The Popularity of Fantasy Football is Ruining Fantasy Football

Fantasy football used to be such a fun and tidy proposition.  It was the year 2000 (funny how that sounds now, saying "the year"before 2000) and my college friends and I had signed up for fantasy football.  We had goofy, dirty team names.  We picked real NFL players to score points for these imaginary teams, and all was right with the world.  With a roster of about 10 players, I would know who to watch for each Sunday.  I could focus and root for those players, making otherwise meaningless games much more interesting.  Everyone knew who was on everyone else's team.

Now every time I open my email inbox, I have invitations to join another fantasy football league.  I have capped myself at three leagues, which is a lot of damn football players, well over 30 players to manage.  I have players that I need to score for one team playing for another team in another league that is playing against me.  Sound confusing?  I have long since stopped keeping track on gamedays.  I just eat some chips and check to see where I stand every couple of hours.  The fun of actually knowing who you got, and who your opponent has, is over.
 

And I manage my team on a very simple philosophy.  I want good, healthy players playing against bad teams whenever possible.  It seemed simple enough.  I hoisted my fair share of fantasy trophies and cashed a few checks.  Now there are stat geeks everywhere.  I am drafting guys in the wrong rounds.  The coach's philosophy is going to kill a certain running back.  This guy is injury prone.  This guy is a rookie.  This guy is a felon.  This guy will benefit from this new offensive system.  I have to pick up the handcuff for this running back because I took him in the first round.

Whole channels are dedicated to fantasy.  Whole sports shows.  No pregame show can be completed without analysts giving you their fantasy picks for the week.
 
And the complexities keep coming.  Now we have keepers . . . players you keep from year to year.  Some leagues are dynasty leagues, where you can draft and keep minor league or college players.

And it's not a fantasy anymore--sports reporters get asked fantasy questions by fans more than actual, legitimate, NFL-related questions.  Pro athletes comment on their fantasy performances.  Commentators let you know that this guy who's in the zone, wow, he's generating some serious fantasy points today.

Twenty-three million people are playing fantasy football this year.  Which is great, I guess, but I miss the old days of one team and one league, and you plug your guys without the need to mine stats for six weeks to find a sleeper buried on a team's depth chart.

It's kind of like the old days, the days which I will call "reality sports,"when you had a team that you liked regardless of the players (mine is the Chicago Bears) and they would play against similar teams with equally loyal fan bases.  There was still trash talking, there was still a trophy at the end, and you can still bet on the games (if you are so inclined).
 
Ah, those were the days.  I'm enrolling in a reality sports league as soon as I can find one.