Note: If you’re one of those people that doesn’t want to hear about fantasy teams, best move along to the next post. This one’s pretty self-indulgent.

For years I avoided playing fantasy football because I’m very protective of my free time, and I already spend too much time staring at this goddam computer screen.  I finally caved last year because Yahoo’s Andy Behrens made a 12-team blogger league where we could play for free.  I made the six-team playoffs, finished fifth, and was hooked.

This year, with a girlfriend living in London and a ghost of a social life, I fell off the deep end.  I drafted Tom Brady first overall and Marc Bulger as his backup, and my immediate need for a decent quarterback bred in me an obsessive-compulsive streak to tweak my roster.  In 14 weeks I’ve made 36 moves (not counting the four waiver moves this week), 20 more than the second-most active manager.  I engineered two of the three trades in the league (Ryan Grant to Behrens for Kurt Warner in late September, and BenJarvus and Pennington to Shanoff for Brandon Marshall and Matt Schaub just before the trade deadline – SUCKA!).

And you wanna know what excessive tinkering gets you?  A 6-7 record after you single-handedly mismanage your way out of at least three wins.  Some of my fantasy highlights this season:

Week 3: I’m 2-0, but goddammit, T.J. Houshmandzadeh is NOT producing.  I bench that fuckface against the Giants for Bryant Johnson — he’s totally due for a breakout!  And he’s playing the Lions!  Housh gets 146 yards and touchdown for 20 points, Bryant gets me two for a net loss of 18 points.  I lose to Unsilent Majority by nine.  I swear to God it made sense at the time.

Week 8: I’m up against Shanoff, who notoriously sucks at fantasy.  When I find out that his starting WR Santonio Holmes will be sitting out after his pot bust, I taunt him over email. His sincere response is “Thanks! I wouldn’t have realized it otherwise!”  He starts Kevin Walter in his place, who gets 70 yards and two TDs as Shanoff — who didn’t even start a kicker or defense — beats me by three points.  Also, I start Jeff Garcia instead of Warner.  I fucking hate myself.

Week 9: It’s Sunday morning, and the only QBs on Daulerio’s roster are Philip Rivers (bye) and Carson Palmer (out).  I use my four expendable roster spots to pick up any QB who might be worth a shit, leaving him only the run-heavy Ravens’ Flacco against the Browns.  Flacco gets 17 points, I lose.  Granted, I lost by more than 17, but I bring this one up because the Yahoo projections predicted I’d score 93 to Daulerio’s 62.  Daulerio beats me 90-72.  Fuck you, Yahoo projections.

Week 12: I desperately need a win against Maj to have a realistic shot at the playoffs.  Late in the week, with Brandon Jacobs looking iffy for the Arizona game, I plug in Derrick Ward for LenDale White, who’ll be facing the run-tough Jets.  Eight minutes before kickoff, the word is that Jacobs will play, and I see that 67% of Yahoo players are starting LenDale, considerably higher than the percentage starting Ward.  I freak out and make a knee-jerk switch.  White gets 1 touch and zero points.  Jacobs doesn’t play, and Ward gets 15 points.  I lose by 12.  Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

In the end, with a miraculous Week 13 win against league points leader Behrens, I jumped ahead of three teams to make the playoffs at 6-7, despite my best efforts to fuck everything up.  And who cares what happens in the playoffs, man.  All I care is that I’m playing.  That’s all I want out of fantasy football, every week, 52 weeks a year.  Just to have an added rooting interest in the games.  GIVE IT TO FORTE YOU STUPID FUCK LOVIE!

I’m going to be suicidal come Week 17.

This week, we’re holding the second annual KsK Kares Kharity Drive for Fisher House, which helps build temp housing for disabled veterans and their families. You can donate directly to FH here.

If you don’t want to read me rambling on about fantasy football, feel free to skip straight down to the tits. I won’t mind.

In his recent column, Stephen A. Smith discusses the disparity between whites and blacks when it comes to participating in fantasy football. One of the possible reasons cited was that whites have disproportionate access to better paying jobs and the high-speed internet access that often entails. Perhaps there is some validity to that theory, but I’m not here to talk about race. Talk, by the way, is all we do about race in America. But if it’s any consolation, we talk about it a whole fucking lot.

No my point, and I’m sure you wish I’d get to it and on to the aforementioned tits, is that Smith’s column reminded me of the days lo’ those many years when I started playing fantasy football. A time when a) I was working shitty retail jobs and; b) next to no one had dial-up—let alone high speed—internet access. I remember going to drafts with dozens of index cards and the football issue of “Fantasy Baseball” magazine. If there were any dedicated fantasy football magazine in those days—it never made it out to the hinterlands.

It was in that first draft I witnessed what is still the worst pick I have ever seen or will ever see. First pick of the second round: JEFF FUCKING JAEGER. I still remember the guy smirking indignantly, “He led the league in scoring last season.” A lot of you have drafts coming up this weekend and early next week. Don’t be the Jeff Jaeger Guy. And as you sally forth into the holiday weekend, enjoy yourselves and for God’s sake don’t get any stupid songs stuck in your head.

And now, as promised, the tits…

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