Week 8 Review

 Hello, League-Mates, and welcome to the Week 8 Review.

Yes, I am back, despite the angry letter review from last week. Maybe it's because today is Halloween, and I am more afraid than ever about the future of my fantasy season, or it was the amount of fan mail that I received this past week, but I felt compelled to write a week review again. This time, with some heart, rather than malice. 

I originally thought that a scary, haunted, Halloween themed review was in order, but then I realized that I would have to dive into everyone's teams and try and assign a scary figure to represent them, and to be honest, that was a lot of work to do on such little time. Therefore, sit back and read as I spill forth such poetic words that Walt Whitman himself would proclaim that I am the one who is accused of gab and loitering by the spotted hawk. 

I believe it to be axiomatic when I say that a fantasy football season is full of ups and downs. It's a metaphorical rollercoaster that we all enjoy. That is unless your team is in the cellar, and you are already writing your suicide note (call me, I have quite the note written, as well as my eulogy). How hypocritical of me it would be to sit here and say not to despair. To proclaim that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Rather, I quote a line from Othello, to try and transcribe to you all how I felt last week; "I understand a fury in your words/But not the words". 

What I am attempting to relay is that it becomes extremely difficult to express discontent when more than half of you wonderful readers are feeling the same way that I am. I believe the opening line of Richard III can most appropriately grasp the harsh reality that has set in for the majority, "Now is the winter of our discontent". Although such grim words open the Tragedy of King Richard the Third, this line merely foreshadows the extreme measures that Richard III is about to take to derail the misfortunes cast upon him. Rightfully so for such actions consequences will be abound for Richard III ("A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"), albeit we can learn from the opening soliloquy. 

I would be remiss if I did not take into account that most of us are at the point of being written out of the fantasy season. "So it goes." (I know it's Vonnegut, not Shakespeare). To take a deeper look at lines that thespians so openly long to speak rather than understand, we can grasp the very mortality that encumbers a fantasy football season. 

In his sonnets Shakespeare often uses seasons and nature to entice the imagination of the reader. Most of the sonnets that I recall use spring and winter to describe birth and death, therefore the fantasy football season is no different from interpretations of sonnets 97 and 98. Do we not all "put a spirit of youth in everything," when we begin to gather data in late July and early August? Yet by weeks 8 and 9, "what freezings [we] felt, what dark days seen,"? Maybe, maybe not? Or rather, "To be, or not to be--that is the question". 

I wish you all peace, love, and fantasy football prosperity.

Sincerely, 

Carl