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NOTES FROM A KEEPER
 The Universe-Improving Ups and The Death Knell Downs of a Fantasy Keeper Leaguer
by Michael E Lawrence
30/9/2007
It’s like the philosophical quandary designed to stump the moralist: a building is burning – do you save the child on the second floor or the group of adults on the first?
You can’t save both. You can only save one.
So there we are, my sibling and I, in the Sports Caf, London, trying to keep track of four different screens, but mainly I’m staring at one: Jets at Bills.
My brother is full of beans (or soon will be) because all the results are going his way and he’s got quesadillas coming. But me, I’ve got stomach cramps and for the life of me I can’t decide who to root for.
Its my boys (the Prophets) versus… my boys (the Jets.)
Who to cheer?
You see, my little organisation of fantasy football excellence for which I have cared for so long features at its fearsome helm two Buffalo Bills, in Lee Evans and Marshawn Lynch, who have already logged important points, and as such have us in the lead against a heavyweight opponent in the WRUKSCFFL.
But the Jets are down 10-7, and I’ve been a Jets fanatic since I was 9. I used to take our family hairdresser a mugshot of Ken O’Brien, nattily coiffeured, and hop on the chair requesting the same cut. (As it happens, it came out as a bowl cut every time looking back I think my Mother may have been behind me silently overruling my instructions with nods and winks. If only I’d videotaped the signals)
And I so want the Jets to take it to Buffalo – who used to trample us so mercilessly throughout the 1990s, as O’Brien’s and then Browning Nagle’s stars faded – to emerge triumphant, at last, as an NFL power to be reckoned with under the Mangenius.
And yet I want Evans and Lynch to score more.
This is what fantasy football does – turns fans against their teams, players against coach, brother against brother!
Richie says: “Pass me the ketchup.”
But it’s a heart wrench – am I to stab at the team I’ve loved since childhood in the name of sweet, selfish victory over a despised league rival? In my mind’s eye Al Toon comes to me and whsipers sadly: “et tu Mikey.”
The waitress asks me what I want.
I say:
“A Jets win, but with an Arena League scoreline.”
She writes down ‘nachos’, and wanders off.
*****
As it turns out, this particular Sunday is the Sunday the Holybourne Prophets stand up to be counted.
It’s not that we are firing on all cylinders, it’s more that we’re exploding those cylinders like party poppers, stylishly, nonchalalantly, dancing around our opponents like the Harlem Globetrotters danced around clumsy foes in black and white celluloid. Everyone is scoring.
Justice, I have to say, is being served.
It is being served because last week, frankly, was a debacle. There are times, as a Fantasy coach, when you are convinced the entire world and above all any shred of justice, of karma, of simple Christian pity is completely and inexorably against you.
Last week was one such week.
Of course at times every losing coach lies in bed unsleeping, thinking of the missed field goal or the reviewed touchdown catch that could have, should have won the game. If only I’d If he’d just If we only could have
But last week cruel fate thwocked me not once, but twice in the proverbial ‘nads.
Having levelled our record to 1-1 with a solid, workmanlike win in week 2, all that separated the Prophets from 2-1 last Sunday was one of the poorest teams in the league. They were punchless, flaccid, already beaten. A cursory glance down the roster promised names that could not possibly outscore my Prophets: Trent Green, Deuce McAllister, Derrick Ward, Joe Horn, Troy Williamson, Kevin Curtis.
Sorry, what was that last one?
Kevin Curtis. You know by now what he did he equalled the record for first half receiving yards (205) set by Evans in 2006. He scored three touchdowns. He was, evidently, completely unabashed by having to wear pastel blue and banana.
And in a second shot to the groin, I left Ronnie Brown, whose own 200 yard, three touchdown effort would have won me the game by several light years, with ass firmly glued to bench.
We lost by three.
But now, puffy eyed, swollen cheeked, blurry visioned, the 1-2 Prophets, staggering falteringly towards the upraised fists of one of the league’s finer outfits, the RFK Hogs, are taking them completely by surprise. We are Rocky Balboa, they are Apollo Creed.
Cut me! we cry as we charge towards them again and again.
There will be there is no contest.
We are destroying them, and will be 2-2 after all. It’s 66-36 before the Monday night game has even kicked off, and whatever points final starter Wes Welker brings to the table in the inevitable Cincinnati/New England offensive explosion will be dressing, nothing more.
But, I think, as smugly I cover my nachos liberally with ketchup and sour cream, dressing has never tasted so sweet.
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