The NFL season kicked off Sept. 8 with a disappointing loss for Saints fans, but for another breed of football fanatics, success or defeat wasn’t decided until the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
The final play of Monday Night Football means that fantasy football gurus can either admire their success or rebuild for next week.
Fantasy football is a competition in which participants manage teams of NFL players in a quest to acquire more “points” than another person’s team.
Teams earn points based on the performance of the players on that team each week during the NFL season. Fantasy football is hard to ignore during the NFL season. The topic permeates the sports world so much that even the mildest sports fan is subject to its influence.
Mega sports news outlets spend hours a day talking about topics almost exclusively pertinent to fantasy football enthusiasts.
Networks such as ESPN and Yahoo.com employ analysts to work entirely in the realm of fantasy sports.
One would imagine that a college football player would be engrossed in fantasy football, but the general consensus among LSU football players is to the contrary.
“I don’t pay attention to it,” said sophomore wide receiver Kadron Boone. “I just watch a few teams play.”
Boone said fantasy football isn’t something he and his fellow LSU players talk about very much.
“I don’t really do the fantasy football thing,” said sophomore defensive tackle Bennie Logan. “I just like a couple of teams.”
Sophomore linebacker Kevin Minter reflected a similar sentiment and said that during football season, he simply doesn’t have enough time to pay much attention to fantasy football. However, Minter does know who he would draft first if he had the chance.
“I’m a big Michael Vick fan,” Minter said. “I wore number 7 in high school because he wears it.”
Vick, the starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, passed for 187 yards, ran for 97 yards and had two touchdowns against the St. Louis Rams last weekend.
His performance rated among the top 10 quarterbacks in the NFL; Minter’s pick would have done him well.
Logan, after a brief explanation of the rules, said that he would select the Carolina Panthers’ first-year quarterback, Cam Newton.
“He’s something special,” Logan said. “He had a great season last year at Auburn, and he’s starting a great career now in the NFL.”
Newton fared slightly better than Vick, ranking in the top three quarterbacks last week in a loss to the Arizona Cardinals.
 
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