Storyline: Why couldn’t Fantasy Football remain a virtual world thing? Why did it have to intrude on the NFL so much? Written by Michael Trapani, Riverdale, NJ.
I should start by saying; I’m not a football historian. I’m not a sports writer. I’m not even a blogger. I never played an organized game of football in my life (I played baseball through college). What I am is a 32 year old history teacher living in New Jersey who coaches freshmen baseball. I’m recently married and am looking forward to having children. And lastly, I used to love the National Football League.
The key take-away from that paragraph is “used to.” There was a time that I, like many people in this country, loved the NFL. My first football memory was of the Giants’ Matt Bahr hitting a 42 yard field goal followed by Pat Summerall’s declaration that “there will be no three peat” for the 49ers in 1991. As we all know, that season ended with the infamous “wide right” kick that brought the Lombardi trophy back to East Rutherford.
My parents and brother were Giants fans, so to be a pest; I rooted for every team the Giants knocked off in the playoffs that year. As a young boy, I was a Bears, 49ers, and Bills fan. When I got old enough to realize it was ridiculous to root for three teams, I chose the worst of the three at the time, the Bears, and thus my strange reasoning for being a New Jersey born Bears fan comes to light.
Watching football on Sunday used to be the highlight of my week. I’d sit down on the floor, careful not to obscure my father’s view, and watch Rodney Hampton get 28 carries in a game or Ronnie Lott lay out a receiver on an errant pass. But the thing I probably looked forward to most was when the iconic NBC “ding-ding-ding” came through the TV speakers and the scores from the out of town games scrolled across the screen every 20 minutes or so. It was then I could check in on my Bears and any other team I had interest in.
Courtesy; peoriapublicradio.org
It was an intense 20-30 seconds. I’d remember that 20 minutes ago, the Bears were down 14-10 with 2:21 to go in the 4th. This time, the score that popped up would the final. “Chiefs 21 Chargers 13 F,” Vikings 24 Eagles 10 F.” Next score would be mine….the Bears/Lions game came after the Viking game. “Bears 17 Lions 14 F.” My day was made. I could watch the 4 o’clock games with joy as I knew the Bears had already secured a win. The day’s pressure was done, the rest was gravy.
We all know that watching football on Sunday today is nothing like the early 90s story I spun in the last paragraph. And I’m not blind to or against the great technological leaps that have been made in the last 20 years, but allow me to paint you a picture of what NFL Sunday has become over the last decade using a fictional football fan named John who is a Jets “fan.”
We’ll start John’s day at noon, when he flips on ESPN2 and watches Fantasy Football Now. He drafted Alfred Blue with the hopes of catching lightning in a bottle with Arian Foster being sidelined with a groin tear. After two pathetic performances in weeks 1 and 2, John was on the fence about starting him week 3 against Bucs. At 12:48, John pulls the trigger and decides to pull Blue out of the flex spot and replace him with Leonard Hankerson whose week 2 surprise effort put him on the fantasy radar.
1:05 and week 3 of the 2015 NFL season is underway (because no one cares about the Thursday night game). John’s Jets are playing the Eagles on CBS. John’s TV is set on CBS but he has his laptop open on the coffee table with his Yahoo! fantasy team roster in front of him. John’s fantasy roster consists of no Jets or Eagles. With an eye on the TV and another on the laptop, John manages to “watch” his beloved Jets even though he’s only seeing one out of every three plays in their entirety. His attention is drawn away from the TV by the flashes of red showing that the Falcons are in the red zone (Matt Ryan is John’s fantasy quarterback).
With the Jets drive stalling on their own 34, John decides to flip over to the NFL Redzone channel, hoping that since the Falcons were in the redzone, he’d be able to see the conclusion of the drive. On first down, the Falcons commit a hold and are moved back 10 yards. 1st and 20. Ryan drops back and finds Julio Jones along the sideline for 8. John is now on the edge of his seat as the dream connection of Ryan to Hankerson for a score would get his team off to a great start for the week. 2nd and 12. Ryan in the shotgun. Ryan drops back and slides left to avoid the rush. He fires to the sideline in the direction of Hankerson. Hankerson, struggling to stay in bounds makes an acrobatic catch…touchdown!
John jumps up, screaming for joy as he sees his team’s fantasy score jump up from 12.4 to 24.8. Both teams line up for the extra point when suddenly the whistle blows and the referee starts frantically waving his arms. “The previous play is under review.” Redzone then cuts to the Bengals and Ravens game as the Bengals just completed a pass to the Ravens’ 14 yard line. Three and a half minutes later, Redzone finally shoots back over to the Falcons as the referee finally has the decision on the play. “The call on the field of touchdown has been overturned. The receiver did not maintain control of the ball all the way to the ground. It will be 3rd and goal from the 12 yard line.”
John’s anger boils over, especially after seeing Darren Sproles; his opponent’s flex player punch in a touchdown against the Jets. John’s anger is about his fantasy team and trumps the fact that Sproles’ TD has given the Eagles the lead over his beloved Jets. Meanwhile, the Falcons line up for 3rd down. Ryan again drops back and throws a fade to the back corner of the end zone. It’s slightly underthrown, hits the defender’s back and falls to the ground. Incomplete. A late flag comes in. Pass interference, ball will be placed on the 1. On first and goal from the 1, Ryan hands off to Davonta Freeman who pounds it in. Touchdown…no points for Ryan, no points for Hankerson.
The rest of the one o’clock heat of games continues like this with John switching between CBS and NFL Redzone as the situation dictates. He misses the Jets final possession in their 7 point loss, instead opting for Redzone to watch the Jaguars who have moved inside the 20 with 2:00 remaining, trailing 51-10. John is hoping Allen Robinson, his number 3 wideout, can snag a garbage time TD.
Courtesy: blog.smartbear.com
Fast forward to Tuesday morning when John, opting not to stay up till midnight to watch the Packers-Chiefs Monday Night Football game checks the Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Football app on his iPhone and is overjoyed to see that James Jones put up enough points to pull out a narrow victory and move his fantasy team’s record to 2-1. John puts the phone down without even seeing the actual score of the Packers game, slips on his Jets slippers (you remember, John’s team that just lost 24-17 at home to a team that looked dead in the water coming into the game) and thinks to himself “good football weekend for me.”
Before going any further, in the interest of full disclosure, I have been playing fantasy football for 12 years and I do have a team this year, although this will be the last year that I have one. That said, I wholeheartedly believe that fantasy football is ruining the National Football League. I certainly don’t mean this from a revenue standpoint. The NFL is clearly as profitable as ever. What is being ruined is the enjoyment of watching the sport. The sport has become one to follow, not so much one to watch.
Our main interest is watching our scores update in real time instead of caring about the strategy that goes into the game. The overhaul of the rules to favor the offense is absolutely in response to the popularity of fantasy football. It’s simple to follow. More NFL scoring means more fantasy scoring. More fantasy scoring means more people will keep an eye on games they otherwise wouldn’t watch. It makes sense from an economic standpoint, but from a quality of the game standpoint, it creates major problems.
Cornerbacks have been handcuffed to the point where they have to worry about a flag being thrown on any play they make physical contact with the opposing player. A quarterback can horribly under throw a deep ball but be rewarded with a pass interference call if the receiver stops running and lets the cornerback to plow into him. Let’s examine the numbers. In 2012, there were 406 defensive holding or pass interference calls in the NFL. That number jumped to 428 in 2013 and 450 in 2014.
Through 3 weeks of the 2015 season, there have been 99 such calls. If this pace continues, there will be 561 defensive holding or pass interference calls this season. Obviously, the pace will slow slightly as we get into bye weeks, but the 450 number from 2014 will surely go up. At 450 calls in a season each team is committing roughly one of these penalties per game. This may not sound like much and some of the flags would be warranted in any era of NFL football, but the ticky tack defensive holding on 3rd and 13 from the team’s own 12 that prolongs an eventual touchdown drive has undoubtedly changed the game. Thus far in 2015, teams are getting 2.2 first downs per game via penalty. The only other year that teams got 2 or more first downs per game via penalty; 2014.
Let’s look at some other numbers. Points per game, yards per game, and passing yards per game are all on pace for all-time highs in NFL history through three weeks. Do these numbers make for a better on field product? In this writer’s opinion, it absolutely does not. While I don’t necessarily find a 6-3 game all that entertaining, it’s no less entertaining than watching a 38-35 game of whoever-gets-the-ball-last-wins.
Remember my story about eagerly waiting for the out of town scoreboard every 20 minutes? Clearly, those days are long gone, as they should be. But you can still go quite a long time waiting to see the score of a specific game (given you have no internet access). Why? Lost among the actual scores of the game are the endless statistics for three or four skill position players on every team. Since the advent of Fan Duel and Draft Kings, a new distraction from the actual scores of the games has been added. My personal favorite, the “Perfect” category, where they graciously provide the viewers with the highest scoring player at each position as the games progress as if anyone actually would have that combination of players. The score of the game is an afterthought; it’s the stats that matter.
So much of what the NFL offers is directed to the Fantasy Football fan, who I believe has become separate from the NFL fan. Before writing this, I was thinking of doing a scientific survey of people who view themselves as NFL fans. I would ask them if they had a fantasy team. If they replied yes, I would then present the following scenario:
It’s week 16 of the NFL season and the championship week of your fantasy season. Your favorite NFL team needs a win to make the playoffs. It’s the Monday night game, 4th quarter with your favorite NFL team up by 4. Your fantasy team is down by 1. 4th and goal on the 1 with your team on defense. The team on offense has your fantasy running back. Last play of the game. If he scores, you win the championship, but your NFL team will miss the playoffs. If he doesn’t score, the opposite is true. What would you want to happen?
I had a rough idea in my head how the responses would play out. I assumed the vast majority of football fans would say that they had a fantasy team. I also assumed that a minimum of 50% would choose a fantasy championship over a playoff appearance for their favorite team. The reason I chose not to complete the survey is simple, I didn’t need to. I work with a diehard Giants fan. He’s the kind of guy who buys the Giants team polos and wears them to work. He’s a season ticket holder. He does not have a fantasy team this year.
Courtesy: CBSSports.com
He did, however, have teams in the past. So I went ahead and asked him. After thinking for less than four seconds, he said “if it meant winning my league championship, I’d probably go with that.” That statement gave me more information than I would have gotten from surveying 200 people. I’ve known this man for years. He loves the Giants. He’s all about them. He DOESN’T have a fantasy team this year, meaning he’s not a rabid fantasy guy like so many are. And yet he still said he’d rather have the fantasy title. My 50% minimum prediction might be way too low.
So therein lies the problem. This is why I can no longer connect with the league I loved so much growing up. I blame myself and everyone else who has gotten dazzled by the allure of fantasy football. I’m all for gambling. I enjoy betting against the spreads. But at least with that, we’re rooting for the team to perform, not individual players who are sometimes on opposing teams within the same game. With fantasy, we don’t truly root for teams anymore. We don’t even necessarily have to root for touchdowns. Yards, points, praying for a fumble so your opponent gets that dreaded -2.
We don’t care who wins or loses. We don’t care about the score. We don’t talk about “the game” Monday at work. We talk about our fantasy team. We talk about how we got screwed because the quarterback didn’t target our receiver on the drive that won the game. We blame the coaches, not for poor strategy that led to a loss, but for not using one of our guys enough regardless of whether that coach’s team won or lost.
It’s pathetic, it’s sad, and it’s only going to get worse.
