Football...the Rock Paper Scissors Way

The other day, I was asked to join a fantasy football league at work. Everyone in my department was asked; it's not like the guy who organizes it thought to himself, you know, I bet Erika would really enjoy this. Still, the thought was absurd, and I told the guy so.

"Not watching football is my ultimate football fantasy," I said.

Somehow, that made him determined to get me to participate. He told me that last year, one coworker signed up, did nothing (i.e., took "best available" players rather than participating in the draft, then didn't change his lineup all season) and made the playoffs. I could do the same, he said. Besides, the thing doesn't cost any money; it's just for fun. The "trophy" is a Shake Weight with winners' names written on it.

I then described for him how I approach football if I am forced to watch a game (see my entry on the 2007 Super Bowl). I try to imagine what a football game would look like if the things the team names represent were to play. For example, my hometown team (the Chicago Bears) will play the Atlanta Falcons in its first game of the regular season. If actual bears and actual falcons played football, who would win? Bears are big and would be good tacklers, but falcons are swift and deft. Plus they can fly. I think it would take a lot of keen strategizing for the bears to be victorious.

Surprisingly, this explanation of my view of sports made my coworker even more excited about me participating. He encouraged me to choose my team that way, thought it would be a fun experiment. Since it's free and I wouldn't have to watch any football games, I agreed.

So today, I sat down to take a look at the physical and mental qualities each member of a football team must have and compared those to the qualities of the entities representing the team names. Finding out about the different positions was easy enough, but some of the team names are pretty strange. Cleveland Browns? What is that? I was picturing a bunch of UPS guys running up and down the field until I looked it up and learned the team was named after a coach. And looking up the mascots doesn't help. The Tennessee Titans' mascot is a raccoon. But a raccoon and a titan are not the same thing. (Note to the Tennessee Titans: You might get more female fans if you change your mascot to a shirtless Greek god.)

In retrospect, it would have been easier just to learn about football.

For each position on the fantasy football team (quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end, kicker, defense), I wrote down several team names. My coworker has promised that in the draft, which is Thursday, he'll give me the best available player on one of the teams I've chosen.

I have to admit, I'm kind of interested to find out what happens. Not interested enough to watch any games, but I'm always up for a weird experiment that doesn't require much work on my part. Especially one with such low stakes. And actually, considering the burden of winning (having to keep a Shake Weight at my desk for a year, having to explain to people why it's there), I kind of hope I don't win.