completely disappointed when your favorite real team wins (i am looking at you, dog whisperers) but one of your fantasy wideouts (i am looking at you, roddy white) doesn't put up 100 receiving yards and a touchdown along the way. it's awesome.

i wish i could tell you that there was some serious strategy aspect to it that i have mastered over the years. something that i do better than everyone else. something more than coincidence that proves why i seem to have consistent success in this entirely trivial world of competition. i don't know that i can. sure, i watch enough espn and read enough that i know who should be good and who might not. but there is not as much science to it as i wish or as fantasy "experts" would tell you. as a matter a fact, most of the time, your fortunes come down to a whole lot of luck (or lack thereof).

case in point, the key to a good fantasy team is to have good depth. why is that, you ask? (or, you don't ask, because you don't care about my fantasy football team.) well, i'll tell you. in the nfl, beginning around week 4 and ending week ten, four teams each week have byes. that means you are going to have guys on your roster unavailable to accumulate fantasy stats for you one week out of the season (unless they get hurt and are out for longer. then you hate that they exist.). therefore, you will need to have guys on your bench that you can plug in during the bye weeks and hope to god that they can be half as productive as your starters. well, my team has quality depth this year, but isn't really because i knew any more than the other guys in my league. in the late rounds of my draft, i took fliers on three rookie running backs that just so happen to have turned in solid to really good years. all of a sudden, i look brilliant for picking them. all of a sudden, i am killing guys during the bye-week match-ups because my team isn't losing points when i am not playing my starters. all of a sudden, i am 10-0 and guaranteed the first seed in the playoffs with three weeks to go in the regular season. and all of a sudden, i can be obnoxious about it for a good month before my inevitable and tragic fall from grace in the post-season.

we all have things in life that we are good at. we all have things in life that we seem to be lucky at. sometimes, the stars align, lucky and good meet to hold hands, and little things in life such as fantasy football regular season titles present themselves and make us smile.

this morning, i am happy with my little thing. and i'll be happy to wear my meaningless victory like bad axe body spray and walk around the room to let my buddies smell me. smell me and like it. because you like bad axe body spray, don't you? don't you???

ah, sweet victory. i love 10-0.

hey? who else is 10-0?