On Humble Pie

Boys,

Humble pie is a term that means you have to admit that you were wrong, especially when you don’t want to. It is also something I am eating this week after my fantasy football team scored the fewest points in the league in the first week of the NFL season.

“What’s the big deal?” you might be asking. After all, it’s just one week into the season and everyone has bad games and maybe the fightin’ “U Play’n the Foosball, Bobby?’s” will bounce back in week 2 and all this panic will be for not.

Maybe. But here’s the rub…

Unbeknownst to me, after our week 1 game, the fellas on the team had a players only meeting to discuss the leadership and direction of the team. The fanbase has been pretty vocal and the proverbial seat is getting a bit hot.

The Kinsale Gentleman’s League is the gold standard for fantasy football leagues far and wide. Phrases like, “how do I log in again?,” “do I get points if the guys on my bench do good?,” and “I don’t remember ever agreeing to the punishment so I don’t have to do it” echo in it’s hallowed halls. The poet W.B. Yeats once wrote, “Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, And say my glory was I had such friends.” Not known to many, but he was talking about the 12 team, half-PPR Kinsale Gentleman’s League.

As the egg on my face dries, let me take you back one week. Before the NFL season began, the water was warm with anticipation. The group text looked like the ticker on the NYSE with rapid fire comments about the this’s and that’s ahead of the first week of real football. While I might not be the vocal leader everyone looks to, I am both the spirit and the logic that moves the needle of this league. That goes without saying. As a leader is prone to do, I made a suggestion that would reward consistency on the battlefield in the form of a survivor pool-style game-within-the-game.

And so it was discussed and agreed to — the team that scored the fewest points each week would be eliminated from the side game. After 11 weeks, only one team would be left standing and that team would win the second bet and be declared “lone survivor.”

Now, was it important that I won this second bet? Not really. It would have been a nice feather in the cap, but the real goal is always to win the league — there is only one trophy we play for and how we get to it doesn’t matter. You can learn a lot about a bull by sticking your head…..er, nevermind.

But here’s where the fruit gets juicy. In explaining how the survivor bet would work, I thoughtlessly gave an example where I used someone else in the league (Brent. It was Brent that I suggested) and hypothetically offered that they might score the fewest points in the first week. In continuing with the explanation, I also alluded to that person (Brent) as having the fewest points in week 2, at which point the next lowest point scorer (unnamed team this time) would then be eliminated. The fact that I happened to be playing said person (again, Brent) was not even a thought in my mind and purely and totally a coincidence.

So I, happy with the clarity and precision to which I delivered the explanation of the game, set my phone down and didn’t give it a second thought. That is until Jacob had to throw his two cents into the mix. Jacob, in case you didn’t know, looks like a giant wooden spoon. He’s got a flat, beveled wooden top and shorter-than-most wooden handle and is really only good for stirring the pot. Anyway, he tries to make apple juice out of lemons and suggested that I was “going after Brent” (which as has already been stated, couldn’t be further from the truth). Alas, Brent walked right onto that giant hole covered by tiny sticks and leaves and fell for Jacob’s trap.

Let the record show, your honor, that I clearly and quickly responded with no malice. I reiterated that using his name was just an example and that (this next part implied) all characters appearing in this text are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. I mean, it couldn’t have been any more obvious!

And since we’re on the subject of coincidentals, as the matchups for week 1 were wrapping up toward the conclusion of the final football game of the week, who would have guessed that my matchup against Brent happened to feature the two lowest scores of the week in the KGL. We each had one guy in the game, and as the game trudged into the second half, I had a slight lead as the Bears were beating Minnesota in a low scoring game. If we could just keep Justin Jefferson who, to this point in the game had a very poor outing, from scoring, then we could eek out a win and fulfill the prophecy that may (or may not) have been hypothesized earlier in the week.

Had the score held, not only would I have won the week and kept my name in the hat for the survivor pool, but I would likely have been seen as a fantasy football savant — one who could look into the future and call out he whose team was destined to fail. Think about it! If I could do this with fantasy football, what else might I be capable of? Business leaders and heads of state would call on me for outcomes of future wars and Q4 estimates. Soothseer? Prophet? The view from the top of the mountain is both vast and isolated, but it’s a seat only worthy for those brave enough to sit there.

Had the score held, all would be right in the world. Unfortunately, Justin Jefferson did catch a late touchdown and 75.92 points scored by “Brent’s Best Team” were enough to beat only one team that week — U Play’n the Foosball, Bobby?

Early Tuesday morning, I got a call from our team captain, fake Malik Nabers. He had to explain to me how the team had a meeting and that they wanted to fight their battles on the virtual gridiron and not in the media, social or otherwise. He clearly expressed that the locker room is not lost and that there is still morale within those tiny little virtual football players. Our coaches are currently busy putting together a strong game plan for this week, and we will come out a better team on the other side.

Batman once said it’s always darkest before the dawn. Or maybe a bad guy said that? I think it was Batman. And so this is our darkness. And so we sit in the darkness confidently and with shades on, waiting for that first light to illuminate the path forward.

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but rather the lighting of a fire” — W.B. Yeats

And what a fire it will be!

All that to say….

Love you, boys.

Dad