It's that time of year again.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a really amazing, insightful piece on the glory of fantasy football for Link. It essentially told of how my team, Hobo Bush, gave my life meaning . . . Hobo Bush gave me power that my dad's spankings couldn't take from me, and so on and so forth. Since then, though, a lot of people have been whining about how fantasy football reduces a great sport to mere stats. Well, I say show me a sport without stats and I'll show you the WNBA. Look, the only thing fantasy football reduces is the time millions of men spend with their wives. And that's not its only benefit; fantasy football is great for professional football.

I'm a college sports fan at heart. I think that's safe to say about most folks in SEC and ACC country. College sports are filled with pride and with student-athletes who'll "go pro in something else" or whatever those commercials say. College kids give 110% because they care about wins and losses. And getting laid after the game. It's not for the money. At least not necessarily.

However, pro athletes, for the most part, are in it for the money. When the good college players leave for the pros, their true careers begin. And like most careers, it's first and foremost about the bacon. Because of that, and this thing called free agency, there is little loyalty in professional sports. Look at Johnny Damon. Or Tom Glavine. They're both now playing for their old team's bitter rival - thanks to money. As Seinfeld observed, when you're rooting for your team, you're pretty much just pulling for a jersey.

And remember that awesome movie with the brilliant Tom Cruise? Cuba Gooding Jr. was like "Show me the sacks of gold!" And then Tom Cruise showed Cuba the sacks of gold and they lived happily ever after. Or something like that. Anyway, it, along with every impromptu TO press conference and preseason holdout, proves my point. Like other professional sports, pro football is a business. A business for freaky talent, crybabies and gazillionaires. Yep, money tainted the game, but not fantasy football money.

So these days it's kinda hard to root, root, root for the home team when the home team consists of (not entirely, to be fair) ungrateful, selfish idiots. Fantasy football allows me to put that aside for a while and cheer for those players - and for their teams/corporations. It makes me care about the games. All of them. It makes me aware of 3rd string running backs and defensive coordinators. I know who Ernest Wilford is. And Matt Stover. And Doug Jolley. And if it weren't for fantasy football, they'd be household names in pretty much their houses only. But thanks to the horde of gamblers out there like me, they're getting recognition they're otherwise likely to never get. (You don't have to thank me, guys. Just give me some nice stat lines one Sunday when my regular starters are on their bye week.) So when you start bitching to me about how fantasy football is bad for the game, why don't you try naming Chester Taylor's backup's backup.

Oh, off the subject completely, but how about that John M. Karr character? What I wouldn't do to spend one night in his arms! Great job detectives. And don't you just know Jon Benet's dad was like, "Holy Shit! Maybe my wife didn't kill her."