We are all a bunch of nerds, slouched over our keyboards, searching for “prizes”, surrounded by “Help Guides” and downing energy drinks until the wee hours of the night; the only light in our lonely rooms coming from the LCD monitors damaging our vision. No, I am not referring to World of Warcraft gamers, but rather fantasy football participants.

The “prizes” being the key waiver wire pick-up, and “Help Guides” being the over-priced fantasy football magazines we fantasy addicts are familiar with.

Just think about the name: Fantasy Football. When we log into our league account we are doing just that, entering our fantasies.

Constantly we ridicule general managers (and I mean the real ones in professional sports) about their poor draft picks and free agent signings, pledging that we could do better. We attempt to do so by “managing” our own fantasy roster, only on a fake team that no one cares about.

Believe me, I am just as big a fantasy football fan as the next guy (I manage three teams), but I am well aware of the extreme nerd factor that comes along with it.

We blabber with our friends every night about who had the better draft, the best team and possible trade proposals. Nearly anyone who lends an ear for a moment likely regrets it seconds later, getting a mouthful about how a receiver’s unexpected injury is killing your team. Or how Arian Foster’s hamstring is set to heal anytime now, which is why drafting him late in the first round was a steal.

Let’s face it, fantasy football is a guilty pleasure.   

As we get home from our daily duties of school or work, there is nothing like flopping on the couch, grabbing your laptop and firing away, completely avoiding any homework or house chores waiting so that we can find an upgrade to our team.

What may be the best day of the fantasy season, and possibly the calendar year, is draft day. Anyone who plays the game knows that draft day is vital to a championship. Take a chance on the “one hit wonder” or go for the steady veteran?

The reason most men proudly participate in fantasy football is that they can unleash their inner nerd while covering it with the ultra-macho sport of football. It works out great, but there is no doubt that there aren’t many things cool about fantasy football.

Although fantasy football may be the most popular form of fantasy gaming, leagues exist of baseball, basketball and hockey. There’s even a NASCAR fantasy league, which unsurprisingly isn’t fun.

For any of you who may be confused by the whole fantasy sport concept, I’ll give you a quick breakdown.

We draft players from a pool of free agents and assign them to a position on our squad. The better our players perform the better our team does, so say that I have Adrian Peterson on my roster and he scores a touchdown, my team gets points for that score.

Once you get the main understandings down, it will get extremely addictive. I promise you that I have never heard the words “fantasy football isn’t fun” uttered by anyone who has partaken in a full season.

When game day comes around on Sunday, fantasy football only elevates the excitement we have to watch the games. Blow outs are still exciting because you have the quarterback who is about to pick up massive points while trying to throw his team back in to the game.

So when you hear violent screaming from your neighbor’s apartment this Sunday, don’t be alarmed, they’re just upset that their weekly opponent’s running back just scored his third touchdown of the day.