Thursday, October 04, 2007

Time out: Fantasy or reality?

My life has ended.

OK, not my actual life, I’m not going through some existential crisis or anything, but I died in my Survival Football League this week.

I picked the San Diego Chargers to beat the Kansas City Chiefs. No brainer, right?

Apparently not, since the Chargers suffered a 14-point home loss to the supposedly lowly Chiefs.

I had picked Dallas over St. Louis, but then thinking too far ahead, like many sports teams often do, I thought ‘nah, I’ll save Dallas for another week.’ D’oh!

I am devastated.

I mean, I have a life (sorta), but I definitely spend far too much time and energy thinking about my fantasy teams, picking my rosters, and talking smack on the message boards.

Up until 12:55 p.m. Sunday afternoon (right before the 1 p.m. games) I was still tweaking my rosters: “OK, Calvin Johnson is definitely out, so I need to replace him with a backup … Wes Welker, who clearly won’t get me as many points, but hopefully the Dallas defense will make up for it,” etc., etc.

Then Monday night I was watching the Patriots-Bengals game. As a New Englander, I’m a die-hard Pats fan, so, I was very confused in this game; see, I have Carson Palmer and Chad Johnson on my fantasy team. Watching the game, I kept thinking, ‘oh man, I hope Palmer throws for a lot of yards, and Ocho-Cinco catches at least one touchdown pass,’ and then I felt guilty because I was actually wanting players from the opposing team to do well against my Patriots.

What is a girl to do? Do I forget about my fantasy teams and just hope the Patriots whoop the Bengals? I wish it were that easy.

I want the Pats to win no matter what, but, wouldn’t it be ideal if Palmer could throw, say, 275 yards and 2 touchdown passes - one to Chad Johnson - and still have the Patriots win 35-14?

They say a real fan never bets against or roots against their own team, especially for fantasy reasons. But seriously, say I had money on said teams (which I don’t, since gambling is illegal), wouldn’t it be OK to cheer for my individual players to succeed?

I don’t think I can solve this overnight, but it has been eating away at me a bit, and it all came to a head Monday night.

In the end, it didn’t matter; New England won convincingly 34-14 (close to my ‘ideal’ score), Palmer threw for 234 yards with one touchdown pass, not to C. Johnson, and both of my fantasy teams lost, and I’m out of my Survival league. But, my real team won, so I’m trying to be happy.

All I can say is, at least I’m not a Mets fan.