Against my better judgment, I’m in a fantasy football league again this season.  my team is much stronger this year since I decided to abandon my “contrarian” strategy of last year and go the more conservative route of doing what the fantasy experts recommend.

Even so, it’s scary to me how addictive it is.  I never understood how anyone could be addicted to gambling, but I’m starting to see.  You get a thrill when some random player you picked off of waivers does well, and are frustrated when you 1st round pick under-performs.  But it’s not like there’s anything you can do about it.

I suppose it’s more like stock picking than  gambling per se.  There’s some element of skill to stock picking; you have to have a decent grasp of business and the economy to be able to have sustained success.  But after that, both stocks and fantasy football are all about 90% luck.  And when you consider that everybody in my league is reasonably knowledgeable about football, that’s practically the equivalent of it being 100% luck.

Case in point: everyone knew Peyton Manning would, barring injury, be good this year.  He’s been good basically every year of his career.  But it’s not like it was unreasonable to think, back in August, that Aaron Rodgers might be better.  No one could have expected this record-shattering pace from Manning.

It’s an amusing little diversion, don’t get me wrong.  It can make watching the games more interesting.  But from the perspective of a video gamer, who has heard that his pastime is “unproductive” and “a waste of time”, I can at least say that with video games, you can influence the outcome–that seems like it’s a bit more worthwhile then spending time trying to win a competition you have no control over.