So lets go back over the rules I’ve set: No high school, no
college and no NFL; or more specifically I just can’t turn it on or any
football oriented analysis (NFL Network, NFL Primetime, college Gameday, etc.).
Its ok if I’m in Buffalo Wild wings and football happens to be on or if I’m
watching a multi-sports highlight show and football comes on.
So with 4 and 9/10 weeks of football not watched, how has it
been?
Easier Than I Thought:
Avoiding the games.
This part has been much easier than I expected, but mostly
due to having a lot of outdoor chores I can take care of on the weekends and
also from being on a vacation for one of the weekends. Mostly right now there
is a ton of stuff to put on the TV if I want options outside of football, but
it seems like my best option is to really avoid TV on weekends, because…
Harder Than I
Thought: Actually avoiding football
coverage.
I knew football had taken over America’s culture when the
Draft became an all day TV show, the a 2 day and now a 2 night and then 2 more
day show. Not to mention all the coverage it gets on ESPN throughout the year.
What I did not really realize until now is how much its really taken over more
than just ESPN.
Local channels devote SO MUCH time to our local teams,
Multi-sport networks practicaly shut down the “multi” part of their name once
football starts. Its very hard to be a sports fan and watch sports on TV
without being solicited with football at every turn. From this aspect, avoiding
football coverage has basically been avoiding the TV during certain timeslots
because there isn’t a ton of quality programming out there in the off hours of
live sports.
Here’s been one great way this has worked out for me.. NBC
Sports Network: America’s Cup, Formula 1, IndyCar and Premier League are all on
that network AND they all show in the early hours before NFL games start, which
means they help me avoid football analysis/coverage becfore other sports in the
US begin. That network is basically the “other” sports channel now, and many of
those sports happen in the early hours, I think the only football they have is
some college stuff; (this may also correlate to why fox Sports 1 has already
quickly jumped past NBCSN in ratings and why NBCSN struggles).
Nowhere Near As Close
to What People Said Would Be Catastrophic: Effect
on my Fantasy Teams.
I debated with some folks on how hard this would be, and let
me be frank, Fantasy isn’t as easy without watching games BUT it’s by no means
hard. In my main league I started 0-3 but it had nothing to do with not
watching coverage. In week 1 I had the 2nd highest score of all the
teams, but played the guy with the highest score; week 2 I had 4th
highest but again played person with highest… that’s just bad luck, as this
week I’m on my way to victory. I’ve been able to play the waiver wire just as I
normally would, it’s not been too shabby.
Bigger Consequence
Than I Thought: Defenses and Kickers in
Fantasy
The one aspect of Fantasy that has taken a hit is
week-to-week strategy for free agents. I normally in all leagues pick up
Defense and Kickers on a week by week basis based on who they are playing. Its
generally worked well because you just pick up a defense who is playing a
crappy team (like say the Browns). The issue without watching games is that I
don’t have the best sense of who the crappy teams are. Of course I can see the
records, but 4 weeks in that’s not the best tell; and twitter is great but all
the people I follow are more on the players or the sarcasm too much to really tell
me who is terrible, so for now I’m just guessing that the 0-3 or 0-4 teams are
the worst offenses.
As for kickers, I generally pickup kickers playing against
good defenses, because their offense tends to get stuck in the redzone a lot.
Its not as hard as Defenses, but still a little spotty at best.
Better Than I
Thought: the flurry of options out there
plus the list of projects I can come up with…
As I said above, I’ve been able to watch many other sports
like America’s Cup, UFC, Premier League, Formula 1, Grand Am and World Cup
Qualifiers. What I didn’t really grasp as well before was how much coverage
these sports get hidden amongst the football stuff. UFC gets a weekly analysis
show on Fox and has a weekly reality show, Premiere League gets full on pregame
analysis just like football on NBCSN, likely because its so early in the morning
so easy to make that space.
Most of all, I was blown away by how much
coverage ESPN gave the World Cup Qualifier against Mexico, almost 3 hours of
pre-match coverage.
In addition to that, my house project list has definitely
been more productive with the detachment to football. I’m not saying it’s a
monumental difference, but there’s definitely been an uptick in what I can
accomplish on the weekends.
Unexpected Side Effect:
Conversations with strangers
One of the effects so far that I didn’t forsee is how
universal (in the U.S.) football really is. At the doctors office, at my work
meeting with outside vendors and other departments, in the grocery store, with
the neighbors, at barbeques; it seems almost everywhere the top topic for
everyone is football. Especially in places where I use my credit card, which is
from my alma mater U. of Southern Mississippi. People go from that card right
into football conversation, even the receptionist at the doctor’s office went
right into talking about conferences with me.
I knew a lot of people talked football, what I didn’t
realize is how being out of touch with football games (the knowing of what
happened) would affect me in daily conversations when people want to talk about
the games that just happened, and dumb coach decisions etc.
The worst idea that I’ve tried more than a few times is tell
people about my “crazy” no football challenge. I think 80% of the time I just
get blank stares in return, or dumbfounded jaw drops. The other 20% are wives
who say “could you tell my husband to do that.”
That 2nd conversation frankly is an even more awkward
conversation because they start going off on football and sports in general,
and if you remember I like sports, I don’t really do well in sports bashing
conversations, especially when the people talking to me are addicted to Kim
Kardashian’s life.
Angel on my shoulder:
Making this thing much, much easier is that both my (USM) and Mrs. Wedge’s
(BYU) alma maters lost in the first week of college football effectively eliminating
them from the shitty BCS system. In fact USM is taking it to all time lows these days "Southern Miss football: The nation's longest losing streak continues." Frankly not watching college football has been
incredibly easy because the system is so terrible and the NCAA is so terrible
(no shock they “decided” to not make the EA sports games anymore. In addition
to that, I do get small fixes via my twitter feed; plus I've had no shortage of
other sports to watch.
Devil on my shoulder:
Undefeated Saints, LSU, Miami, MNF plus
baseball, IndyCar,F1, NASCAR, Grand-Am, ALMS and world Cup Qualifiers are all
coming to a close…
Just read that above. Baseball’s season is over and soon it’s
playoffs will be too. Grand am and ALMS both ended their seasons these weeks,
IndyCar will be over in a few weeks along with Formula 1 and NASCAR… and there’s
only 2 more rounds of CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers, and we don’t get coverage
of any other region. Sure hockey and basketball are starting but I generally
hate basketball and don’t think I can resort to watching the NBA, ever. Worst of all…
I stop watching football and the Saints start undefeated, and
not only that but they have a Monday Night Football game tomorrow against
undefeated Miami… and I have Jimmy Graham on my fantasy team and need him to
score points for me to win my match-up… and I can’t find any other sport
co-scheduled in that time slot.
If football were an addiction, tomorrow night would be my
biggest chance to relapse, hoping I can make it the full 5 weeks… we’ll know
soon enough…
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