You probably don't care about the details much now that the season is over. You have won or lost, and are either being smug or sulking with your friends as we speak. Rather than do a typical rundown of the week's performances, here are some closing thoughts on the season.
1. I love it, but fantasy football is stupid. You know how NBA statisticians adjust scoring and defense for the pace of the game? And how baseball sabermetricians downplay pitchers' wins and losses in favor of performative measures like, uh, how well they pitched? Well fantasy football is in no-man's land, rewarding players for relatively unspectacular performances (i.e. Ryan Fitzpatrick throwing meaningless touchdowns) and for conduct detrimental to the team (i.e. Tony Romo getting more desperation yardage and scores after burying the Cowboys with a couple pick-sixes). It was a good thing for Drew Brees' fantasy owners that the 7-9 Saints had such a miserable defense this year. I know there are fantasy wins that result from actual quality on the field, but let's pretend otherwise since my team came up short in the championship. You can too.
2. You should listen to me next year. Why? Because I just asserted it, first of all. Secondly, fantasy is fairly random, and its analysis very redundant. Odds are I get some right and some wrong and how well you notice either will depend on how your team did. My preseason picks for top fantasy players all hit the #1 or #2 spot at their position, save for LeSean McCoy (#21 RB, ouch) and Julio Jones (#9 WR, at about 2.5 points per game less than top dog Calvin Johnson). Notable predictions included Julio moving past teammate Roddy White in production, Tom Brady staying healthy thanks to his tendency to duck invisible defenders, and DOUG MARTIN! Pretty good, right? Yeah, except for the following: a couple random touchdown switcheroos would have White back in front of Jones, my love for the Patriots was due to a perception that Josh McDaniels' return would have seismic a impact on the offense (it did, just for the running game), and Doug Martin was no secret since there are no secrets anymore. I also said this about Martin:
He won’t be Arian Foster, but he is a classic “don’t sleep on him” player, as Foster was when competing for the Texans’ starting gig in 2010.Well, he wound up tied with Foster for second place in points at running back, defying my statement about as thoroughly as possible. And of course, I didn't guess that Adrian Peterson would lift himself above the species or that Alfred Morris would produce about as well as Ray Rice or a bunch of other stuff that no one predicted.
3. Fantasy football is necessary. The NFL can thank the fantasy game, aside from the general attention it garners to the sport, for the way it paces fans throughout the season. Many games would be played between losing and/or boring teams without any fan interest, but multitudes of fantasy players pay attention to these games and stay familiar with these teams and players for self-serving reasons. On the other hand, the falseness of the fantasy season gets pretty draining to everyone aside from the league champion by year's end, giving the real NFL a late season bonus. Since we're tired of checking on Chris Johnson during a 38-10 Titans blowout loss, the high-stakes nature of week 17 and postseason games is incredibly refreshing. So football fans engaged in fantasy activity are held over with relevant statistics from meaningless games during the year, then ready to consume tons of real football action as the fantasy year concludes.
We will return to the land of fantasy football as next year approaches. I hope about 10% of you won fantasy hardware this year, since a higher percentage would mean you were playing in a weak, small league or had some communistic awards process at year's end.
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