Fantasy owners not real fans

Its that time of year again; when August turns to September and all the nation can rejoice in the fact that for the next 5 months football and all its splendor will be abundant in all its many forms: high school, college, and - of course - the NFL. The NFL season is but a week away, and all of the anticipation built up through free agency, the draft, OTAs, mini-camps, training camps, and the preseason has nearly come to a head. We are seven days from watching the first meaningful NFL action in nearly seven months, and right off the bat we are presented a fantastic match-up between the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants and bitter divisional rival Washington Redskins. Questions abound for both teams, but there is no question to the fact that this could be one of the finest seasons the league has seen in its now 89 seasons.

But behind all of this hype, there lies another desire that has become equal to - if not more - enticing than the start of the actual football season, and that is the Fantasy Football season.

Before the preseason starts, fantasy commissioners begin recruiting fantasy opponents for their fantasy leagues to compete in fantasy games and fulfill their fantasy lives. And while it appears the entire nation is engrossed in this "fantasy land", there are a few who chose to remain in the real world. Those people are REAL football fans.

There are two main reasons why fantasy football has taken away what it means to be a fan. The first of which lies in team allegiances. Throughout the years, teams have developed their own unique rivalries; and from those rivalries each team and their fans have progressed through the phases of simple distaste to utter, pure, stone-cold hatred for their Nemesis. Not only do you not want your rival to do well, you pray that they get pounded into the hard, unforgiving dirt on every single play during every single game. These rivalries make for heightened drama whenever the two teams play and fuel the fire that is the NFL. But what fantasy football has done is softened a fan's stance towards their sworn enemies.

Typically a Cowboys fan would never dare root for anything positive to come from a Giants game, unless that fan has Plaxico Burress on their fantasy roster. In that case, a twisted and contradictory turn of events occurs where they root for Plaxico to do well but the Giants still lose. In a normal world, only one possible outcome would be alright: the Giants lose AND Plaxico rack up the stats. But in the world of fantasy, that Cowboys fan would be alright with a Giants win if Plaxico preformed well and would be very upset if Plaxico preformed poorly in a Giants loss. Poor performance and a team loss seem to go hand in hand, so it's as if that fan is rooting for an impossible outcome. And in the event that the Giants win, that fan is happy to learn that their fantasy all-star made them a few points.

This is as close to blasphemy as it can get. It is a fan's duty to their team to root as hard for their rivals' demise as they do for their own team's success. But in the world of fantasy, fans only take in mind their own personal interests rather than that of the team. Allegiances have been skewed and mutated so much that they are almost unrecognizable.

The other reason why fantasy football detracts from real fandom is that it tries to establish a rooting interest in other games when there should be should be no reason to do so in the first place. Football fans should be able to turn on the TV and immediately become engrossed in whatever game is on for the sole reason that there is football on the TV. In every region of the country, those fans have access to their team's game along with a handful of others. They get the joy (and agony) of watching their team win (or lose) and should be delighted that the football weekend does not end with that one game. A real fan can find joy in just having football to watch; and it doesn't matter whether or not the game is good, the fact that its football makes it good already.

The game of football has so many intricacies within it that watching it unfold at the highest level should be able to provide enough pleasure to last through a 4 hour contest. When you throw in artificial attractions it taints the very nature of fandom and takes away some of the appreciation of the game. Instead of being able to absorb the game as a whole, fantasy football focuses the attention on individual players and their stats.

If a running back does not rush for 100 yards or score a touchdown, that player's fantasy owners around the nation will whine and mope and complain that the player was unproductive. But if stats were not the be all end all of the game and that player's performance then viewers could be privy to the notion that that running back put his whole self on the line for his team and may have been the determining factor in the outcome of that game. Fantasy football takes away from that appreciation and leads to cynical, unappreciative, and uneducated fans.

The NFL now is inextricably linked to the fantasy game and it seems doomed to fall further down the path of destruction. Perhaps people will begin to learn of the errors of their ways and change their attitudes and actions before it's too late. Sadly, though, believing that this will come to pass truly is the stuff of fantasy.