Everything I Know Is Wrong

So, here we are, just about one month into the football season, and already I find myself scratching my head: Buffalo Bills? No Peyton Manning? What is a poor, self-respecting Fantasy Football owner supposed to do? Well, maybe the key lies somewhere in that "self-respecting" part. I'm not sure, but I think that personal integrity may be the challenge I have encountered. It all started with the Perfect Storm of coincidence that brought me Michael Vick. Sure, I'm willing to forgive and forget, especially when I have a thirty-point a week machine to forgive and forget.
But I can't forget the fumbles and interceptions, and the injuries. It's one thing to feel the pain of losing your favorite player to the sting of a concussion or the crunch of a broken hand, but when your franchise rises and falls based on the actions or inaction of that head and hand, the reaction in the front office, my couch, is different. I found myself full of doubt and anxiety, and very little care about my fellow man, if that fellow man wasn't throwing for three hundred yards and four touchdowns.
Then I started thinking about Sabermetrics, and wondering why I wasn't applying those methods to my football problem. Maybe it was because the averages and statistics of a baseball season can be stretched over a number of games ten times longer than an NFL season. The dispassionate among us would simply drop the player in question and move on to the best player available. It's a numbers game, after all, right?
Alas, not for me. I still have too much love for the personalities. I want to believe in the star who will rise up, one more time, and bring home that win. I grew up in the tall shadow of John Elway, who spent most of his young career being introduced to turf around the league by opposing defensive linemen. Then he started winning games. Improbably, impressively and incredibly. Highlight film stuff week after week. I got spoiled. When he retired after winning his second Super Bowl and the game's Most Valuable Player trophy, I winced. But I didn't recognize that it was the end of an amazing run.
Now John's in the front office of our beloved Denver Broncos. He's playing the fantasy game for real. He's watching good players drop balls, fall down, and be helped off the field. I wonder if he's thinking about completion percentages and yards per carry when another "L" gets hung on the board. We're not even a quarter of the way through the season, but I'm thinking of calling Billy Beane in on this one.