Look, it’s clear. Unless they’re Adrian Peterson, then it seems like a lot of athletes do not like fantasy football. As Joel posted earlier today, Jamaal Charles sent out a tweet yesterday saying: “I don't care about nobody fantasy I'm worry about me, my team and #chiefsnation winning game this year!! U call me a p-ssy cause I got hurt!”

Jamaal is not the only athlete to display his frustration with fantasy football owners. Back in February, Brandon Jacobs talked about how much he hated fantasy football owners constantly talking to him about their teams. Also, last season, everyone remembers when Arian Foster tweeted, “4 those sincerely concerned, I'm doing ok & plan 2 B back by opening day. 4 those worried abt your fantasy team, u ppl are sick.”

I’m sure that there are a lot more athletes that resent fantasy football and the owners, and rightfully so. However, according to Greg Jennings, there are players in the league that play fantasy football themselves. So there are definitely mixed feelings on this around the league, and from the looks of the comments section of Joel’s post, there are mixed feelings with fans as well. So I figure I might as well give mine (even though you probably don’t care, but read anyways).

First off, I just want to say that I love fantasy football. I play in an eight team league with my girlfriend, brother, and five of my closest friends. We do research, check the waivers, argue, talk trash, and can even be caught doing some random shenanigans seen on The League (great show, by the way). But even though we all have different teams, we all have one team in common: The Kansas City Chiefs.

As much as we love our FF teams and keeping track of our players each week, we would never let that replace the Chiefs. Last year, my brother and I attended the Chiefs-Raiders game in Week 16, the same week that my FF team was in the championship game. While I was happy that my team was in the ship, that was at the back of my mind as we were driving to Arrowhead, hoping to see the Chiefs beat the Raiders and maybe take the division despite such a disappointing season. That morning, I even forgot to check my team and set my final lineup, which resulted in me starting an inactive Roy Helu.

I don’t want to go into too much detail about my team, because obviously nobody here gives a rat’s ass about that. But the point is that there are fans out there that may love fantasy football but still know their boundaries. If a player on my team gets injured, yes, I get upset. Just like when a Chiefs player gets injured. It sucks for the team, but you still do care about the health of that player. I would never get upset at a player for getting injured, especially since injuries are not the player’s fault.

Fantasy football is not ruining the game. It’s supposed to be a fun and competitive game that allows people to watch games from a different perspective. Why else would you want to watch a 4-11 team face a 3-12 team? Also, if it wasn’t for fantasy football, my girlfriend would never watch a game that didn’t have the Chiefs playing. If anything, all it does is give more popularity to the teams and their players.

Also, the fans that choose to root for their team instead of a real NFL team aren’t always a bad thing. There is actually one member of our league I did not mention that doesn’t root for the Chiefs. But he never has had an actual “team.” He is just a fan of the sport in general, without having a certain favorite (like I am with the NBA). I don’t really see anything wrong with this. He actually kind of has an advantage, because he can sit back and enjoy the sport and not let any fanboy homerism affect the way he runs his team.

I understand if you do not want to have a FF team. Hell, keeping up with the Chiefs can be stressful enough sometimes, so who wants the added pressure? But players like my friends and I are not ruining the game or disrespecting it in any way. The ones that are doing that are the idiots that do things like ask players if they should drop them shortly after they become injured, or the morons that call out players for “f--king up” their team by getting hurt or sitting out a game.