A Fantasytic Voyage

WASHINGTON (AP) - With another fantasy football season in the books, General Manager (and Chief Awesome Officer) Christopher Condon has been left with many questions and no new hardware to add to his e-trophy case. Despite his deft management of two completely different fantasy teams, Condon had both squads make promising runs into the playoffs, only to get served. "The guy who owns the Tampa Bay Lightning and Detroit Pistons did it last year, why the heck can't I?" Condon was quoted back in August, watching over his two teams' workouts in cyber training camp. Due to some season-crippling injuries, and out and out bad luck, both Ig Wants Touchdowns, of the "Jon Rogers and Friends" FFL, as well as the DC Salsa Sharks of the Condon FFL, merited places on the platform, but neither taking home the gold.

Ig Wants Touchdowns started the season with high hopes. Overcoming the fact that its players actually had to decline Ig training camp, as they were scattered among the 32 camps of the National Football League, IWT managed to create a strong sense of team unity even before the season started. Coach Condon insisted that after his players completed 3-a-days at their respective pro facilities, they all use their Verizon cell phones (IN THE NETWORK, BABY) to conference call in to go over the playbook, select uniform color schemes, and make fun of kicker David Akers.) Apparently, IWT spent too much time on the last two topics, as they broke out of the gate with a 2-4 record. Hardly displaying their potential, the axe swung quickly, and underachievers like Jerry Porter and William Green got their walking papers. It's probably pretty depressing to get cut from a fantasy football team. You don't have time to clean out your locker; it just gets deleted.

Players took this as a message from the new ball coach, and things started to look up. Coach Condon, in the spirit of Tom Landry, started wearing his Indiana Jones fedora on the sideline, and yelled inspirational mantras like, "I hate snakes!" and "No time for love, Dr. Jones!" Since they were no snakes, and running backs Kevin, Thomas, and Julius Jones all were on other rosters, players were as confused as ever. But out of chaos came hope. So much hope, in fact, that despite losing Priest Holmes for the season, Ig won 8 of their last 10. Unfortunately, Condon's roommate and fantasy nemesis, Spud Mellor and the New England Massive, ousted Ig in the semifinals. Two reasons for this happening: Clinton Portis choked like the Oklahoma Sooners, and Mellor fed Condon's lucky hat to Cougar, the neighborhood cat.

As for the Salsa Sharks, their loss is unexcusable. A disappointing fifth place finish in the playoffs, after destroying the consolation bracket, was all Condon had in terms of Syracusean bragging rights. Despite having the second highest scoring in the 12-team league, DC was no match for lousy scheduling and lucky breaks. Finishing second in the division, only behind the Jersey Guys (some relation), despite blowing the proverbial doors off his sorry, Medford-based team. Unfortunately, it was all in the scheduling. The Sharks were the equilvalent of Shawshank in the 1995 Oscar Best Picture race (great movie, tough year), while every team played their worst against Jersey (mob ties, anyone?)

So, yeah, the GM blames the scheduling for his team's demise. (T.O. going down did not help, either.) It's petty, but true. And as we look to next year, where scouting will need to be done earlier (since a certain GM plans to be honeymooning during the conventional timeframe), let the rest of the GMs know...

I'll be back. Perhaps with a vengeance, and maybe with a tan.