Fantasy football craze

BUSTED? It's estimated close to 65 per cent of fantasy football enthusiasts like Greg Estabrooks, fix their lineups and do their research at the workplace. Photo by Chris Dawson
__________________________________________

It’s a typical afternoon for Greg Estabrooks.

The Cogeco news anchor is going over some scripts on the computer. But the information highway sometimes gets him side tracked, as he signs on to a fantasy football website to check out his stats.

Estabrooks has been offered a trade, but he’s upset because his opponent pulled the offer at the last minute.

“I liked that deal,” he said. “That makes me mad.”

More than 15 million football fans across North America are involved in fantasy football. It works pretty much like a hockey pool, usually in the early fall guys get together and have a draft, and using fantasy football websites or sports magazines as guidelines, the players draft their own team of individual players. Typically the teams get points for touchdowns, passing, rushing and receiving yards.

Rob Hurtt, a fantasy football expert with the Sporting News, says fantasy football brings out the inner coach in all of us.

“Fantasy owners focus more on the numbers, but they also are like NFL coaches in that they exploit various strengths and weaknesses to get favorable match ups. When an owner's top quarterback faces the Patriots' defense, it's time to call in the backup. A receiver on the fantasy bench suddenly becomes a starter if his team is facing an aging secondary and battered defensive line," said Hurtt.

Kevin Ratterree writes for the fantasy football website www.thehuddle.com

“I think fantasy football is based ultimately on testosterone,” Ratterree said. “I play in a few money leagues and I can tell you that the prize money is nice, but the real rush comes from just kicking everybody else's ass with your superior knowledge and prognostication.

“And it's a control thing too. You create a team through your own skill. Manage the team week to week trying to improve upon what you have. You call the shots. You create the monster. And in the end if you put the monster you built kills everyone else's monster, you are rewarded. It's an ego trip!”

Playoff Time

With the regular season winding down, that means in Head to Head fantasy football pools the playoffs are heating up.

Mike Gurini is in a Head to Head league called the Pub Bowl. Right now he’s on the playoff bubble.

“Excitement is at its peak, “ Gurini said. “Its nerve wracking because you have been working on this for 10 weeks plus.”

Estabrooks is in the same pool, but his season has unfolded about as smoothly as Anna Nicole Smith’s speech at the American Music Awards. He’s winless in 12 weeks of competition.

“I make too many bad trades and that’s what kills me in some of these pools,” Estabrooks admits.

Obsession?

But his love for fantasy football doesn’t start and finish with the Pub Bowl. He’s involved in 4 other similar fantasy football pools as well.

I asked Greg, “Why five?”

He replied, “Because I haven’t been asked to go in a sixth!”

Clearly he’s a fantasy football fanatic, and like many others even here in North Bay, his love for the game is clearly noticed by loved ones.

“The truth is, I think he’s in too many pools.” explains Greg’s wife Tammy Estabrooks.

“I think he’s obsessive about the whole thing. I don’t know why you have to be on the computer to watch every play on the computer, it’s irritating, but he could be doing a lot worse.”

A Bad Investment?

So with no monetary fantasy football gains on the horizon this year Estabrooks has created a problem for himself. You see his wife has finally seen enough fantasy football entry fees go to waste.

So next year Tammy insists any money he spends on fantasy football she can spend that equal amount on anything she wants as well.

“I don’t know what I’ll do with the money, but that’s the new deal,” Tammy Estabrooks said.

Sounds like you better start winning Greg.