Becoming A Fan Again

This post is a continuation of sort of a post I made on August 16th 2006 entitled "Is fantasy football good for the game?".

I haven't figured out the answer to that question, but something happened yesterday that hasn't for a long time. I watched the Vikings game as nothing more than a fan.

I didn't give up playing fantasy football this year, but in the only league that I care about my team is 0-6 and you have to go 9-5 to have a realistic shot at the playoffs...you do the math. I got home around 2:00 yesterday from a family event and an hour later turned on the Vikings. I didn't turn on the computer. I didn't even know that my team is now 0-7 until I got to work this morning. I have watched football without my computer on before, but only because I had already won or I was pissed off that Brandon Stokley put up 23 points on me. This time it was because I just didn't care. I was out the race so it wasn't even worth the effort of going into the other room.

Then I watched the Vikings game for no purpose other than I wanted them to win the game. It was honestly the first time I have watched them that way since their last playoff game. Even when Tom and I went to the Metrodome this year to watch them play the hated Packers, I was watching the scoreboard just as much as the game.

For those that don't know me, before fantasy football I was a HUGE Vikings fan and, as my 8/16/06 blog describes, that slowly eroded with the increasing of my love for fantasty football and the decreasing of talent for the purple and gold. Last Sunday on my couch was kind of like seeing a good friend after a 6 year absence. (and finding out that friend is now mentally and physically disabled)

I'm not saying that fantasy football is the devil and I have found the light. It was just an off year for me and for the first time in a while I got to experience being a fan again. I will continue to play fantasy football, but it saddens me that I cannot find a balance between two things I love that are inevitably intertwined.

For any of my league mates that read this blog, my new apathy toward the leauge doesn't mean I am quitting. I will continue to set a lineup because its not fair to others when someone drops out mid-season and, honestly, I am really bored at work.

-Doohow