Fall means it's time for football follies

 

This is the weekend that football fans have been longing for and football widows have been dreading for months.

High school, college and professional football have officially kicked off (preseason doesn’t count). It also marks the start of fantasy football, which is a beast all its own.

In 2001, my former college roommate, Terry Barber, invited me to join this new thing called fantasy football. I had never heard of it before, but I always enjoyed kicking his butt in a board game called Bowl Bound by Avalon Hill, so I figured it would be a good way to reconnect and continue the smackdown.

The Barber League is a Yahoo league, and it largely consisted of Terry, his brother Dan, and a bunch of Terry’s friends. A couple of years into it my wife Sandy joined, as did Dan’s son Charlie. Several people have come and gone over time, but a core of about five or six have stuck together for the last 24 years.

We don’t play for money, which is a good thing. It’s a bragging rights league and, to be honest, I don’t have much to brag about. I’ve never finished higher than fourth place, but I have finished fourth probably eight or 10 times. Sandy has won the league twice already. She is a football fan but doesn’t necessarily follow the teams and players that closely. She enjoys watching the games. She is, however, really good with numbers and is able to work player stats to her favor.

I am not a numbers guy, and it shows. Last year, my team, the Masked Avengers, took a commanding lead early in the season and I held first place for about 12 weeks. Then the injury bug bit me. I fell to eighth place and barely made the playoffs. I did recover in time to finish fourth – again!

One of the things I’ve enjoyed about the league is the trash talking. There was a lot of it in the early years, but it’s waned a bit recently. Still, whenever Terry and I go head-to-head, the smack talk gets going. I call it Beak Week because my nickname for Terry in college was Beagle Beak (Snoopy) because of his rather large, protruding proboscis. I won’t tell you what he calls me because, well, it’s my column and I don’t have to!

Nearly every year I accuse him of fixing the league so he can win. I’m happy to report that my accusations are false. He has never won, but he did finish second twice and third twice.

This year we open the season against each other. Yahoo has me favored to win, which is a joke. I managed to draft two players who are suspended and one on injured reserve. I must now decide if I want to keep them on my bench and have them ready in a few weeks when they are available or dump them and pick up lesser players. We do have a transaction limit in the league, so I have to weigh my options carefully.

One of the things I’ve noticed with fantasy football over the decades is how much it’s changed and the distraction it’s become. Most leagues have money on the line and now the gambling industry is asserting a stranglehold on it.

I remember an issue several years ago when I was covering the Sugar Land Skeeters baseball team. They were in an independent league at the time and now they are the Space Cowboys, the Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros. I remember that the Skeeters were dominating the Atlantic League but then had a major late-season slump. I asked manager Gary Gaetti what caused the slump. He blamed it on the distraction of fantasy football.

One of the surreal things I really enjoyed during the years I was photographing Houston Texans games was being right there while my players were scoring. Sometimes I faced the dilemma of needing an opposing player to do well for my fantasy team while I quietly rooted against them on the field.

So, here we are again, starting another season. Just like baseball in the spring, hope springs eternal. The past is forgotten and hopes of a championship loom large. Yeah, it’s football season in Texas, the best season of all.