I tried fantasy football once.
It just gave people I didn’t even know extra reason to ridicule me. I need less of that in my life, not more. I only won one game that season, so like most everything I’m immediately not an expert at I quit and denounced the practice.
Fantasy football would be much more interesting if it was — literally — fantasy football. What if every NFL mascot was released at once inside a football stadium in a winner-take-all brawl? Who hasn't wondered who would win a showdown between a 49er and a Viking, a Cardinal versus a Seahawk or a Dolphin sparring with a Jet?
Some mascots wouldn’t even stand a chance. The Dolphins would be doomed from the get-go. The poor things would be flopping around on the sidelines for a minute sucking air out of their blowholes before they would enter the food chain. I don’t figure the Browns would do any better — being the color brown will never win a fight.
After the low-hanging fruit was taken care of the Steelers and the Packers would be a close match-up to watch. Nobody actually knows what a Steeler or a Packer is. Or more importantly, what are the Packers packing? Are they packing for vacation? If so, I’ll take the Steelers. Are they packing some serious heat, like AK-47s or dynamite? If so, then it’s anybody’s guess.
Either way neither would stand a chance against all the birds of prey that seem to predominantly populate professional pigskin. The army of aviators would eventually team up to defeat the mascots of Pittsburg and Green Bay.
Let’s take a look at some of the serious heavyweight sluggers in this epic fantasy football battle. Clearly, two of the stiffer opponents in this bloody melee that can’t be overlooked due to their immense size would be the Giants and Titans.
These guys are colossal, so most people would put their money on one or the other. People who do that, however, drastically underestimate the destructive nature of military Jets.
Unfortunately, after the Jets dive-bombed and subsequently destroyed the Giants and Titans tragedy would strike. That’s when our feathered friends — the Ravens, Falcons, Eagles, Cardinals and Seahawks — would accidently get sucked into the turbo engines of the Jets. All perish. (That’s right, the Jets would find another way to blow it.)
Somewhere in all of the bloodshed the Chiefs and the Redskins would pair up in a marriage of convenience. The Native Americans would then hunt to extinction the Buffalo Bills.
That’s when the Patriots would show up ... and now you know the rest of the story. Talk about sports imitating life imitating history.
In the midst of the savage butchery the Texans and Cowboys would ride into war with one another atop their submissive mounts, the Colts and Broncos. Don’t mess with Texas, unless you happen to be a dagger-wielding and bloodthirsty Raider.
And then the whole contingent of human football mascots would converge on one another. Buccaneers slicing up Raiders. Saints smiting Buccaneers. Vikings impaling Saints with their horned helmets.
Chargers, uhh, fatally charging Vikings (or whatever Chargers do).
The whole time the 49ers would be standing on the sidelines perpetually pondering how they ever became a mascot to start with. Because of this the depressed 49ers would likely commit suicide.
Even the king of the jungle, Lions, and the Bears (on my!) would perish after the trio of large cat breed mascots — the Bengals, Jaguars and Panthers — descended upon them. And, after easily devouring the Rams, the ferocious felines would be all that’s left of this nasty affair.
Yes, a bona fide Kitty Bowl Halftime Show.
Except the Bengals are an endangered species while the Jags and Panthers are only a near-threatened species. Not wanting to violate a federal mandate, the Jags and Panthers would be powerless to harm the Bengals and would fight one another to the death.
It would seem this entire titanic, imaginary ordeal would be won by the Cincinnati Bengals, and I swear that has nothing to do with who I root for.