Since my earliest days I have always been a football fan. It started out with the Cleveland Browns just after Jim Brown retired. My earliest memory of a running back was Leroy Kelly who did more than a fair job of replacing perhaps the greatest running back in NFL history. At some point I moved onto the Minnesota Vikings and a watching interest in others.
As I entered high school the Buckeyes took over and I have been more of a college football fan every since. I suppose some of that had to do with my employment. No matter what, retail is a seven day a week job. Yes, that includes Saturday and Sunday and little or no holidays off. It is always something of a bother to watch the local newscast when they invariably tell us all to enjoy the holiday we are about to have off from work. Yea, right.
Anyway, something had to give in my football world. There is just too much to do to invest myself in both leagues. As the college world took hold there just wasn't much room left for the pros. At one point I likely went ten years without watching an entire half of a single pro game. I did watch the scores and the standings but I didn't have much of a vested interest. In the past few years that has begun to change but there is something in the way.
Unfortunately for me as I climbed back into the world of pro football, fantasy football has taken a strong hold. It would be easier to get back in touch with the pro game without fantasy. Often I get home from work and want to see the scores quickly. With fantasy football there's no way to do that. The crawl on the bottom of the screen takes twenty minutes to list the scores due to all the stats. Every Tom, Dick and Ochocinco has their numbers dragged past after each score. Every radio show has to have the stats for nearly every player that touched the ball.
I can't be the only one. Somewhere out there there has to be others who are so fed up with fantasy sports they just want to turn the whole thing off. Let me watch the games and the scores without all the other crap. If fantasy stats are so important give them their own channel and leave the rest of us alone.
Ramblings of a 60 Year Old Man - My thoughts on just about anything, in no particular order; Robert Thomas - author.
I, too, have resisted the tug of fantasy football and/or baseball, until this year.
ReplyDeleteHandsome Son and one of his cousins begged me to join their FF league, and so I caved. I was not available on draft night, so (I believe) Handsome Son drafted my players. He set me up well, so far, as I am 2-0 heading into today.
But, I digress. I also despise all the fantasy stats because I want the scores quickly as do you.
I pay almost no attention to player stats on my team except to check if one of my starters' team has a bye. That's about it.
I hate myself for doing it, too.
I played fantasy football once when I worked at Alcoa and the entire engineering staff was picking teams, so I picked one too. Man, were my picks lousy but I liked being able to talk about it with the guys. However, I never entered another one.
ReplyDeleteI would not have done it if it were not for Handsome Son; I guess it is a way to keep connected.
ReplyDeleteEric the Tall used to do fantasy baseball and football every year; I do not believe he has the time for either one anymore.