Fantasy Football Draft Prep, Part III - Fake Everything Else

Fantasy football draft season is basically under way. People have started drafting, and despite the fact that no one in the industry has any idea about which players will be any good in the future, VICE is nonetheless immersed in fantasy football knowledge like so much broccoli in cheese. Why? So you can decide which football players to put on your fake team to compile more real football statistics than your real friends’ fake teams, and win you an extremely modest amount of money compared with the number of hours you’ll spend deciding what to do with your fake football team.

(This is Part 3. Part 1, quarterbacks, is here. Part 2, running backs, is here.)

Wide Receivers:

Wide Receivers are the best! They run so fast and then they catch the ball and then they run so fast again! Sometimes they have an “attitude” about how cool they are. I bet if I could run so fast and catch a ball and then run so fast again, I would have an attitude too! But these guys: they are sitting pretty. They don’t really have to hang out near the fat guys where all the brain trauma happens. They get to just run around with the other fast skinny guys. If a wide receiver ever does get hit super hard in the head, the NFL makes the guy who did it pay $50,000. That’s how much an average librarian makes in a year! “You hit that guy in the head playing football, that will be one year of a librarian’s life, please,” says the NFL. Yes sir, wide receivers have it all figured out.

Here’s a look at some of fantasy football’s most noteworthy wide receivers:

CALVIN JOHNSON (pictured), and LARRY FITZGERALD: These guys are GREAT at running and then catching a football. They are probably going to both have a ton of catches and a whole lot of yards and some touchdowns this year. Calvin Johnson has the same name as the guy from Beat Happening. Larry Fitzgerald has almost the same name as a guy who owns a Subaru dealership in Gaithersburg, Maryland. These guys run and catch footballs. Do not let them go past the second round in your fantasy football because after that the zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

JUSTIN BLACKMON, PERCY HARVIN, AND BEN OBOMANU: You know, a lot of people think there are only two worthy wide receives in fantasy, and that the other guys are all interchangeable and totally boring. In a lot of ways, it’s true, but there’s also the school of thought that zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Tight Ends:

Are they receivers, or are they fat strong guys? YOU TELL ME. TELL ME. SERIOUSLY, TELL ME. I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING AND I’M ALONE AND SCARED AND I WANT TO KNOW. PLEASE JUST GIVE ME THIS ONE THING.

ROB GRONKOWSKI, OTHERS: A lot of people did really well at fantasy football last year because New England Patriots rookie tight end Rob Gronkowski had an amazing year for a tight end, one so amazing that analysts were like “maybe tight ends are the best kind of football player from now on.” Maybe that is true, but maybe it’s also true, just like it always was, that the best three tight ends are the best kind of football player, and the fourth and fifth best tight ends are very good, and the rest of them are pretty much either lucky once in a while or else they are most of the time pretty much just horseshit in a uniform. I could tell you about them if I felt like it, but I’m beginning to seize up with a sense of encroaching dread because if I don’t change something fast this article will be all I’ve accomplished with a whole day of being alive.

Defenses and Kickers:

The experts all agree that defenses and kickers are so random and unpredictable as to be utterly useless. This is what they say every year. Nobody ever says “pick up as many defenses and kickers as you can, so you’ll be sure you have the best one.” We can all agree that would be a horrible idea. Put simply: defenses and kickers are like… defenses and kickers. Defenses and kickers. Gotta find a way to talk about these guys. Oh God, why have you forsaken us? Was it the Higgs-Boson? Was it the way we started arguing about you? Was it the way that we forsook you first, in how instead of arguing the finer points of your message, we took up the dogma of The Church Of The Wire Is The Best TV Show Ever Amen? It’s computers, right? We replaced you with computers, didn’t we? Computers and Thighmasters. We are sorry, God. Please find a way to do something better with us than to let us go on talking about defenses and kickers. Maybe just a big explosion would be good. Or a flood? Please.

…And there you have it! The VICE Sports Fantasy Football Draft Kit, guaranteed to help you win your fantasy football league and impress your friends! Let the fucking computer decide who’s going to be on your team, and stock up on canned goods and firearms! The end is nigh! Good luck, and let’s PLAY SOME FUCKING FOOTBALL PLEASE. GUH GUH GUH GUH GUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Previously:

Fantasy Football Draft Prep, Part I - Fake Quarterbacks

Fantasy Football Draft Prep, Part II - Fake Running Backs

@crotchfat