FANTASY Football sucks. There, I said it.  Don’t break your computer, just yet. To clarify–before you go off and do something you and your wallet (computers aren’t cheap) might regret–reread my first sentence. Notice in all caps the word “fantasy”?  Okay good, now that we have that squared away, I can tell you the reasons why I think Fantasy Football should be abolished (tweaked at least), and my horrible experiences with Fantasy last year.

1.The Draft. Last year was my first (and last) time playing  Fantasy Football,  and draft day was the most hectic 24 hours of my life. First, you have to decide whether you would like to sit in front of your computer for six hours of your life and actually draft all of your players, or leave it up to auto draft. I made two teams last year (big mistake) and so I tried out both options.

Truth of it is, neither option is good. If you draft player by player, you run the risk of running out of players you know to draft (which if you’re like me, and don’t know every single player in the NFL, happened very early on). And if you auto draft (which I did for my second team), you will probably end up with one or two good players (at least I snagged Chris Johnson) and a whole bunch of guys who the computer drafted for who knows what reason.  In short, if you aren’t experienced in the draft, you end up with a team that puts up horrible numbers and wins none of its match-ups.

Nick’s solution: Make a site that has an easier draft that guides you instead of giving you a desert island and telling you to make a city

2. Trading.  Sounds easy, right? I’ll give you the Bears defense if you give me Carson Palmer. It is easy, if that’s the only trade that goes on in a week, but it’s not. If you are an active Fantasy manager (which you need to be to win, at all, EVER!), then you need to make trade after trade after trade; it becomes your life. You are constantly looking at players’ stats (both real and projected), trying to trade for the best team you can put on the field on that upcoming Sunday.

I say the word “you” in that last sentence, but I never did any of those things. Over the course of the season, I think I made two trades. I never looked at who had a bye week or who was injured and thus only got good quality production from two or three guys the entire season. Needless to say, I lost almost all of my games.

Nick’s solution: Make an auto-trade feature; let the computer look at data and determine whom I need and whom I can trade to put the best team I can on the field. And then give the computer the ability to do it. Let the computer execute trades like it executes draft picks, so I can log in on Monday, and instead of having to think about whom I need to shop, I can see that I won and get on with my work.

3. Everything else (but mainly math).  One thing there can’t really be a solution for in Fantasy Football is math. To me it always felt that I was switching between games, trying to come up with how many points my team was scoring based on how well my players were doing. I would be sitting on the couch trying to equate my points with how many yards my QB, RB, and WRs were getting.  And all the while, it just felt like school.  Something that football shouldn’t feel like.

4. That Disconnected Feeling.  Another thing about the Fantasy game to me that it seems can’t be fixed is that disconnected feeling I would get on Sunday afternoons.  I would be happily watching the Bears game, then realize that the Vikings were also playing and flip the channel to see how many points my star running back was getting me. Then I would find myself actually cheering for the Vikings (ahhh, so annoying!). And that’s truly the thing I dislike most about Fantasy: it makes me cheer for the wrong team, and doesn’t let me watch the Bears play in peace.

Nick’s ultimate solution:  Stop playing Fantasy!

I hope I have given you a good look into the world of Fantasy. And I hope I have influenced you in some way. But what I really hope is that now I can just sit down and watch the Bears play in peace.  No, Mom, I don’t want to clean my bathroom.

Readers, tell us about your experiences with Fantasy! Thumbs up or thumbs down?