My Fantasy Team: Pawns, Points, and Munchkin

This fall marks an unprecedented moment in my gaming life: I'm playing fantasy football for the first time ever, ever. So far, I've been pretty hands off (I let the yahoo robots draft my team) and things seem to be going well. I don't think I could have done better had I drafted my team in person.

With very little connection to these players, I'm just viewing them as pawns. That seems too generous. These players are more like energy sources; their statistics a numerical fuel that produces points. Points? Ug. I hate points.

The top point sources are my nine starting players, plus a defense. Then I have seven players who are "sitting on the bench," but I'm thinking of them as unequipped or stored in my stash. Honestly, these nonstarters are pretty crappy; trash items in gaming terms.

Now I'm thinking of my players in terms of equipment...like in...

Yes! Fantasy football is Munchkin! It all makes sense now.

I'm strapping players to my body as armor and wielding players as weapons. Each player provides an undetermined amount of points that count to my total. At the end of the week, my opponent and I tally our points and go head to head using that point total. The person with the equipment that generates the most points wins. It's that easy.

The truth is that I'm having a lot of fun imagining Drew Brees as chainsaw or fruitcake. Too bad he's not on my team. Instead I have Michael Vick. I guess, as a piece of equipment, he could be a spikey dog collar (+3 against Animal Rights Activists).

Keeping with the fantasy theme, I have a douchey-looking white wide receiver named Eric Decker and I've already started calling him Eric Deckard Cain.

Did I mention that I don't give two craps about NFL football? Or its players? I barely give one crap about college football. It was the NAU Grease Rats that got me caring about football at all. In memory of that NCAA Football 2007 college team, I named my fantasy football team The Grease Rats. Perhaps it will bring me luck. Greasy rats are lucky, right?