Jock Itch Are you ready for some (fantasy) football?

If the NFL lockout had continued, the real losers would have been fantasy football players. Fantasy football is such an integral part of the NFL experience, losing it would have been the kick when we were already down. It’s so integral to modern football fandom, it’s amazing to me that there are still people out there who watch football yet don’t participate in fantasy football. It’s kind of like listening to music on the radio and not knowing you could download it immediately. Even though it may seem like a statistical, sports-nerd circle jerk, fantasy football has proven that all is not lost in post-downgrade America. Here’s why playing fantasy football is a good thing.

Fantasy football will make you an expert on the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Arizona Cardinals, or the Cincinnati Bengals. Yeah, no one really wants to become an expert on those teams, but playing fantasy gets you up close and personal with clubs you typically wouldn’t follow. Knowing the rosters of teams you don’t care about becomes a very important element to doing well in your league. You become very knowledgeable about the rest of the NFL when you play fantasy football, and you’ll sound like a sports genius when you’re discussing the YAC of Brandon Marshall. That’s not a joke about his borderline personality disorder. Playing fantasy baseball never made me interested in a titanic clash between the Florida Marlins and Houston Astros, but a 49ers/Rams game will have my attention when there are fantasy implications afoot.

You and your fat-assed/old/untalented friends can’t play professional football, so fantasy football is the next best thing. And don’t think it’s just a friendly competition. FF is a gladiatorial desktop brawl where every point your opponent scores is an affront to your dignity. As man evolved past the point of worrying about predators eating us and being conquered by Vikings, we lost the competitive drive to vanquish our enemies in close combat. Fantasy football, as lame and anticlimactic as it may seem, is the closest most of us will ever get to that.

Here’s an aspect they don’t tell you about on the hundreds of websites dedicated to fantasy: People take it way too seriously, and it’s great fun to sit back and watch them implode as their team does the same. It is, after all, just scoring points from real people actually playing a real game, so absorbing a wave of insults because someone’s kicker had a record-breaking day is totally hilarious. And sad. Don’t forget sad.

A great team name is a must and tells the world who you are and how well you play the game. Urethra Franklin or Sinead O’Connor is Trying Out for the Part of Moe in the Three Stooges Movie tells everyone a bit about your personality. But really, team names will tell people about your fantasy abilities as well. No one with the name “Andy’s Attackers” ever won a fantasy league. Unless of course it’s referencing another player named Andy who was attacked by a group of people. That would be both controversial and side-splittingly funny. Choose wisely.

And you can’t discount the fact that a whole new industry divined from compiling stats from a professional sports league has blossomed in a country in deep economic trouble. We may have “Room and Board” tastes in a “Rent-a-Center” world, but there are scads of fantasy football sites and just as many pundits who are paid to dispense knowledge for the sole purpose of you beating a bunch of other first-world delinquents at fantasy football. Only in America? You’re damn right. Now get those lineups set, nerds. Fantasy season is nigh.