Fantasy Football 2013: Open letter to Roger Goodell

Dear Roger Goodell,

Congratulations, the start of the 2013 season is upon us. Once again America is equally parts excited to watch their football team and monitor their fantasy team.

I want to thank you for fantasy football. This will mark my 14th year playing it. I must admit though, as much as I enjoy playing fantasy football, the pain greatly outweighs the joy. I spend hours researching players every August, only to have it ruined by a poor draft position making me feel like Zach Morris when Screech lost his ability to see the future when predicting Mr. Testaverde’s midterm. Then I have to deal with all the second-guessing I spend doing Sunday morning instead of enjoying a delightful brunch. But none of that compares to agony of late Monday night when I do the math of how I could have won by starting a different combination of receivers.

Enough about me, this is about your generosity to allow football fans to play fantasy football. People like to joke that you’ve turned the NFL into the “No Fun League,” but really you’ve turned it into the “Nothing’s Free League.” A player wears his socks wrong? Pay up. Celebrating a touchdown with anything more than a smile? Checkbook. Blowing a guy up across the middle? Cha-ching. You’re not a businessman; you’re a business, man.

Yet somehow you’ve allowed the NFL to spawn a billion dollar offshoot industry that you have little say or influence over. The NFL’s own website is THIRD most popular platform for the game. Judging by my Twitter timeline the last week, roughly one-third of the Internet is made up of fantasy football blogs; and none of them are giving you a cut of their action. If Walter White made a step-by-step YouTube video of how to make The Blue, he would still have a better business model than what you currently have for fantasy football. You’re the spoiled, asshole rich kid but everybody puts up with your shit because you let us all use your pool and drink your Capri Suns.

But I know the free ride will be coming to an end sooner rather than later. Soon will come the day that you consolidate all fantasy football action to www.NFL.com. From there you’ll probably take a page out of the owners’ playbook and force all fantasy owners to purchase the equivalent of PSLs just too keep your account active and make us pay additional fees for each team.

So this year instead of signing up for mock drafts, I created burner accounts and drafted as many teams as possible. We’re in the final days of free fantasy football and I intend on getting as much as I can out of it.

Sincerely,
Deion Moskal

P.S.
When you finally create the fantasy football monopoly, save some of that money because there will be class action lawsuit against the NFL filed by the fantasy bloggers for their carpal tunnel and scoliosis.