From That Guy On Your Fantasy Football Team, With Love
January 2, 2015 8:47 AM   Subscribe

From That Guy On Your Fantasy Football Team, With Love — Denver Broncos tight end Julius Thomas writes for The Players' Tribune about the pros and cons of being a prominent fantasy football asset
posted by tonycpsu (19 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Stories about your fantasy football team are like stories about the dream you had last night: endlessly fascinating to you, but not to the people who have to listen to it. Your significant other, if he/she loves you very much, might be willing to put up with it.

But people shouldn't tell Julius Thomas that he's on their fantasy team any more than they should corner Taylor Swift and tell her that she was in their dream last night and they tried to call out to her in the dream but it was like there was an invisible thing, like a glass pane or something, dividing them, so she couldn't hear, but then later her face popped up again on the body of their third-grade teacher and…

…yeah. The fantasy football thing is perceived to be an ice-breaker for people who see Julius Thomas in the grocery store and really want to say something to him, but haven't thought about how he might react to this news other than a smile and a nod.
posted by savetheclocktower at 8:58 AM on January 2, 2015 [4 favorites]


this is great and i'm not at all surprised he feels this way. the abuse the players get over fantasy football is absurd and awful. i'm always amazed when i see that sort of thing pop up on twitter.

my favorite football player fantasy football thing of the year is larry donnell having a breakout game, but losing his fantasy week because he had benched himself.
posted by nadawi at 9:07 AM on January 2, 2015 [6 favorites]


The tight end slot is such a strange aspect of fantasy football strategy. Except for the top one or two guys, they're never among the highest scoring players, but because every team in most leagues needs to fill a TE slot, anyone who can produce points regularly at that position is more valuable. I experimented one year in my keeper league doing away with the dedicated TE slot and instead having people simply choose any five RB/WR/TE, but ended up going back to a more conventional setup when I realized that part of the fun is making people try to dig deep for the next Travis Kelce or Dwayne Allen.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:12 AM on January 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


Haven't checked on the Player's Tribune in a while, holy shit this Jason Collins article about Police Brutality is great.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:21 AM on January 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


My term for fantasy football is "Action Spreadsheet". It's a bizarre product of modern society to turn spectator sport into office work.
posted by lkc at 9:43 AM on January 2, 2015 [10 favorites]


I think "starting to question Julius Thomas' commitment to my fantasy team..." is rather self-awarely clever.
posted by jaguar at 10:06 AM on January 2, 2015 [6 favorites]


Weirdly, my fantasy football team consists of eleven Taylor Swifts.
posted by Wolfdog at 11:03 AM on January 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


Let me tell you about it!
posted by Wolfdog at 11:03 AM on January 2, 2015


He went from charging $10 in Italy to $15 at the end of the article. Clearly fantasy football fan interaction needs a salary cap to keep 'basking in reflected glory' costs under control.
posted by srboisvert at 11:11 AM on January 2, 2015


my favorite football player fantasy football thing of the year is larry donnell having a breakout game, but losing his fantasy week because he had benched himself.

Chris Cooley (TE for Washington) lost to himself in his fantasy playoffs when he had the best actual game of his career.
posted by Etrigan at 11:35 AM on January 2, 2015 [3 favorites]


Our high school has this crazy fantasy football LARPing group that dresses up in costumes with helmets and pads and they go out and run around on a field throwing an actual ball around. Total dorks.
posted by straight at 1:11 PM on January 2, 2015 [16 favorites]


So the lessons learned here are: professional athletes don't care about some random guy's fantasy team, and you shouldn't be a dick on Twitter.

It's a revelation!
posted by Hoopo at 2:42 PM on January 2, 2015


Your significant other, if he/she loves you very much, might be willing to put up with it.


I'm a lucky man.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 2:45 PM on January 2, 2015


I gave up fantasy football a few years ago. I still play some other fantasy sports, but with football the player values were too divorced from reality and the other people were way too intense. I think the breaking point for me was when I realized that I got way more enjoyment out of watching some dude be a dick in mock drafts than out of actually playing and winning myself.
posted by Copronymus at 3:27 PM on January 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


My term for fantasy football is "Action Spreadsheet"
Dungeons n' Touchdowns?
posted by klausman at 3:50 PM on January 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


Thomas just helped me win my fantasy football league for the first time (been doing this since '96...). All hail the Manitoba Handsome Dicks! (Now to RTFA...)
posted by AJaffe at 4:05 PM on January 2, 2015


After 14 consecutive years of both playing in and running fantasy football leagues, I am doing neither next year. I'm really looking forward to watching whole games (not just RedZone and staring at the ticker), and rooting for the Patriots without simultaneously thinking "but I hope Edelman scores, not Gronkowski".

My friends think I am bananas.
posted by joelhunt at 4:54 PM on January 2, 2015


My term for fantasy football is "Action Spreadsheet"


It's Eve, with more reliable action.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:21 PM on January 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


Back in my day, as a Strat-O-Matic baseball fanatic, I might have written **cough cough** a few letters to baseball players telling them either their Strat card sucks or that they failed me at an important time. I think that what fantasy did was increase the age range of those who focus on individual performance over team performance. Kids playing Strat board games writing letters as 13 years olds is different than some 40 year old who never played the game who thinks he can efficiently select a football team to perform in a fantasy league. Having said that...

I play fantasy with a bunch of friends I have known for 40+ years. It is really a chance for us to email each other every week and talk trash then catch up with each other's lives. I have Julius Thomas on my team. He performed way better than I had expected. He was hurt for a few weeks, but that is part of the game. The thing to me about a TE or a WR is that a lot of it has to do with the O line and with the QB decision making. Anyway, seeing as the first place winner in my league has chosen to spend the $800 in 1st place winnings on a party at his cabin, I am glad he won.

On FanDuel, I have never spent the salary cap money on Julius. I allocate below average money on the TE position. I choose to put my money on other positions that provide better value (more scoring) for the buck. I usually choose a TE based on a lower cost player playing against a defense that has given up a decent amount of yards or receptions to TEs this year.
posted by 724A at 11:31 PM on January 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


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