Back for more fantasy

As the fantasy football season rapidly approaches, I'd like to formally announce that I will be returning for another year. There was some talk, speculation really, that I may be retiring after last season's second consecutive championship.

That speculation was fueled on rumors* and misinformation**, but I am hoping to put those thoughts to rest: after careful consideration, factoring in my back-to-back titles and the total inability of everyone else in my league to compete with me on a week-to-week basis, I have decided to come back to dominate once again.

This will come as news to most of you. For one thing, you have never heard the rumors about my possible retirement. This is mainly because guys in my fantasy league live, in many cases, thousands of miles outside our readership area and it would have been mostly impossible for such rumors to reach your screen before now. Still.

I am, now, able to confirm that the speculation about my possible retirement did have some grounds. After cruising to my second of back-to-back titles last year, I had lost my passion. Fantasy football had gotten too easy. When you get as good at fantasy football as I am, there is no upside anymore.

If I win, it's because I'm expected to win. If I lose, likely due to bad luck and untimely, unpredictable injuries, it is no fun. The only fun thing about fantasy football is winning, and because I'm the prohibitive favorite, even winning isn't as fun.

So while I did decide to play out another year, I also decided I needed to make it more fun. This is a multi-step process, but the main goal is just to make things more challenging for myself.

Here's what I'm going to do:

1) I'll be making my strategy explicitly clear to everyone in my league. Before the draft I'll send everyone my player rankings. During the season, if I want to make a trade, I'll tell them why I believe their player is better than mine. If I want to pick up a free agent, I'll still do it, but I'll list my rationale after, and I'll give everyone a list of the other players I considered.

2) I'll play in multiple leagues. It is far too easy for me if I can devote all of my fantasy football attention to only one league and one set of rules. The league I've been playing in has some uncommon rules and now that I've mastered them, it is really impossible for anyone else to challenge me. So, for the first time, I'll be playing in multiple leagues, with multiple sets of rules and varying free agents. This (hopefully) will include the Banner Graphic fantasy league, which some middle school student from North Putnam won last year.

3) I'll actively help my opponents score more points. Have a lineup question, Joel? I'd be glad to help you out. Then I will still outscore you. There was a great deal of disrespect thrown at my team last year because I had "the easiest" schedule. Well of course I did. I played the best team in the league zero times. This is because I had the best team and I couldn't play against myself. So to put that argument to rest, I will do what I can to make my opponents better, which will make my schedule "harder."

Hopefully these moves are enough to quiet my critics and make fantasy football fun again. If not, there is always fantasy basketball season***, which is more fun anyway.

(*) The rumors were started by me.

(**) Also started by me.

(***) I've also won two of the last three basketball championships.