How Fantasy Football Has Turned NFL Fans Stupid

June 6, 2012   ·   Ty Schalter   ·   Jump to comments

Fantasy football was once only for the biggest-brained NFL geeks. Only those willing to bury themselves in magazines, newspapers and slide rules could compete. But as the Internet made forming, scoring and tracking leagues as easy as a few clicks, the game of the football nerd kings became the game of moms and uncles everywhere.
In many ways, playing fantasy football makes fans smarter fans. People who used to just keep tabs on the local team now know so much more about what’s happening in the NFL as a whole. Casual fans now know the depth charts of every team, and follow the movements of players from every franchise to every other.
But the numbers game is keeping people from seeing the football forest for the statistical trees.
Fantasy football started out as GOPPL, the Greater Oakland Pigskin Prognosticators League. Bill Winkenbach, a part-owner of the Raiders, started it as a diversion for him and for his friends. Fifty years later, it’s now a multibillion...

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