I know that probably shocks many of you but I don’t really care. After nearly two decades of playing fantasy football from everything from spreadsheets to sophisticated online web sites I am hear to tell you I am finished and you should be too. What is the reason you ask? Well, good question. The answer is simple: boredom. I am bored with the draft. The draft as many of you can attest is nothing more than sophisticated guessing game. Sure, go ahead and tell me that picking players is a complex strategy of evaluating the players’ point output with a potential injury overlay that yields a numeric value that indicates a draft or no-draft decision. Whatever. How many times do you finish a draft, sit back and laugh like Dr. Evil because you are so certain this year you will dominate only to discover that after two quarters your franchise quarterback or running back is a heap of broke ass being shuttled off on one of those ambulance golf carts? Great. That was a huge waste of time (and often money) and we all know there is little to no way to recover from it. Try as you may to pick up a sleeper or trade for someone decent it ain’t gonna’ happen. Enjoy the entire season watching what could have been with your broke-ass team.

Are we having fun yet? In the best-case scenario, you draft a great team, no one gets hurts, and you dominate your league. Fun? I guess. Even in this case I find that after Sunday and maybe a few tweaks here and there or a player pick-up to fill a BYE spot I am bored. Nothing to do. I guess I can pretend like I am analyzing historical data, field conditions, win ratios, player match-ups, but I don’t, and that is more than I am willing to dedicate to a one day intravenous feed of information that leads me to react like a Pavlovian dog every time CBS plays its fantasy jingle. No catches? No touchdowns? So disappointing and I sit back and think about how lame this is. Even when something great happens I am not all that thrilled. Of course, every decade or so you get that player who scores 50 points from out of nowhere but 9 times out of 10 that player is, yep, on your bench. So fun.

Where do I spend my time now? With the big boys. I decided to pull up my pants and get off the porch and run with the big dogs. Each and every day I put my money and my reputation on the line in action that is virtually non-stop. I pick winners and losers and factor in spreads, over/unders, moneylines, parlays and so forth. Why is this better? Where do I start?

1. This action incorporates every single strategy point from fantasy and makes you take it to the next level. By betting on teams you now have to look at every facet of a match-up. Quarterbacks, RBs, WRs, Def, field, weather, and a multitude of other factors that lead to a decision. Now, it really gets interesting. Will the team I believe will win end up winning by a certain number or more? Hmmm. That changes things when my opponent gets 4 or 5 points. Maybe I’ll take the other team because I think they might win outright or at least keep it very close. Fantasy Football is checkers. A free and legal sport betting is three-dimensional chess.
2. Action. Lots of action. If I pick a football team to win I am no longer just watching one or two offensive players to make a run or a catch. I am watching the whole team and each and every snap could help me. Of course, if you take the under in an over/under you quickly learn a whole new betting position: all misses, fumbles, and missed opportunities are a good thing. Nothing like watching a game hoping that both teams miss field goals and bonk it off the rim.
3. Reload every day. Fantasy football is once a week and free and legal sports betting is every day. During the fall you have hundreds of games from college, pro football, basketball, hockey, and baseball.
4. You compete against the whole world. Beating seven other guys in your league is great but step-up and see how good you are in the big pond.

I could go on all day. Fantasy football is a cute little appetizer and free and legal sports betting is a porterhouse steak dinner. Not only is it bigger and more fulfilling, it is just plain better. Put down your cracker with Brie and join the free and legal sports betting world and become a sports genius heralded throughout the globe.