Open Letter To Everyone That Plays Fantasy Football

The idea behind "fantasy football" is pretty cool.  But if you play, can we beg you to stop doing these things?

Fantasy football as a concept is pretty cool.  You get to play along with a bunch of friends (or complete strangers if that's what you like doing).  It gives you an opportunity to get together and drink some beers while you draft your completely made up team with real players.  Then week by week you get to watch as the team you assembled either does really well, or crumbles.

For those who don't understand how fantasy football works, there are a couple different leagues you can be in but in a nutshell you have a "draft" where you and your friends are team owners who get to pick real players from the NFL and make up a fantasy team.  You get a certain amount of points if the players that you draft do well week by week.  If you get the most points for that week, your team "wins."

Cool idea right?  it's something you get to talk over and earn bragging rights over.  In theory, it seems pretty cool.

Where it goes wrong is when you claim to be a fan of a real team, but you're still rooting for a player that is on another team because he's on your fantasy team.  I feel pretty confident in saying this on behalf of all the people who don't take part in fantasy football.  We don't care about your fantasy team!  Stop telling us how many points Tyreek Hill got you last week.  Stop rooting for the Chiefs' defense because you were "lucky" enough to snag them from Rick in the accounts receivable department because he's never done anything with fantasy football before.

Shut up about it.  It's annoying.  And don't ask if I'll change the station from my game to watch some player that you've got on your fantasy team.  It's not happening.  You want to play fantasy football?  Go for it.  You want to talk about it with somebody?  Talk with someone else who plays fantasy football.  And stop thinking that you know more about football than everyone else because you check stats every Monday morning to see where you stand in your league.  Watch a game.  Better yet, try to play a down.

And for the love of God, stop telling me you're a Bills fan and rooting for people on other teams.  It's stupid.

Go Bills.