The time of year is upon us yet again. The leaves are changing color and softly floating away from the trees. There is an underlying chill that hangs in the air and you can’t ride your motorcycle into work in the morning without seven layers of winter clothing. Yes, autumn has returned yet again, forcing us to hang up our favorite summer gear- the kayaks, mountain bikes and the camping equipment. There is a low and distant roar over the horizon that sounds faintly like alcohol abuse and spousal abuse. Preseason is now complete and we are once again fully in the throes of FOOTBALL SEASON!
And sadly, it is also FANTASY FOOTBALL SEASON as well.
Don’t get me wrong, fantasy football is something that can be quite enjoyable, especially to all of us who lack the physical abilities and wife-slapping skills to compete athletically at a professional level. Its a great thing to enjoy playing with your actual friends, and I recommend playing in a friend-based league as opposed to playing in a league of people of people that you barely tolerate at work. I learned that the hard way last season, as I let my inner child take over my team and in the process, managed to get completely banned from Yahoo! Sports Fantasy permanently.
I got completely banned forever? You bet your ass I did. I managed to initially draft a fairly strong team and won a couple games in the beginning of the season. After that, I would continue to consistently rack up crazy amounts of points, and I was always the second highest scorer in the league every week. This normally would have been a good thing, but due to the random pairing order, I always managed to play against the highest scoring person. Every week. I would score 130+ points in a game and would still end up getting defeated. Had I played against any other “team” that week, I would have crushed them with ease and rolled on to the end with very few defeats.
I know at this point that I’m starting to sound like a sore loser, but it did get frustrating after this happened week after week, which was punctuated by the fact we were stupid enough to put money on this shit. The only thing that went right that year was watching the league crybaby get his ass handed to him every weekend. His luck changed midway through the season after he arranged a secret meeting with another team holder after work, and he performed fellatio on him in a bathroom stall to acquire Peyton Manning in a trade.
After taking that shot in the mouth, and getting clown makeup all over the dude’s zipper, he then went on to win every game and managed to win the whole thing after starting the season 0-6. As the official league crybaby, he also became the league shit-talker once his luck changed. Once I had lost enough games to be completely knocked out of playoff contention, I decided I would instead troll the shit out of my league and this fucking clown (literally) to at least get my money’s worth out of the whole experience.
And the best part – YOU CAN DO IT TOO! It’s fun, you gain a psychological advantage, and it’s much cooler looking like you are insane than to look like all the other guys who waste several hours a day furiously masturbating to page after page of statistics and predictions.
D.I.Y. TEAM NAMES AND LOGOS!
MINIMUM TROLLING:
Create your own unique football helmet that accents your unique team name. For a while I went by “Team Wilford Brimley” and I made a helmet that had the Quaker Oats guy on it. I then would visit the other teams and try and sell them oatmeal online and warn them about the harrowing dangers of the diabeetus. It was simple, but at least I was giving my team a homemade Etsy look instead of using those shitty stock logos.
HARDER TROLLING:
Believe in the power of the dong. I also went by “Phallic Baldwin” for a while and my hand-drawn logo was a big grinning penis wearing boxing gloves. This made the other team owners uneasy due to their own fears of male genitalia. The team listing roster was awesome, as it consisted of nine boring and unoriginal team names with and in the middle of all this banality and stupidity, there was a giant dick with the team motto of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. On your mom” written under it. It made gloating over wins harder on them as they were too ashamed to bring up any of their fantasy stuff up around their families or at work.
MAXIMUM TROLLING:
Go for broke! Go as offensive as you are comfortable with! Ideas for artwork are unlimited with the amount of filth that can be found on Google Image Search with the safesearch turned off. Are you familiar with Goaste? Everyone in your league will absolutely fall head over heels for a Goatse-themed football helmet! Other disturbing thematic ideas include abortion, racism, and sexually transmitted diseases. There is no limit to the depravity that you and your disturbed imagination can bring to your league.
PLAY MIND GAMES AGAINST THOSE OF QUESTIONABLE INTELLIGENCE!
MINIMUM TROLLING:
Hide your entire lineup until game day! Just kidding, that is an idiotic tactic because no matter what, it is a random group of players played against a different team composed of other random players. The “hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ roster” approach just makes you only look like you are always either completely lost or don’t know how to use a computer. But if you chose to do this, it really is fun to witness your mystical super-secret player choices fail miserably every week.
HARDER TROLLING:
When one of your fellow managers plays around with his roster and free-agent browsing at lunch, be aware that when it’s time to get back to work, a lot of times they forget to log out of their Yahoo! account. Stick around for a little while and act nonchalant for a few minutes before you quickly open up that window to make a few….changes to his active roster. Trade away all his top-tier players for ten different kickers and a few backup quarterbacks (preferably from Jacksonville). This frees up more awesome players for everyone else and eliminates this particular manger from competing for the rest of the season.
(Note: While still dicking around on the other manager’s account, be sure to go absolutely crazy with the “smack talk” option. Viciously attack everyone (including yourself) so that not only does everyone get pissed at him, they collectively agree that he keeps all ten of his kickers permanently).
MAXIMUM TROLLING:
Buy your own domain name, and call it anything that sounds like a legitimate sports-themed news site. Copy and paste a few real articles to give the it a decent appearance, and then start peppering in fake stories about key players that you wish to acquire on your team. You can make up fantastical stories about how they were arrested for butthole black tar heroin smuggling, had their 12th DUI, or killed in freak Chuck E. Cheese incident. Forward these updates to everyone in your league and collect your winnings from the waiver wire.
SMACK TALK 101!
MINIMUM TROLLING:
Start off easy with “Yo’ mama” jokes and then work your way carefully towards the homosexual accusations. If you are at a lack of words or ideas, be sure to remember and write down things uttered by homophobic racist children on Xbox LIVE. These attacks are lame and weak, but are a refreshing change of pace to the normal idiotic fifth-grader-on-a-playground type of stuff that these guys normally throw at each other. You are just stepping it up a tiny notch, that’s all.
HARDER TROLLING:
Get drunk, watch Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker and then get online immediately to start smack talking all your opponents. Use your dulled and confused state of mind to leave very strange messages on the smack talk boards. Leaving comments along the lines of “BREAK THE SLAM HOOP HOMEY BEEF!!” and “I was barbecuing Care Bears the other day, and was wondering exactly how many beach balls that could be stuffed inside Spiderman’s spandex pants!”. Everyone will assume you have finally lost your mind and will write you off completely as a non-threat/cat lady.
MAXIMUM TROLLLING:
This one is easy. Once you’ve figured out who the league crybaby is (every league has at least one), you must taunt them mercilessly and constantly. Never let up on them and don’t ever hold anything back. Use your finest insults with the intensity of a machine gun fully loaded with profanity to bring more tears (than there would normally be). This will bring many hours of joy and happiness to you and those around you, unless of course, you are that douchebag.
TRADES AND ACQUISITIONS:
MINIMUM TROLLING:
Pick your crappiest players and do your best to try and trade up with other managers for the top scorers. Most of the time your trade proposals will be automatically sent to the spam folder but they will occasionally stop you at work to ask you “What the hell is up with the Kellen Winslow Jr. for Megatron business?!? Is there ever a time you are NOT drinking??”
HARDER TROLLING:
Deny any and all trades. Fuck those guys, anyways. Anybody that does show interest in your players should be rebutted with hostility, and then always offer them a crappy trade for another good player. Then be a cock by permanently benching the one guy everyone is trying to get from you week after week. It’s a lot like putting candy on a shelf that the dumb fat kid can’t reach.
MAXIMUM TROLLING:
Do some really stupid shit. Take a player you have on injured reserve and try to trade him for another manager’s entire team. Nobody ever took me up on this deal for some reason. But remember that anything can be possible, and your chances become exponentially better if you offer this amazing deal on the hour, every hour. They love that shit.
AND FINALLY, END OF THE SEASON TACTICS!!
MINIMUM TROLLING:
So your fantasy year has gone down the toilet even if you didn’t utilize any of these awesome tricks? Now you can be an underhanded bastard by doing some shifty trades under the table. You can combine the best of your players with another manager and split the possible winnings. Even if the trade deadline has hit, work with him at odd hours of the night to release top players to free agency and have your cohort pick them up immediately at 3am. Do it over the course of a couple weeks to diminish suspicions.
HARDER TROLLING:
One word: Flopping. If you want to skew the records, and hopefully get the manager you are playing against into the playoffs, then wait until 11:55 on Sunday morning to swap out all your normal players for the backup crap you have on the bench. Be sure to play any and all injured or suspended players. This awesome tactic will get a genuine wild card to get thrown into the playoffs and piss EVERYONE off in general.
MAXIMUM TROLLING:
This is the magnum opus of badassery that got me banned. I totally got rid of ALL of my players and searched the waiver wire for players on injured reserve in every position and put injured players in every slot (including the bench) of my team. I wish I would have taken a screen capture of this fantastic fuckery because it totally made a mess of absolutely everything. People scrambled to pick up my top players and the ones who missed the opportunity to do that themselves cried like little babies. I got completely locked out, but not before I changed my team logo to a crying baby because that’s what all of those fucking guys were.
Fantasy football is a fun thing to do, but it’s even more fun if you don’t take it too seriously. Even with money on the line.
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