Fantasy football is for nerds.

Fantasy football is currently undergoing a huge surge in play over recent years. It has become the default activity for groups of men that would traditionally just sit around and talk about football. By talking “about football,” what I mean is the game itself. They would discuss legacy of different franchises, the difficulty of their respective divisions. They would discuss how a particular offense/defense triumphed under certain conditions, and an unfortunate (and sometimes immediate) reversal of fate could spell their own ruin. Now, they spend inordinate amounts of time discussing the minutiae of each player, and how it affects their chances in a fictitious championship that they created in MS Excel. Let’s keep it real, fantasy football is no different that Dungeons & Dragons, but these self-confessed “sports junkies” tend to claim otherwise. They think that because their “game” is tied to actual players and the statistical activity tracks the events of an actual game, they are somehow beyond scrutiny. They are sadly mistaken. There are striking similarities in not only the gameplay, but in the behavior of these people who were probably once thought of as cool, but now have descended into a world of playing and trading hypothetical matchups for virtual victories.

You’re not buying into my theory that fantasy sports are for geeks? Just take a look at the list of similarities between fantasy football and Dungeons and Dragons:

• Random selection of the draft order...Rolling a 20 sided die
• The draft...Creating new characters
• The NFL ...The “realm”
• Your players ...Your characters
• Your fantasy league ...Your characters’ “world”
• Your league’s “commissioner”...The “dungeon master”
• The “smack talk’ message board ...“Flaming n00bs”
• Obsessively viewing player stats ...Fighting battles to earn "experience points"
• Watching every game, even teams you hate...Sitting through all night RPG sessions
• Talking smack about your player's huge weekend ...Bragging that you just “leveled up”
• Assigning players in preparation for Sunday ...Buying weapons and supplies to prepare for a raid
• “You picked Oakland’s defense? Idiot.” ...“You’re gonna be a dwarf? Pwn3d.”
• “Yo, I’m playing Corey Dillon this week!” ...“I’m arming my +22 Hammer of Thor!”
• The apparent lack of women who play ...The apparent lack of women who play

I think the evidence speaks for itself.