Fantasy Football Complaints

Note: I absolutely love fantasy football. I am in several leagues and think it is one of the 5 best inventions of modern time. But as a blogger I can come up with a list of complaints about Natalie Portman buying me a sandwich, so coming up with problems with fantasy football aint hard.

1. No draft guru EVER sticks his neck out
We all know that every year some sleeper ends up being the fantasy football MVP. Last year Larry Johnson DOMINATED the second hald of the season. The year before I got Peyton Manning in the second round as he rewrote the passing record book. Yet you NEVER EVER SEE any fantasy guru this year picking anyone other then LJ, Shaun Alexander, or LT s the top 3 picks. Where is the guy who will stick his neck out and say that Peyton Manning will have another 40 TD season and be the #1 player, or that CLinton Portis or Steven Jackson will be the man this year. Fantasy football is way too full of sheep. Will someone please grow some balls and say that someone, anyone else, is a top 3 pick. (My pick...Ronnie Brown over LT and LJ) You heard it here first. So laugh now and come pack around December to make sure you read it right.

2. Other players always have an excuse
I have yet to play in a fantasy league where people will just shake your hand and congratulate you when you win the league. Maybe its the fact that my taunting is world class, but people always want to go into some long explanation of how THEY should have won the league if only Marc Bulger hadn't gotten injured for the fourteenth straight season or if they hadn't dropped LJ on waivers the week before Priest Holmes got hurt. No one out there is claiming that luck isn't involved, it's just the losers who always want to remind the world.

3. There are no offseason decisions
If fantasy football is supposed to recreat the feeling about being a GM, then where are offseason trades, tough cuts, free agents, etc? And yes I am aware of keeper leagues, but they NEVER work. Why? Because the owner who has Deuce McAllister as his best player won't pony up 100 bucks next year to play in a league where someone has LT and Tiki Barber as keepers. So some owner always ends up dropping out and finding someone to take over his franchise is about as easy as selling lox in Lebanon.

4. There is no good system for trades
Let's face it, there are 2 kinds of leagues, those where stupid trades happen that make you want to shovel murder (similar to ax murdering) the player that gave away Steve Smith for Ahman Green and leagues that require 50% league approval also known as trades will NEVER happen leagues. On what planet am I going to let the team who has 4 good RBs and no QBs trade a good RB for a good QB. Both of my competitors get stronger? Really? Can I veto this yesterday? There needs to be a way to monitor trades so that it is fair but also lets them take place.

5. Defense is WAY undervalued
We all know that defense wins championships and has nothing to do with fantasy football. Why? Probably because whoever invented ff liked offense a little too much. What am I proposing? How about 5 points for every turn over, 2 points per sack, and a scale that makes holding a team to less then 10 points gets you another 10 points. What will this do? It will make picking which defense is going to have a big year (a fair and cool test of football knowledge) will be key to your next fantasy season. It would make the Bears defense a legitimate 2nd round pick. Now we're getting interesting.

6. Prize money is never enough
Now I know this sounds like a dumb point, because it is whatever you put into it, but there should be some fantasy football organizaion (how about the FFO) that superfunds the prize money in fantasy leagues. How should we pay for this? How about taking 10% of the profits from the NFL package, advertising on ESPN.com's fantasy section, and sales of Aaron Brooks jerseys. How is this fair you ask? Because without fantasy, no one would pay for any of these things. Trust me, no one owns an Aaron Brooks jersey because they think he's a good NFL quarterback, but sometimes 330 yards, 1 TD, and 3 ints is all you need to win a fantasy playoff game with Peyton Manning only playing a half against you.

7. There is no good playoff system
There is something great about the anything can happen, its one game for everything excitement that playoffs bring. I would love to have playoffs in fantasy football. But there is no good way to do it because the better your team did duing the year, the less those players will play come fantasy playoff time. It is completely stupid to reward the team with Dominick Davis and Kerry Collins over the team with Carson Palmer and Shaun Alexander.

So there are 7 major problems with fantasy football. All that means is it has less flaws then most of my friends, girls that I date, and other things that I do on the internet. Fantasy football is back, and I can't wait.

Scot