Living the StatTracker Life
Every year around week three of the fantasy football season, I break down and pony up $9.95 to the good folks at Yahoo! so I can enjoy minute-by minute updates of my games on Sunday. Without sounding too much like a shill for a company that is definitely not paying me, let me try to explain for those of you who are squinting at CBS’s ticker all afternoon trying to figure out what is going on or (heaven forbid) just set your lineups and try to figure it out tomorrow.
Be Fruitful and Multiply!
First of all, let me speak to those of you who draft just one fantasy football team a year: what Bill Cosby once said of parents of just one child, I say about you. You are not real fantasy football owners. I have four teams a year: just enough to play a couple of formats and with different groups of friends, not so many that I am drafting teams I don’t intend to keep up with. But the difference with four teams is almost all the time, almost every game has some interest with me. No matter what ridiculous game is on FOX during the Titans game, I probably have some reason to flip over to it and cheer and boo. And most scoring plays seem to hurt you in some leagues and help you in others. Keeping four scores straight, remembering who is playing for me or against me in all the leagues, is a bit like sorting out that stupid Rubik’s Cube that kicked my butt all through 1985.
A Day in the Life:
I have a term to propose to the fantasy community: the Stattracker Sulk. It is defined as the feeling you get when you fire up your computer at 2:15 and figure out you are down 73-24 in a key matchup. You know how you sit and try to count how many guys are playing the late games, and how many points they may be worth, and how maybe Carson Palmer will start airing it out with the Bengals down 14 in the fourth quarter? Fun, but frustrating. No matter how much you sort of know what’s going on by watching the stat ticker on TV, you still sort of hold out hope that maybe that extra TD in the Bears game unaccounted for in the CBS ticker was really a Brandon Lloyd end-around, and you have more points coming through. With stattracker, though, the sight of how big a can your opponent is opening up on you is clearly visible. Ouch.
Tracking Your Comeback
Of course, you don’t play fantasy football or pay for extra features just to feel kicked in the teeth week after week, year after year. No, if that’s what you want, just become a Vikings fan and enjoy the same benefits for free. Don’t believe me? Two words: Morten Andersen. But I digress. The great thing about using a service like the tracker is watching your team mount a comeback. Either in the late games, where 73-24 whittles down to 80-57 and you still have a stud RB playing on NBC. Or better yet on Monday night, when your kicker starts booting 50-yarders and you frantically pull up the screen to watch your team pull into the lead (shout out to Mr. Blanks in the ol’ Maury Hills League on that one!)
Keep Up With The Johnsons: Larry, Andre, Calvin… Bryant? Bryant?? What The ^*&(^*(?
However you choose to track your progress, just remember: all the quickest access to information in the world doesn’t fix suck. You still have to draft well, set your lineups, and know the trends in the NFL. Next week, if you fire up the firefox and see that 101-19 deficit, maybe you’ll recognize. Next week, check out the pigskinpundits.com podcast on iTunes and get your Johnson straightened out before noon Sunday, when it is just too late to do anything but witness the carnage.
