This may just be me, but I am a huge New York Jets fan, crazy enough I am not from New York, it was not something “passed down” to me, yet when I was a kid, I told my parents I liked the team in green.
Stuck with it ever since, can I say I am a die-hard fan, not necessarily, but fantasy is not that important to me. Basically there are two types of fans in the NFL or honestly every major sport; the person who follows their team religiously and would not root for the opposing team, regardless of the amount of the money they might win, then you have the fantasy person – doesn’t know too much about teams, just knows key players and knows how much each is worth to their fantasy team.
I guess the point that I am getting to is this, earlier this season I joined two football leagues, one of which was auto-drafted. Now being a Jets fan, I want everyone besides AFC East players, regardless, but with this auto-draft, my first pick was Tom Brady. You can guess I was not a happy person, at all, and when people know how much of a fan I am, and I told them I benched Tom Brady for Teddy Bridgewater, people were going ballistic.
Like wait, I can’t stand, at all, the Patriots, Tom Brady, or even Bill, so why is it such a surprise that I would bench him. The following week I had Andrew Luck in of my other leagues, guess what, I sat him, it shouldn’t be a shock, it is called loyalty. I will stand by my team one hundred percent of the team, then to win a couple bucks in fantasy football.
Now I am not saying that I dislike fantasy football, or their fans, but I guess the point I am trying to make is that I do not want to see the sport go into a fantasy-only fan-driven league. Where every cares more about fantasy points then teams records. Myself, I would personally rather see the New York Jets make the playoffs and I lose every fantasy game, then to see the other way around.
While I also understand why the NFL and other sports are promoting daily fantasy sports giants such as DraftKings, Fan Duel, along with other fantasy sites, to increase ratings as much as possible, but as a fan, I feel like it is causing the sport to lose some of its originality and spunk. It even feels like commentators are told to speak about their fantasy teams and how the current player is helping their teams.
I mean think about it like this, what if the referees have a player on their fantasy team and they call a penalty because of the possibility they might lose their fantasy game. This is just food for thought, I would like to hear how you guys feel in the comments below.