The Weekly Worship: Geekin’ out on Fantasy.. Football!

It’s been pretty quiet in the world of popular geek culture.

OK, it really hasn’t.

So… let’s play “arguably”:

In the past week, arguably the greatest writer in comics Twitter-dueled with, well, arguably the worst (See: Patriots vs. Dolphins — Youngblood was good when Dan Marino was leading Miami’s fish). Arguably the finest drama on cable finished off its mid-season finale with “peaceful” ramifications (“Breaking Bad,” why?). And, arguably the most important journalist in this whole nerd shit may be saying goodbye to the ‘Times, and hello to greener pastures (If only we could convince Geoff the Pope to convert…).

Oh, and Madden ’13 comes out tomorrow. It’s awesome.

Surprise!

But, the official start to the NFL season doesn’t only begin with EA Sports’ best-selling game and they’re already putting out bets on somewhere like FanDuel. It’s when the biggest geeks in the world get together over stale pizza and shitty draft beer and pick players they’d otherwise have no interest in following — except now, of course, these gladiators of the gridiron can earn our pasty lame asses algunos mucho dinero.

Fantasy Football is a pop culture event that surely doesn’t help the horrific divorce rate and is sure to cause more stress than daily Non-Union phone calls to Central Casting.

And my biggest pet peeve of it all, is when you’re sitting next to a guy at the bar who’s rooting for EVERY SINGLE positional PLAYER in the damn game! And every single player who’s having a good Sunday, according to the ESPN ticker.

How many damn leagues you gonna be in, fool?

Well, there’s this one league at work. This league I’m in with buddies back from college. Oh, and then this other league that some girl I think is sorta cute asked me to be in (cause she won 3-years in a row and just figured…). And I like having my own league away from everyone on Yahoo so, you know, man, it’s one I actually have, like, a chance of winning.

I just know there’s three.. or shit.. four other leagues I’m in, but I can’t remember where they are and why I’m in them.

Really? I wish there was more than just an unwritten rule about how many damn leagues you can be in. Talking fantasy with people used to be fun, but now should I really care that you have McCoy, Brady, Breeze, Foster, Rice, Rodgers, Fitzy, Megatron, and MJD on all 17 of your teams?

NO!

With that said, I’m really excited for tonight.

Tonight, I’m in my first expensive Fantasy Football League. I’m glad that I checked out sites like https://www.draftkings.com/fantasy-football for some pointers before I actually gave it a go. And only ’cause, hell, this church could really use them funds. It’s a risk; but with a chance of winning $20/week in addition to the grand prize at the end, this league was too good to pass.

Win five weeks, win your money back.

With those high stakes, comes a lot of studying. But should you really study at all?

One of my fellow fantasy clergymen at work explained to me all sorts of fantasy football yadda-yadda yin-and-yang (i.e. which dated $8-12 guide I should buy; how to go about ranking and rating these dudes, etc.). Then, homeboy told me he went 2-12 last year.

Nice.

Either way, it’s simple science. While a standard league has always benefited Running Backs (it was almost a lock in years past that if you were lucky enough to draft Adrian Peterson, or, further back, Ladanian Tomlinson, you won), but now that the NFL has become a Platoon RB League, Wide Receivers are now the most important threats.

But, that position is so freakin’ deep. If you don’t snatch Madden’s true cover boy (and why would you, since Calvin’s basically cursed!!), or the Cards’ #11, you might want to go QB. And we all know about the 3 elite QB’s. Well, we all know except for those who are only just now joining Fantasy for the kick of it, haven’t really paid attention to football in years, and will likely take Drew Bledsoe or Brett Favre in the first round.

Hell, that beats taking T.O., who’s more destined for Mondays (RAW) than Sundays.

Fact: Most fantasy players who had either Aaron “Fucking” Rodgers or Mr. Tom “50 TD” Brady last year had the best chance of winning. Drew — Breeze, not Bledsoe — is a lock for another monster season too, Sean Payton suspension or not.

Fiction: Talking about guys who will get drafted in our 8th and 9th rounds right now is pointless since you have no idea who is going to be available come those rounds! Duh?

Best To: Just go with your board. Download some cheat sheets, compile who you like, and don’t choose players who play on teams in your own favorite team’s division, unless you really have to. Would suck being a Giants fan having to root for Vick all season, don’tchathink?

Obviously: Wait to pick a Kicker and Defense in the last 2 rounds. No one’s fooling anyone doing anything differently.

Don’t Miss: Bye weeks! ESPN has an awesome Top 300 with that all-too important # next to their charted positional players. Chris Johnson and Marshawn Lynch both have the same bye weeks. Don’t be stupid.

Good Luck: Because — unlike March Madness brackets (2011 excluded) — I’ve been pretty shitty at Fantasy Football. Joseph Addai, Carson Palmer, Josh Freeman, and the aforementioned Johnson will forever now be curse-words in my book.

Never: Invite Matthew Berry to your wedding. He’s destined to eat all of the creampuffs.

Happy drafting!