Fantasy Football Is Finally Here!

As many of you know, I'm the commissioner for a fantasy football league here at the office. I say "a", because there are multiple leagues at Merit. We call it the "B League," and it is a filter into the Big Boy League. Gotta earn your way into that. I also play college fantasy football... but more to come on that later.

The year has started. The first email was received. It's time to pull your sleeves up and get to work.... cause the only thing worse than losing is getting taunted about it before your first cup of coffee on Monday morning. Haven't heard from your commish yet? I thought you might enjoy the note below:

Fellow Fantasy Football Folks,
With the Hall of Fame Game less than two weeks away, it’s officially that time of the year for your regrets from last year’s disappointing finish to transform into hopes for a more successful season this year. Everyone’s records are the same, we’ve all got equal odds at the #1 draft pick, and even Lester and Hickey have yet to make an unbelievably questionable move so far this year. Last year’s champ is no longer among us, so unfortunately that leaves Bill Arnold in his rightful place as de facto Last Year’s Champ – those years of carrying a headset around a college football sideline finally paid off for him.

We all know the drill, spend every day between now and the draft trying to come up with your cleverest team name (bonus points to anybody who can beat the ingenuity that spawned Todd’s team name last year, “Triplett”), finally have a legitimate excuse to read days worth of fantasy football articles, come up with your best sleeper pick, and, for the third year in a row, watch The Little Giants improbably draft Brett Favre in the 4th round (even if he still hasn’t made a decision about un-retiring yet). As always, use this as an excuse to ridicule your coworkers, fleece anyone you can, and cherish the look on an owner’s face when they find out that Andy acquired their starting QB in the other league, which invariably led to a prolonged stint on the DL (seriously Andy, maybe you can use that power for good somehow this year).

Just to give the new folks an idea of what we are playing for: Besides yearlong bragging rights and the opportunity to completely ridicule your peers for some, from what I have seen, of the most ridiculous personnel moves ever, last year’s buy-in was $50. By the end of the season, teams had spent between $60.00 and $147.32 (The commissioner won the frivolous spending title for the 2nd year in a row – and I am willing to take on all challengers again this year). The top team ended up winning $735, 2nd place won $441 and 3rd and 4th won $196 each.

Here’s to another great year! (And Monica- here's a shout out to the only girl I know who gets as excited about fantasy football as I do. I can't wait to see how you do in your league this year, and am so excited that you'll be passing along your passion for the game to your beautiful baby girl!)