Beware The Man Crush.
By John Moccaldi
For those of you who are not to old, can you remember back, all the way back to the first girl who caught your eye. It was your first crush, she was all you could think about. For me it was a girl in first grade. She was the single most reason why I failed the first grade and had to repeat the year. When we were suppose to be studying, I was staring out the window thinking of her. When it was test time, I, again would be staring out the window thinking of her. When it was time to turn in the test, I would have done nothing. I would have no choice but to hand in a blank piece of paper and fail the test, or quiz, or what ever it was I was suppose to be doing. I could do nothing but think of this girl. My parents never understood how I could fail the first grade. Why I never did any of the work I was suppose to, well now they know.
But even though we have all grown up, we can still develop a crush. It doesn't have to be that special some one, it could be the 60" HD T.V. you want so badly, may be it is the membership to that up scale country club, or may be it is that cigar bar you love to go to whenever you have a couple of bucks in your pocket. But for all of us fantasy ballers, once a year every year we all develop a man crush. It can't be helped, after all of the studying and planning there are one or two players who you just need to have on your team. One or two guys who just stand out to you, you just know these guys are going to perform big. But beware the man crush.
Lets look at some of the players who may have been the object of your affection in the past. Last year it was Matt Forte. Any one who did any studying just knew that Matt Forte was going to be the next big deal. At least half the league had a man crush on Forte last year. And with the second overall pick of the draft last year The Memphis Convicts select Matt Forte. Wa wa wa, he didn't work out to well for The Convicts. Forte was a huge bust. The year before that, Team Jackass (yours truly) developed a man crush for Tom Brady. And with the first pick in the second round Team Jackass selects Tom Brady. Now as all of you know the second round is kinda high to select a Qb. But Team Jackass did it, and one week 24 hours and ten minutes later Tom Brady was done for the season. Back in 1998 my two brothers and I were playing in a dynasty league. Quick explanation, in a dynasty league each team owner gets to keep a pre determined number of players from year to year. Every year you get to choose which players you want to keep and thus it becomes a dynasty league. So my brother Mike, team owner of The Colorado Juggernaut selected Barry Sanders with the first overall pick. One year later Mike, like any of us would have done, keeps Barry Sanders as one of his dynasty players. A few weeks before training camp Barry Sanders retires and the rest is history. Mike lost one of his keepers and a bad team only got worse after that. Last year Team Valley may have had a man crush on DeAngelo Williams. That didn't work out so well. Drafting Williams in the first round with the 5th overall pick was a huge disappointment. We all do it, every year we study, study, study and fall in love with some guy from some team. We jump up in the draft to pick him first. All we see are sunset diners and long walks on the beach. But one day we wake up and we find that we are married to the wicked which of the west and there is no way out. You are trapped with this green skinned, big nosed with a big wart, pain in the ass (Matt Forte, DeAngelo Williams, Brian Westbrook and Greg Jennings).
So be careful fantasy footballers, don't fall in love with those long legs, red hair and beautiful green eyes. Ok who am I kidding all of us just fell in love with a figment of my imagination, but lets just hope she is the right one. The honey moon is great, but the next morning can really suck. So good luck to all of us and our man crush of the year.
