Sunday, September 11, 2011

Survival Football: Not for the Faint of Heart

Well I’m back ladies and gentleman. It’s been almost three months since I last posted, and that’s not acceptable. I did miss the three months during baseball season though, so did you guys really want to read posts about OPS and the Homerun Derby and Brett Lawrie? Probably not. Come to think of it though, I probably should write something about Brett Lawrie. Maybe soon.
Anyways, I’m back, and it’s time to give you faithful readers (all four of you) what you came to see. Here comes another year of interesting, funny and sometimes controversial sports talk, coming straight from yours truly. Hope you enjoy.
I had my first “Survival Football” experience today, and with it, my first “Survival Football” disappointment. I’m now going to explain what “Survival Football” is, so I won’t feel obligated to keep using these annoying brackets.
Survival Football is a form of fantasy football where the goal is to pick one team to win a game each week. You can never pick the same team twice in a season, and you must survive all 17 weeks without picking a loser. Sounds pretty easy, right? I thought so too.
I joined a league this year with three other people, and we decided to put in enough money for two separate teams. We would not pick the same teams each week, and if either of our two teams would end up winning it all, we would split the prize money between the four of us. With two teams and four savvy football minds (if I do say so myself), we were bound to win, or at least stay alive until we could sell one team and win some money back. It seemed like a perfect plan.
Then again, the Titanic seemed like a perfect ship.
Week 1 rolled around, and it was selection time. The four of us talked and talked and analyzed and discussed. We didn’t want to pick a road team, didn’t want to pick anyone with key players injured, and wanted to make sure to pick the surest bet on the board.
It turns out that picking a sure thing is a lot harder than it sounds. We didn’t want to pick the Texans, because they never beat Indy, and we didn’t want to pick the Eagles, because they were on the road. The rest we deemed too close to call. As a Giants fan, I was actually fine with not picking the Eagles, because trying to bear the thought of cheering for Philadelphia makes me physically ill. I actually just had to take a break to lie down.
Anyways, the Eagles throttled the Rams 31-13, the Texans manhandled the Colts 34-7, and so began the chorus of friends asking me, “why didn’t you pick the Eagles or Texans?”
 That’s the thing about Survival Football. Hindsight, especially from those not playing, is the biggest enemy. Of course it’s easy to know who you should’ve picked after the games are over. Picking it beforehand, where a million different factors dance around in your head, is much tougher. After watching the Bills dominate the Chiefs in the most un-Bills way imaginable, it seems like Buffalo should have been everyone’s first choice. Too bad it was the Chiefs who were actually favored, and were even one of the most picked teams to win on almost every Survival Football site I checked.
This just goes to show how hard Survival football really is, and it leads me back to my own story. The two games we picked were Browns over Bengals, and Chargers over Vikings, both at home. The Chargers survived an early scare and escaped with a 24-17 win, but the Browns were a different story.
In order to keep this paragraph free of expletives, I’m going to use a lot of stars and symbols. That’s how angry I am at the Browns. Excluding the Eagles and maybe the Cowboys, there is no team I hate right now more than the f***ing Browns. I know you’re thinking, “Well why did you pick them then, they're not exactly a pillar of success in the NFL,” but let me explain. The Browns were playing at home, against the Bengals, and this pick was much more about the Bengals then it was about the Browns. Maybe that was our mistake, picking a game based on the atrociousness of one team instead of picking on the other team’s talent. But c’mon, it’s the freaking Bengals.
The Bengals were supposed to be (and still might be) catastrophically bad this year. Not just bad, but 0-16 Lions bad, Spiderman 3 bad, maybe even Horacio Caine in CSI Miami bad. The Bengals went 4-12 last year, and lost some of their better players. They were starting a rookie at QB, lost their leading receiver, and didn’t really add anyone in free agency. Analysts everywhere were picking them for two and three win seasons. We figured you really couldn’t go wrong picking against the Bengals, even if it was with the Browns.
You know the rest of the story; The Browns played an awful game, complete with a Bengals-esque fuckup that left A.J green waltzing into the end zone to give Cincinnati the lead while the Browns had barely gotten out of their huddle (http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-game-highlights/09000d5d8222174a/Bengals-go-Green). I actually thought the Bengals were pretty much as bad as advertised; it’s just that the Browns ended up being worse.
Just like that, one of our Survival teams was finished, and 100 bucks went down the drain. I guess it serves us right for picking a team that last won a playoff game in 1994.
It wasn’t all for not though. It was the first and last time I’ll ever willingly watch a Bengals-Browns game, so at least I can scratch that off my to-do list.

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