On the Cusp of (Fantasy) Greatness

(Note: If you don't care about fantasy football, skip this post.)

Here we stand on Saturday night (or Sunday morning) prior to Week 15 of the 2008 season in the NFL, otherwise and more importantly known as the semifinals week of fantasy football. Once again I've involved myself with no less than four fantasy football leagues this season (though for this year, unlike last, I DID manage to cut out NFL Salary Cap Football, Yahoo Pick 'Em, Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Baseball, and even Fantasy Hockey. Also I'm not in a survivor pool this year - but that one was an oversight.) I also participate in a yearly pick 'em pool (against the spread) and just for the record in case any government people are reading this pool is totally for fun and we don't gamble with real money at all.

Anyway, this NFL season, so far, has been kind to me in many ways. (Though no matter how it ends, it almost assuredly cannot top the end of last season, when my beloved Giants took home the ultimate prize in the most awesome fashion against the most evil team ever, but I digress. ) This season the Giants are currently 11-2, and though I wish our star receiver hadn't shot himself in the leg at a night club, because he really does make us better and much harder to defend, I certainly can't complain. The Giants at least will be in the playoffs and have as a good a chance as anybody of being Super Bowl Champions once again.

On the fantasy side, things have also been going well. A little too well, perhaps, and maybe, just maybe I shouldn't be writing this jinxing post. But oh well, here it goes.

As I mentioned, and despite my best intentions to wean to only three, I currently play in four fantasy leagues:

1)My oldest, proudest, and most competitive league, Mick's League O' Micks, now in its tenth glorious season. (Visit our Web Site!)

2)The second oldest, second proudest and also quite competitive league, spawning from my residency days, The Triple FL, now in its sixth(?) season.

3)The third oldest, most on-the-spot trash talking league (it's a work league - we see each other every day), The Landstuhl League, now in its third season.

4)The fourth oldest, or newest league which started last year as a way to reconnect with some medical school people, the league known simply as "Balls" (we're highly educated professionals, and this is what we name our league), now in it's second season.

Two of these leagues are 10 team leagues (MLOM, Balls), and two of these leagues are 12 team leagues (The Triple FL, Landstuhl). Mick's League O' Micks dominates about 85% of the time I spend on fantasy football. The Triple FL and the Landstuhl league take up a combined 12% split about evenly, and the Balls league is almost an afterthough, taking about 3% of the overall time invested. That's not a slight against Balls, just a fact - there's only so much time in the week. Luckily investing time in MLOM has trickle-down effects on the other leagues - each league is based on the same players of course.

At the end of the regular season, through a little skill and mostly luck I managed to have the top seed in 3 of these leagues, the lone exception being the Madigan league (in which I drafted Tom Brady in the first round) where I managed only a 6th place finish, bringing home a blase 7-6 record. Even so, this team made the playoffs. Because of other successes and certain playoff formats, two of my teams (MLOM, Balls) had first round byes and two teams had quarter-final games last week. I won both of those.

So now I sit in the semi-finals with four viable teams and three number one seeds. I have several good players common to at least three teams, including Drew Brees, Larry Fitgerald, Thomas Jones, Calvin Johnson, the Pittsburgh Defense and some role players as well. I have Adrian Peterson in two leagues and Kurt Warner in two leagues. Not hard to see why it's been a solid year.

Anyway with this sort of schedule there comes a lot of stress, and tomorrow's set of football games will be no exception. As one could imagine, it becomes difficult to decide who to root for at times because obviously there are some cases where I will be playing both with and against certain players. And I may possibly have players on fantasy teams going against the Giants in (quote) real life. So to avoid confusion and undo stress I have devised some simple rules on who or what to root for:

1)The Giants come first - every time.

2)LT's Crackheeds (my MLOM team) comes second.

3)The other teams and their various players come next, depending on how many teams I have a certain player on, how a particular fantasy team is doing that week, what I "need" from certain players, and of course all this keeping in accord with rules one and two above.

I tend not to draft Cowboys or Eagles on my teams (on my MLOM team at least) which make rules 1 and 2 go together pretty easily. There are exceptions to this drafting rule at times, of course, and occasionally an Eagle or Cowboy will rear his ugly head on my team.

So tomorrow is a big day. The Giants play the Cowboys (at 2:30 am in the damn morning) and I have four fantasy playoff games going. There could be some stress. There will be some stress. But it will also be fun. (Though sadly the stress will probably outweigh the fun - why do I do this again?)

Most seasons I play in three or four fantasy leagues and if I don't manage to win the championship in at least one league I end up considering that season a fantasy failure. I've won two championships the same season only once I believe. And now I hover on the edge of multiple championships again. If I don't win any this year, given the fact that I have four teams in the final four at this very moment, I will definitely call this season a huge fantasy failure. I'm hoping to nab all four, which of course would make me the stuff of legend, but I doubt that will happen, and so I'd be happy with two, I think, as long as MLOM is one of them. If I fail to win at MLOM, then only the other three combined could potentially soothe me. And if any of these combos don't occur, then the Giants must win the Super Bowl. Oh wait, that must happen every year anyway - at least if heavy drinking in the offseason is to be avoided.

We shall see.

I enjoy fantasy football, and the end of the fantasy season (which happens at the conclusion of week 16, aka Championship Week) is always a little sad. There's a silver lining too, though, in that all the stats and numbers go away except for one - the scoreboard. And that's nice, because it returns the sport - in a rooting sense - to its purest form.

But we're not there yet. And for now, I'm off to research this week's kicker match-ups. Every point counts.