[Business Day One] – Fantasy Etiquette Part 2
As I wrote about last week, fantasy football is as much about friendship and being a good sport as it is about compiling the perfect team. At least it should be, anyway. Sure, there’s trash talk before the draft, audible “you just drafted Eddie Kennison” groans during the draft and jokes about where you’ll put your trophy after the draft. But that’s in good fun. It’s the jokes that friends make among friends. And there’s a line between that and being “that guy.” You know the one. “That guy” whose eyes flare wide when they hear the term bye week carried on the wind.
I’ve got an issue with folks that have obsession issues. It’s why I don’t go to comic conventions or Magic: The Gathering tournaments. Nerds (I will use the term “nerd” in this article to
describe anyone with an aggressive love of any hobby) have this nasty habit of flexing their nerd muscles publicly. They not only express their powerful and startlingly well-researched views, but they want to demolish yours. A conversation with a nerd becomes a power struggle. Any opinion you offer somehow jeopardizes the sanctity of their intellectual nerd fortress. Even if you agree that Wedge Antilles was the linchpin of the Rebel’s fighter strategy at Endor, if you don’t agree hard enough, a nerd will scoff and pelt you with Dippin’ Dots. Fantasy football managers, don’t be that guy. Don’t ever be that guy. Your team is together and you’re proud of it. And that’s awesome. But I do believe that sport is more about unity than division. Naive, maybe. But I’m trying to push my canon and you folks are reading, so hopefully I’ll get a couple of head nods out of you. I won’t hit you with highly processed ice cream if I don’t, though.
So Miss Manners is back once again, to give you some post-draft fantasy football etiquette advice that you can use throughout your seasons:
Be aware that any fantasy football team sounds amazing before Week 1. Read More
I’m actually going to leave aside the legal aspects of the story for now and focus more on the disciplinary side. Michael Vick operated a dogfighting ring out of his own home for years, using the money he received from the Atlanta Falcons organization to bankroll it. How should the NFL sanction him?
And when I say “animal cruelty” here, I’m not talking about testing cosmetics on animals. 
Willis McGahee has 
His wife! What a story! What a scoop! A professional football coach demanding analysis – or at least sympathetic aggrievement – of his spouse?!? What’s next?
Adalius Thomas should join the long and storied ranks of players who left the Ravens franchise to become hugely famous contributors elsewhere: Priest Holmes, Sam Adams, Chester Taylor, Brandon Stokley, etc, etc, ad infinitum.
A handful of retired players 
Ditka boycotted the ceremonies on Saturday to make a point. But he also could have been avoiding a depressing sight – row after row of shaken old men. Howie Long 
video game time in. Football obviously doesn’t turn people bad. Pro sports as a whole doesn’t either. Playing in front of the cameras runs someone through an industrial process, not an alchemical one. They get pounded and sculpted and scrutinized, but their component parts do not change. What you put in is what comes out, generally.
You ever wish you had a championship ring you could accidentally give to a Russian? 
Setup: Fold a piece of 8.5 x 11 paper in half so it’s long and skinny. Fold it in half again the same way. Now triangle it up like you’re folding an American flag. The resulting wad should be a very compact little triangle. If you don’t know how to fold an American flag, join the Boy Scouts and suffer like the rest of us did.
Rules: One player attempts to throw the projectile into the trashcan. The other player plays defense. If played in an office, the players may confine themselves to wheeled office chairs for an added challenge.
You then work this trio of coins up the table by sliding one of them between the other two. The moving coin can’t touch either of the stationary coins and it can’t fall off the table, or play changes hands.
Rules: After a mock insult is exchanged between the players, they bump chests, throw their arms up into the air, and taunt each other with some variety of, “You wanna go? You wanna throw down, cupcake? You gonna back up that tough talk? What? What you looking at? What?” This continues until one or both players back down, saying some equivalent of “That’s what I thought” or “Yeah, you just wait.”