Hey Phil Simms, Shut up about Fantasy Football already.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Why all the distaste for people who play fantasy football?

I’m enjoying the Pats/Steelers game yesterday when a broadcaster I usually really like, Phil Simms, has to take time out of his day to rag on fantasy football. Apparently, if you are a player of Fantasy Football, you can’t appreciate the fact that Tom Brady & Ben Roethlisberger posses “intangibles” and a “will to win.”

I’m sitting here right now listening to Colin (jerk) Cowherd on the radio & he’s talking about how much he loves football & last minute finishes and that’s why he can’t get into fantasy football.

As if, because I had players going in the Pats/Steelers game on my fantasy team, I can’t enjoy the game.

What the flying f*ck does one have to do with the other???

Fantasy Football increases interest in football. Period. We’re not all stat-heads. We’re not all dorks who can’t enjoy a game for what it is. We are not incapable of rooting for a particular team because we also root for individual players. I can understand that in the old days, folks had to calculate their point totals & check morning box scores, but in this wondrous age of the Internet, the scores pretty much tabulate themselves. It’s as easy for me to root for my imaginary Stony Brook Stonewall of the FRFL as it is to root for the Pittsburgh Steelers NFL.

How many Fantasy players have ordered Direct TV to follow the games? How many of us have purchased a jersey for a player who plays, not on our home team, but on our fantasy team?

The answer is lots.

I think that if you are a professional broadcaster, and you feel the need to bad mouth fantasy football, how about some equal time for those who bet on the games. How many times have people with money on the game rooted for, not a win, but a point spread cover? How about rooting for an under? Or a prop bet? Can these people appreciate Tom Brady’s “will to win?”

Yes we can. You won a Super Bowl, Phil…We know you’re cool. You don’t have to take shots at fantasy football players to make you look good. Just shut up and do your job, which is to analyze the game, not insult the viewers. I can enjoy my football however the hell I want to. If you don’t see the appeal of fantasy football, fine. Maybe you should, since your CBS salary keeps increasing because veiwership keeps increasing. Fantasy Players have something to do with that. This geek would appreciate it if you just skipped the editorializing of your sports fans during the game, okay?

2

I don’t know about CBS, but Fox had a hour long fantasy football special with JB, Terry, Howie, and Jimmie who all listed who they had on their fantasy teams. So obviously somebody’s interested in it.

3

Yeah, how about some equal time for those who bet on games? How about one single mention of a point spread or an over/under during a broadcast? How about seeing the crew pick games against the number, or against the money line, instead of just straight up?

Fantasy players receive way more attention than gamblers during games. There are non-stop fantasy lines. I don’t know about this year, but last year, JB, Terry and Howie each had Fantasy players each week.

After the games, and at the half, they have a massive scroll running through just about every player in the league.

They keep a single score on the screen for 2 minutes os we can see how the tight end, the third receiver and the place kicker from Detroit are doing when all we want is a final in the Tampa Bay game. When’s the last time you saw them mention who covered a line?

The only network that mentions spreads at all is ESPN, and they’re never mentioned during games. Al Michaels will sometimes toss in a “that made some people watching very happy” after a “meaningless” 4th quarter score, but that’s about it.

Yes, very much so. That’s pretty much the kind of thing that we’re betting on.

4

Still, I agree it’s pretty stupid for Simms to criticize fantasy players. Huge bloc of viewers right there.

5

The whole reason I got into Fantasy Football in the first place is because I’ve been a life long Football fan. The FF adds to my enjoyment. In fact, I think it may bring extra viewers to some crap team’s games because of having a widespread interest in individual players.

Fantasy is GOOD for the NFL in general.

6

Jim Rome, a TV guy with his own program, speaking of Tom Brady, “He’s not the kind of Quarterback you fantasy football degenerates dream about…”

I don’t play FF, and have no opinion about it one way or the other, except that I think it must be as much fun or more than playing Play Money poker online.

So, what’s wrong with it?

7

On the NFL’s orders. They don’t want to openly advocate the gambling aspect of the games. I guess the NFL policy is it’s okay to openly ridicule fantasy players.

Preach it, brother! It does bring many viewers to games that otherwise would have no interest. So Mr. Simms…give us some respect!

8

I agree with Phil. Fantasy corrodes the enjoyment of football in exactly the same way that gambling corrodes the enjoyment of football.

Anyone who reads the predictions threads, or who is involved in the SDMB fantasy leagues, knows that I’m guiltier than many when it comes to bastardizing my NFL viewing.

Let’s talk about spreads. Your team is favored by 4. The game is in overtime. What are you rooting for? To stay out of FG range and bust a TD. That’s just wrong…a regular fan would be rooting for the Bill Cowher special: run it 15 times in a row and kick the field goal from the 20. That’s pure football…when you find yourself rooting against that, you have warped the game.

If you know me from the various SDMB FF leagues, you know that I particularly agree with Simms about the evil known as “rooting for the other guy”. Quite simply, I refuse to do it. To me, that would be fundamentally wrong. So I limit my fantasy players to the two teams I happen to root for, and if they suck, so does my fantasy team. But even that is not enough of a safeguard. (Aside from the fact that my two teams IRL sucked ass this week, while they did quite well in fantasyland, winning in two of my three leagues this week.)

Monday Night I was at a buddy’s house watching the game. I had stupidly checked the fantasy leagues, and in one of them I was ahead by 30, but the other guy still had one player yet to play: Stephen Jackson. Now, I hate undefeated teams, and I wish for Eli to outperform Peyton at every turn, so I was naturally rooting for the Rams. But I had to root against Jackson getting production. And they kept going to him, even after they were getting killed. This pissed me off, and that’s just wrong. I should have been happy with Jackson running wild on the Rams building up a 17-0 lead, but the enjoyment of that was sullied.

Whenever you add layers to watching a football game, you have done two things. First, you have artificially inflated your interest in it, and second, you have altered what it is you root for, twisting it away from actual football reality. This bastardization is indeed a bad thing, but I don’t personally give a flying fuck. I smoke cigarettes as well, despite the experts telling me it’s bad. Just think of rants from those who agree with Simms as being the football purists’ analog to the anti-smoking “Truth” ads.

What I like about fantasy and handicapping is that it makes me interested in watching games I otherwise wouldn’t. As hardcore of an NFL fan as I am, I’ve averaged probably 5 hours of live football per week this season. I watch every glorious moment of my precious Giants, fade in an out of the Jets games, and maybe a drive or two of any other game. (The Giants just wear me out…my throat is raw hamburger after three hours of screaming every week.)

But the handicapping threads have kept me interested and more cognizant of the rest of the league, which I consider a good thing, and the Stephen Jackson fantasy deal got me interested enough the the Monday Nighter to watch every snap. I guess you have to take the good with the bad, and Phil is really saying that he’d rather have fewer truer fans of real football tune in, and the twitchy fantasy ballers can go fuck themselves. Despite being one myself, I have to agree with him.

Parcells said it best when asked about losing Flozell (sp?) Adams for the season. As best I can recollect:

“How is the mood in the locker room today?”
“The same as it is every Monday.”
“I just mean, with the loss of Adams, has that affected the mood?”
“What are you saying? [menacing pause] You think I’m happy about that? [pause] Of course I’m not happy about that. But nobody cares. [pause] The players care. The coaches care. But nobody cares. Nobody cares. You think people will remember this two weeks from now? They’ll just put in the next fantasy guy on the list. [dismissive glare, turns away to go to another reporter]”

Love those Parcells coaches conferences.