I have long been a fan of many American sports and when it comes to the NFL have been a fan for many years of the New York Jets. I have never really gotten on board with the fad of “fantasy” management of sports teams online save for a brief flirtation with the such a competition for the NRL some years ago.

This NFL season I have been convinced by a good mate currently working in the US to join the fantasy NFL league he is involved in with a bunch of other expat mates. I was originally worried that I would be played off the break by a bunch of yanks enamoured with the game but the promise that we are all expats with limited knowledge of the game swayed me to join in.

One of the other things that my friend who invited me to join in suggested as an advantage of having a go at managing a fantasy team in a sport one knows only a limited amount about is that, in all likelihood, we would gain a better appreciation for the finer points of the game by being involved in this than we would by merely having a randomly selected team to follow.

On that score he has already, before the season started, been proven right because I find myself more drawn to read NFL news having now participated in the draft to select players for my fantasy team. Whilst I set the order of selection of a style of player for my team I did not select the actual players but since then I have been spending some of my down time reading up on the players in my team and checking who they are playing and their injury status.

So as the season starts in the early hours of tomorrow morning (Australian time) it is time to declare that, in addition to my ongoing allegiance to the Jets, here are the players I will be following (until they get injured or don't garner enough points in any particular round) as part of my fantasy team:

D Brees, T Brady, J Cutler, S Jackson, B Powell, M Bush, D Moore, L Fitzgerald, M Wallace, J Cook, M Wallace, P Garçon, M Prater, S Gostkowski plus the defensive lines and special teams crews of the Seattle Seahawks and Pittsburgh Steelers.

I have no clue, aside from knowing my QBs are pretty good, as to whether the players drafted are good bad or indifferent but I look forward to following them during the season. The ESPN Fantasy Football App is projecting that I will lose this week against my opponent in the aptly titled “Real Footballers don't wear pads” league but I am hoping Team Shumpty77 can prove them wrong!

I am looking forward to having some fun with this and learning more about a sport that I do not know much about. I will keep you posted on how Team Shumpty77 is going during the season of, of course, any advice or direction from the hardcore NFL fams out there would be greatly appreciated!

Posted with Blogsy