This season I’m participating in a Fantasy Football league. I’ve done fantasy leagues before… some of the same friends in this league joined me in a Fantasy Premier League a few years ago, and also a Fantasy Congress (Fantasy Congress is gone now but was AWESOME!)… but never with the NFL I think. And in spite of never having paid much attention to individual players outside of the Bears, I’m one of two teams (of twelve) sitting at 2-0 right now.

Largely this is due to having scored Aaron Rogers with the sixth pick of the first round. A couple of the other guys, notably the ones I’ve beaten so far, hate me for that.

I am having to pay more attention to second and third string players for teams I’d never even ponder, and this is a very alien thing. The closest I’ve ever come to giving a crap about, say, the Raiders before was the family’s weekly football picks, but now I’ve got three of them on my team (soon to be two, really gotta ditch Jacoby Ford… he’s alright but the injuries look to be a problem this year). SEE! I’d never have known that about Ford without the game. It’s all been a learning experience.

And what have I learned first and foremost? That fantasy football players love spreadsheets. Who needs to watch the game when there’s reams and reams of statistics out here to drool over?