Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? — Freddie Mercury
After a one-week hiatus due to Irma, your On Fire correspondent has spent the past two weekends in the comfort of his or her room. Given the absence of adequate wifi, he/she has had little choice but to keep a close eye on the inaugural weeks of the NFL season. Instead of having real experiences — say, losing your friends at Music Midtown and wandering Piedmont Park for hours trying to find them — your On Fire correspondent has been engulfed in the world of fantasy football. Sure, cheering for your favorite team is fun for the few hours they play any given week, but investing in nearly every game makes the weekend so much more exciting. Plus, there’s no better way to escape the horrors of being a fan of some crap team like the Jets or the 49ers than to literally escape your sad reality into the universe of fantasy. So without further ado, here’s a crash course in fantasy football so far this year. To begin, one player has jumped out ahead of all others: Kansas City Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt. With three touchdowns and more than 200 yards, Hunt has been the top scorer in fantasy. Really, this shouldn’t be a surprise because he played in the best collegiate conference for future fantasy success: the MAC. Blessing the fantasy world with Antonio Brown, Randy Moss, Greg Jennings and Ben Roethlisberger, the mid-level conference produces extraordinary fantasy talent in spite of its lack of collegiate reputation. Your On Fire correspondent says, just give the MAC champion an automatic bid to the NCAA playoff and see what happens. Can’t be worse than watching Alabama steamroll every other team.The biggest bust so far has to be Arizona Cardinals running back David Johnson, whose wrist injury brought the most middle-aged male tears since Optimus Prime died in “Transformers.” Your On Fire correspondent hasn’t been this devastated since he/she got a Migos tattoo in preparation for Emory’s spring concert. The Cardinals’ running back is not expected to return until the Dooley Dollars of your least frivolous friends run out (around November/December unless they’re getting turnt at Twisted Taco on Tuesdays). Sad for fantasy owners, good for the taco combo. In case you haven’t drafted a team yet, here’s your On Fire correspondent’s biggest advice (besides obviously drafting every MAC player available): use your last pick on Brett Favre. No one can be 100 percent sure that the man will not trade in his Wrangler jeans for a pair of cheese-colored pants for just one last time. In spite of being older than Dobbs Hall (probably), the 11-time pro-bowler may realize that there aren’t any great quarterbacks left in the league, and just unretire ... again. After all, the only real criteria for making an NFL roster as quarterback these days is standing for the national anthem, and Favre’s cozy Wrangler jeans make standing just delightful.Although fantasy football naysayers may say it is as far away from reality as thinking the president of the United States is Coors Light, fantasy football’s weekly commitment is at least less of a fantasy than an Emory football game.
