An Open-Ended Letter to Scoop Jackson

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=jackson/080911

Scoop Jackson thinks that because I play fantasy football, I'm a "sucka."

Never mind the fact that I consider myself to be a humble and rationale gentleman. Perhaps a little gullible but certainly open-minded to anyone's beliefs. These characteristics carry over to me as a football fan. I certainly would not consider myself to be a "sucka," whatever that term may mean.

The interesting thing is about Scoop's latest bad piece of sports writing is that he has skipped over the usual "fantasy football is for dorks angle" and gone straight for our masculinity. He claims that while I may have my "fantasy" while I sit around every Sunday hoping Adrian Peterson rushes for 200 yards, he can live his fantasy of...taking attractive (according to him) women who like football out for drinks and talking about football.

Now I have been in the company of attractive women, some of whom like football (the lovely Miss Sandra included). And I play fantasy football. I would never think by doing one, you wouldn't be capable of doing the other. But that's just me.

At any rate, I decided to write a well-conceived response to Scoop. And if he replies I'll post it here. This is what I wrote...

Mr. Jackson—

I think you miss the point on fantasy football. As a life-long NFL fan, fantasy football doesn't prevent me from enjoying any of the other "nuances" of the game, it just gives me an extra incentive to pay attention to a Cardinals-Dolphins contest that I would have no other interest in.

Plus it's a neat way to compete with friends (and before you make any jocular references to male bonding, there's two women in my league).

And I don't understand how you can say you don't have a problem with the "theory" of fantasy football and then complain about that theory in the next sentence.

I love football just as much as you. I probably read way more John Clayton articles than Matt Berry. As for the term fantasy football, well I don't know the roots of how it was coined but I think it just sounds better to say than "stat-based football" or "fiction football" or whatever alternative would be more language-appropriate than the word "fantasy."

And lastly, with regards to your fantasy, you can have it. I'm glad talking about the NFL over drinks with attractive women is more appealing to you than playing fantasy football. I don't know why you would think to compare the two but it's your column. My reality is that I have a beautiful girlfriend that I'd rather spend time with and plenty of other friends to talk about the NFL without alcohol.

If you think that every fantasy football player is some overly-masculine alpha male who switches the channel every 10 seconds on Sunday to see how many yards Chester Taylor has, then in my opinion you are caricaturing these people. Like most fantasy football players I know, I spend about 10 minutes a week on my fantasy football team. This leaves me plenty of time for leisure...including discussing football with attractive women over drinks.