Has NFL Fantasy Football Ruined the Integrity of the Game?

It's addicting, it's fun and everybody loves it. 

Welcome to the world of fantasy football. It is game where you have the power to run a "franchise." 

The game has become a huge success over the last five years or so, especially since computers can now track the point totals instead of having to do it yourself like the old days. But how big is too big?

It's gotten to a point where people are rooting for certain players rather than certain teams.

Say your fantasy quarterback is playing your team this week. You want your team to win, but you also want the score to be 45-30 so both your fantasy and real-life team wins.

So if your home team wins, but your fantasy team loses, your mad. If your fantasy team wins and your home team loses, you're also mad. 

Very rarely can both happen in that situation.

How degrading is that? It's gotten to a point where if you're team has a good shot of not making the playoffs, you just jump off the bandwagon.

I know it's wrong, but we're all guilty of it. If your team is 2-7 right now, it's so easy to think, "screw them, I'm just going to root for my fantasy team."

If you're saying that, then you're watching the game for the wrong reasons.

In a way, it's also ruining attendance for NFL games.

Why go watch your favorite team play in the cold when you can stay home, check on your fantasy team every 30 seconds and watch the other 12 games going on?

Some people will argue, "It helps the NFL's popularity, games that are lost like St. Louis vs. Miami will actually have a lot of viewers because everybody wants to see how Reggie Bush and Steven Jackson do."

Ya, they're watching it for the players, not the actual teams. You're just supporting my reasoning.

On game days, ESPN literally has an entire channel devoted to fantasy football and it's regularly one of the highest rated broadcasts. Talk about obsessive. 

I do play fantasy football, and I probably waste too much time on it. And over the years, my beloved Seahawks have become somewhat of an afterthought to my fantasy team when they aren't playing well.  

Call me a bandwagon fan, I don't care because that's how fantasy football is ruining the game for us.