Image via Complex Original
11.
It's that time again, the time where guys too good for Dungeons & Dragons get together and draft hypothetical football teams leading to yet another 17-week stretch of madness gathered around apps, web pages, and TV shows chock full of statistical overlays telling you who to start, and (sometimes more importantly) who not to start. Depending on your level of dedication, the success of your players may be more important to you than the success of your hometown team. This is possibly the single greatest contribution of Fantasy Football, the fact that it provides context for the 15 games a week you used to not give a shit about.
Just like with non-fantasy football, the best time of the year is in early September before a string of bad games and injuries depletes your roster and has you scraping the bottom of the free agent barrel to save your embarrassing season. Late summer is full of possibility and hope springs eternal. Meeting up with your friends/co-workers is the calm before the storm, like that first trip around the Monopoly board. The only negative is that you're more than likely to bump into a few of these less than savory, often insufferable, characters along the way. Here are 10 Types of People You Meet in Your Fantasy League.
10.The Reigning Champ
He's been swinging that dick around all offseason but his victory has made him complacent, like a lion who's gotten lazy. Whether he realizes it or not, you're coming for his throne. Last year he won bragging rights along with a mock-heavyweight title belt and $600 cash. He then turned that into an authentic NFLShop jersey, some Chipotle and a Brazzers account. Sure, he's a good enough guy to share you on the password, but he's still abusing the power of his title by consistently playing the "I'm the King" card whenever he doesn't want to drive, pay a bar tab or wear protection before sleeping with your sister (whom, unfortunately, he's married to).
9.The Blind Homer
First Round: Matt Forte, Second Round: Brandon Marshall. Third Round: Jay Cutler. Oh, he's taken? In that case: Jimmy Clausen. The obnoxiousness of his inability to admit that there are good players outside his hometown only comes second to his constant usage of the pronoun "we" when referring to the team he roots for. At one point you sarcastically ask "Oh, you were on the Bears?" Several moments later (after figuring out you were mocking him) he gives you a passionate speech/lecture about what it means to be a "true" fan.
8.The Auto Drafting No-Show
Auto draft was created for guys who can't carve out one freakin' night in an entire year. It also gives the "No-Show" the perfect out when his team blows, mainly due to the fact that he has 5 QB's on his roster. All season he'll bemoan the ineptitude of his squad and constantly claim that "[He'd] be in first if he made his own picks." When you eventually bite, and ask him where he was, he'll tell you he had an emergency. Hard not to question him when you remember checking his Facebook status that night and seeing that he posted "Dropped my keys in the toilet AGAIN #fml."
7.The Vet
He knows what guys can't play in cold weather. He has the inside track on looming injuries. He understands which free agents will thrive in their new offenses, and which will not. This is all thanks to his "inside info" (a.k.a. Adam Schefter's Twitter feed). Unfortunately for this dingleberry Fantasy Football isn't rocket science, which is why all his research and effort never leads to anything better than a third place finish. Here's a Complex tip, free of charge: Start your best players. If it doesn't work out then: A) It still saves you from the pathetic stress headaches that come from deciding who to play in your Fantasy league and B) Oh well, not the end of the world.
6.The Guy Who Kept Accusing You of Stealing His Picks
For somebody you had just met he seemed way too comfortable yelling at you. When you picked Drew Brees he said you took his pick. When you snagged Jamaal Charles he said you took his pick. When you took Dez Bryant he angrily blurted "Oh come on! Are you really pulling this shit again!?" During the season it dawns on you that his strategy was to pick the best players available.
What a novel concept.
5.Mr. Apathetic
You're not sure why he's in the league but after you hear two rival "G.M.'s" have a heated debate over Eli Manning's TD-to-INT ratio against the blitz you begin to question why you're in it too. Throughout the Draft loud exhales could be heard coming from his general direction followed by an occasional "How many rounds are left?" Or a "I don't care, pick for me." The best part is when the season begins he never once checks his lineups and is bound to giveaway at least one automatic victory. After all, there's no way you can lose against a backfield on a bye week, unless of course your backfield is comprised of both Trent Richardson and Matt Schaub.
4.Comments on Every Pick Guy
By the fourth round of the draft you realized he was going to say "Are you serious!?" after every pick you made. You wanted to say something back but you didn't want to ruin the vibe and make things awkward. Next time you chose someone he scoffed and said "Oh my god, you could've waited at least two more rounds." When you followed up with "Dude, I really don't give a fuck," he put his hands up and said "Whoa! We got a tough guy here," while looking around the room with a smirk. If you have two options: Go 1-13 and beat him, or go 13-1 and lose to him, you're taking the 1-13 route every time.
3.Guy Who Took Forever to Make His Pick
This is "Fantasy," not real football. If you make a bad pick/start talk radio isn't going to tear you to shreds until you're fired. His ambivalence knows no bounds, and you begin to question whether he's just being an asshole when during the draft he maxed out his allotted time before taking a kicker.
2.The Guy Who's a Few Years Behind
He doesn't have time to follow football every Sunday on account of having a life newborn twins, so his NFL knowledge is stuck in time. Right before he drafted he perused a 2010-11 Football Guide during a five-minute brush-up shit and your league kept looking around when he picked Steven Jackson and the Bears defense in the early rounds. As the season reaches the midway point he finally gets around to checking the standings and is shocked to find his team in last place saying "The fuck? I thought Michael Vick was good!?" But in a league where players age faster than air traffic controllers you knew this was coming, though it serves him right for spending his free-time with his family.
1.The Outsider
Last year this was me, the guy who had to join because there was an extra slot and I quickly found out the perils of not being in an inner circle. One week I was playing this guy named Jim which is a pseudonym not to protect him, but because I really don't know what his name was. Anyway I played Jim in a mid-season match-up and wiped the floor with him because he curiously started a few guys on bye weeks.
Afterward my only connection to the league asked me "Did you see what happened to Jim?" Thinking he was referring to our league I said "Yeah, I killed him," unaware that he had actually died in a car accident a few days earlier. Needless to say, that off-hand comment made me look like a colossal bulging dick. Jim had Peyton Manning, Adrian Peterson and the Seahawks defense and because he was dead nobody could make trades with him. He ended up winning the league, allowing him to go out a champ a la John Elway. Which was okay with everyone, since we all ended up getting our money back.