It's All a Fantasy

Fall has arrived in New England. The air quickly turned crisp and cool, it's raining again, and the apples are ripe for the picking. And of course, football season has commenced. Although I have to deal with stupid Patriots fans (this news story is a perfect depiction of fans as they justify leaving the games early), I also get to beat up on people in Fantasy Football.

It took a while for me to settle on a team name, but in the end I took a slight branching out from my ninja obsession, but still incorporated the theme, thanks to one of my favorite blogs, Sleep Talkin' Man. I settled on Fashion Assassins. My logo is:

I might not change this all season, I love it so much!

As the commissioner of the league, you'd think I'd be good. Not so much. The last two seasons I finished 10th out of 14 teams. This season we have 16 teams, so I figure if I still finish 10th, I've improved. My draft was less than stellar, because although I ended up with the Steelers' defense and Cardinal Larry Fitzgerald, I also ended up with Jeremy "Most Overrated Tight End Last Year" Shockey and, gulp, Bengal's quarterback Carson Palmer.

Week one had me matched against John, my friend Rachel's husband. Now John knows sports and football. Rachel, well, she calls fantasy football it fairytale men and ranks her draft based on how cool or funny the players names are (shocker that she has T.J. Houshmanzadeh). I was a little nervous going into the matchup since John was projected to beat me by at least 20 points.

Of course, then the most terrible opening weekend in the NFL happened and a lot of the games were crap. So despite John getting 41 points from Arian Foster in the Texans win over the Colts (???), I won! The final score was 144 to 137, but I was sweating the whole time. The lead kept changing on nearly every play, and since John had players in both Monday night games, I wasn't completely convinced I had the win.

And now I'm first in the league.

It's all just a rouse, though, because I'm sure it won't last. There is no possible way for me to keep it up. This weekend I play my friend Loni's husband, Jason. I saw him the other day. He told me he hates my league because Loni drafted Peyton Manning and got a bazillion points from him, even though Peyton's team lost and Jason's quarterback is crap (he's got Joe Flacco/Falco). But when he realized he and I were matched up this weekend, he changed his tune, promising to bring the pain.

We'll see. I'm projected to lose by 12, but for me that's not definitive enough. Our quarterbacks go head to head, although my Steelers defense plays in Tennessee this Sunday, while he's got New Orleans D playing San Francisco. So, who knows? All I can say is I'm so glad football's back (even if I lose).