In 2014, comedian, musician, podcaster and Nashvillian Chris Crofton asked the Scene for an advice column, so we gave him one. Crowning himself the “Advice King,” Crofton shares his hard-won wisdom with whoever seeks it. Follow Crofton on Twitter and Instagram (@thecroftonshow), and check out his The Advice King Anthology and Cold Brew Got Me Like podcast. To submit a question for the Advice King, email bestofbread@gmail.com.
Dear Advice King,
My fantasy football draft is later today, and I would like to know who I should draft in the first round. I have the fourth pick in a PPR (point per reception) league.
Thanks,
—Phil in Monrovia, Calif.
Oh no! It’s finally happened. Someone sent me a question about sports! But it’s not even about normal, real sports! It’s about [shudder] FANTASY SPORTS.
Football — man oh man. People love football. I live in Nashville, and in Nashville people love football so much that in 2023 the Metro Council voted to spend more than $700 million of the city’s tax dollars to help the Titans (a massively profitable private corporation) build themselves a new stadium. People love football so much in Nashville that in 2019 the city uprooted a bunch of perfectly healthy cherry trees from a park so the NFL could have its draft there. Nashville loves football more than trees — and its own citizens! We fucking love football!
But does football love us? Just kidding. I’m not going to write a real paragraph starting with, “But does football love us?” That’s best left to, ahem, professional writers, like The New York Times’ opinion guys. David Brooks would write an entire column called “But Does Football Love Us?” and he’d probably win a Pulitzer for it. Here’s what I think the first sentence of that David Brooks column would be: “We had opera tickets, but our butler tested positive for COVID, so we decided to stay home and watch the Super Bowl.”
What if David Brooks was the “Brooks” in “Brooks and Dunn”? All their songs would be about consommé. No Grammys. One Pulitzer.
OK, down to business: advice. Oh no! I just remembered that this is a question about sports!
Fantasy football, huh? Is that a sex thing? Drunk men home alone surfing the internet wearing shoulder pads and cleats, hanging around internet “locker rooms,” looking for a “touchdown”? Or at least a “field goal”? When I hear the word fantasy, I think sex. Hold on, I’m Googling …
What I just read made me wish it was a sex thing. “Fantasy football” is where you pretend to be the general manager of a fake football team. The fake football team is made up of actual NFL players you chose, at home on your couch, in your shoulder pads and cleats. Then you watch all the real football games on TV, to see what the players on your “team” did, in real life. Then you add up the points your fake team “scored.” Meanwhile, your real children are out committing crimes, and your actual wife files for divorce. Is that the general idea?
Good God! Well, I guess we’re never going to cure cancer. We’re certainly not going to Mars. Not with everyone sitting around “playing,” um, “football.”
I don’t know who you should draft, Phil. I stopped watching football in 1978, when I was 9. So I’d say … Roger Staubach, Lynn Swann, “Mean” Joe Greene, William “The Refrigerator” Perry, Bucky Dent and Spiro Agnew. Was Charo a football player?
I can help you name your team. That seems like the most fun to me anyway. How about “WE’RE NEVER CURING CANCER”? Or “I LIKE STADIUMS BETTER THAN AFFORDABLE HOUSING”?
The fact that I don’t follow football could be related to the fact that I could never throw a spiral properly. It’s either that or all the wedgies.
My fantasy football team: Lucy, Charlie Brown, Prince, PJ Harvey, Charles Bukowski, Mad Magazine, John Denver, Kurt Cobain, Flannery O’Connor, Public Enemy, John Cassavetes, Sylvia Plath, Joni Mitchell, Kurt Vonnegut, Fugazi and Charo.
In conclusion, “Whatever gets you through the night, it’s all right, it’s all right.” —John Lennon.
