No fantasy in football for me

This week marks the opening of the National Football League season. Pro football fans who've been waiting for football since the Super Bowl was played in February are beyond excited. I have to admit, I'm looking forward to watching some games too. However, and this will probably come as a shocker, what I'm not looking forward to is fantasy football. I don't play, actually. I don't enjoy it. There, I said it. I'm a sports guy but don't like or play fantasy football. I played two years of fantasy football in the late 1990s and actually won the league back-to-back years. My main players were Jeff Hostettler and Steve Young at quarterback, Antonio Freeman and Tim Brown at receiver and my running backs were a pair of rookies who had outstanding seasons; Corey Dillon and Warwick Dunn. Oddly enough some Raiders and 49ers players mentioned above had a big role on my team even though I was living in Pennsylvania at the time; I didn't even like the Raiders or 49ers at the time before moving out West in 1999 (and I still don't like them). Anyway, after my back-to-back titles, the following year the fantasy football league was redrafting and expanding and also starting to charge a fee to play and I opted out and haven't played since. Years later my wife started playing fantasy football and played for about eight years until getting out of the league about five years ago. She ran the team, but often would ask me for advice. She won the championship in the second or third season, but other than that ended up in the middle of the pack most other years. This is when I started hating fantasy football. I hated choosing between what players to start in my lineup. It seemed so often I would pick one player to start, but the guy I didn't choose would end up having a huge game and vice/versa. Or another player would be all ready to play and would get hurt on his team's first possession and not play the rest of the game. Or perhaps I started a player and he simply sucked and ended the game with only three catches for 28 yards. I know that's the game of fantasy football. Those are the breaks, but I hated it. It took enjoyment away from watching the games. Instead of just enjoying the action, I would get wrapped up worrying about if "my" guys were touching the ball and if they weren't, I would let it get to me. Now for the last five or six years, I've been fantasy free and I've enjoyed every bit of the NFL. Well, except for Patrick Mahomes. I loved when Mahomes came into the league and knocked Tom Brady off his perch, but it wasn't long before I started hating Mahomes and the team he plays for. Last season, however, was one of the best years, as it was nice seeing him and his team struggle. Now my brother-in-law has joined his first fantasy football league and has been asking me questions about it. Why, I don't know, because I really don't know all the players anymore, but everyone seems to think I know it all or because they think I should know it all. Without a fantasy team to worry about, I'm looking forward to watching the upcoming season. I'm hoping my team, the Steelers, will have a good season, but I'm not holding my breath. I know they're not winning the Super Bowl, but simply a postseason win would make me happy.