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Viva Murillo!

The season is done. The champ has their money (hopefully), the obsessed owners are already working on early (useless) 2008 draft lists and the NFL playoffs are just days away. Football is still going strong even though fantasy football is over.

Of course, I’m sure you know that it isn’t really over; at least, not if you still want to play. Playoff fantasy football is easy to find on the Internet, and many leagues throw some money into a pot to make a game out of the post-season. You’ll have no trouble finding a game if you want to play.

Except I’m advising you not to play. At least, not in a way that affects how you enjoy the real playoffs. If you have a casual draft and don’t really worry about the outcome, be my guest. But if you tend to be a bit…let’s say, competitive…in your games, give it a rest. You’ll definitely lose out on more than you could possibly gain.

You see, we’re used to watching football differently than everybody else. You can look at San Diego’s backfield and tell who’s in the game by their stance. You’ll know if it’s Tomlinson or Turner or Sproles before the announcers say a word. You see a great pass reception in traffic, and the first thing you look for is a jersey number. In an instant, you know who caught it and for how many yards. You’re busy crunching numbers even when the scoreboard reads 0-0.

In short, you’ve been trained to look for details that other fans miss, and you catch them faster and more accurately than the announcers. How many times have you been watching a game and cringed because a play-by-play guy gets a name wrong? How many times have you mentally corrected the television because they can’t keep up with the statistics quickly enough? The game that has made football even more fun to watch has actually changed the way you watch it.

And that’s why you should be careful about playing a fantasy game in the playoffs. If you can’t retrain yourself to watch football the normal way for a few weeks, skip it. The playoffs aren’t about who compiles what statistic. It doesn’t matter which guy scores a touchdown or gets a sack. At this time in the year, it’s truly a team game. Fans should be hoping their team wins, whether it’s 56-10 or 2-0. If your favorite team isn’t in the post-season, you should be looking for an exciting game worthy of the playoffs. That’s it. The only numbers that matter is the final score, and the right to keep playing.

If you can’t just enjoy the games, you’re going to miss out on some great performances that don’t show up in the box score. You’ll technically see them, but you won’t enjoy them the way a normal fan would: The athletic talent, the momentum shifts, the knowledge that one team’s season is about to end while another keeps their dream alive. All of those things are on display in the playoffs, and sometimes you need to watch the games differently—the way you used to watch them.

So if you’re playing a fantasy game, try to keep it far in the background and focus on the contest on the field. Just enjoy the playoffs, because they only come once a year.

You can reach Michael Murillo at vivamurillo@gmail.com.

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