It’s not unusual for colleagues to create an inter-office Fantasy Football league. Bonding over sports is a rite of passage. And bonding over specific players within those sports – especially football, and in Texas – is almost as good as Franklin’s BBQ. So 12 GSD&Mers (sporting varying degrees of fantasy football know-how) signed up and put our credibility and decision-making abilities out there for all of our ‘best buds’ to subjectively evaluate.
Let’s take a closer look one team’s experience – and decide for ourselves just how much ‘fun’ these people are actually having.
ESPN’s John Clayton recently caught up with Sippy Cups’ head coach David Hughes to get his side of the midseason slide that is also typical of his alma mater’s (editor’s note: Texas Tech’s) November schedule.
When asked point blank if the team is stuck, Hughes became extremely emotional – confusing the question with when his quarterback was literally stuck in melted tar over this summer’s seven-on-seven drills in a west Texas parking lot. ‘Are you kidding me!? We work with what we’ve got… we’ll run it back barefoot if that’s what it takes to get better. We’re coaching these guys to be EXPLOSIVE in their route running, regardless of conditions.’ A confused Clayton then approached the question differently, explaining to the sobbing Hughes that the ask was simply in reference to his office’s fantasy football league. Hughes responded ‘oh.’ He went on to say ‘we just have to be better in all four phases of the game. You can’t have an all-star quarterback [Brady] putting up 1 to 5 points each week, while your RBs, WRs, TEs and Defense(s) are giving it everything they’ve got to cover the spread… you can’t win like that. Not in this [fake] league!’
Brady’s recently shown signs of what he’s capable of in the New England offense, but it is too late? ‘I won’t know where he’s at until we get him over to the facility this week. The therapists at Milk and Honey have told me he’s had a good couple of days – rotating back and forth between 90 minute Swedish massages and pedicures on each of his lingering turf toes. We’ll get him started with some light sets of jumping jacks this afternoon, and go from there.’
While whatever happens in these next couple of weeks is still unknown, on thing is clear; GSD&M Fantasy Footballers are not to be labeled pretenders. ‘You can call us many things; offenders, big spenders, defenders… but if I catch anyone using that other word to describe this group of middle aged office professionals, you’d better be ready to leg wrestle.’
When Hughes turned the tables on Clayton at the end of their sit down, asking how he’d sum up this group, the answer was clear: Contenders [unless the Sippy Cups lose this weekend, at which point the team will become a complete dumpster fire in hopes of getting Kliff Kingsbury in next year’s draft].
