Bill Filer: ‘Somewhere Over the Dwayne Bowe,’ fantasy football dreams come true

An estimated 33 million of us did this on Sunday.

I’m not referring to allowing the collection plate to pass us by in church or taking an afternoon nap.

The activity in question, done every Sunday in the fall, I should add, will generate somewhere between $2 billion and $5 billion in ad revenue this year and has changed the way many of us watch sports.

Still need a hint?

It requires the multitasking skills of skimming multiple TV channels while frequently checking a laptop or PC.

If those clues haven’t led you to an answer, maybe this will.

Usually, this activity involves silly, and sometimes salty, names like “Somewhere Over the Dwayne Bowe,” “Don’t Take No Flacco” and “Insane Clowney Posse.”

That’s right, it’s fantasy football.

Fantasy football is a direct result of someone asking the question, “How can I get even more obsessed with the National Football League and waste even more time on Sundays?”

Like-minded individuals come together to form a fantasy league, hold a mock draft, usually in the presence of several draft beverages, and pretend to acquire a team of players.

Each week, from the players you drafted, you determine which ones to start and which ones to bench based on their point projections.

Points are scored each time a player you start gains yards, completes a pass or scores a touchdown.

If your team scores more than your opponent’s each week, you win. Win enough games, you can go to the playoffs, and potentially win the league, bragging rights and an occasional buck or two.

You keep track of all of this via one of several oh-so-useful websites where you spend as much time avoiding pop-up ads and click-through content as you do selecting your starting line-ups.

This year, I am in a father-son league.

Beyond just the unproductive, sloth-like Sundays football is normally good for, our league introduces the added dimension of pitting father against son several times during the season.

This, of course, leads to enlightening and dynamic conversations throughout the house.

Instead of passing down family traditions, or teaching valuable hunter-gatherer skills, as my forefathers did for their children, I am discussing why Nick Foles may not be the best choice for a starting QB against a 4-3 defense with athletic linebackers and lock-down corners.

And smack talk is not only inevitable, it is expected.

The biggest problem I have with fantasy football is that I can no longer be content with watching a single game at noon, one game at 3, perhaps the evening game, and finishing with Monday Night Football. Now we have something called the NFL Red Zone in my house.

This is football for the ADHD Attention Deficit Disorder crowd.

Red Zone is commercial-free snippets of TV coverage of all the games for six straight hours on Sunday.

It’s like a car wreck.

You don’t want to stare at it, but you simply can’t resist. Put the Red Zone on for six hours, catch the Sunday night game and then Monday Night Football the next day, and it’s roughly 12 hours sitting in front of the TV and computer screen each week.

That’s probably 10 to 12 hours too many, but I don’t see that viewing trend declining anytime soon.

Maybe someday, when my son is in his golden years reflecting fondly on his childhood, he’ll remember back to the day when he and I sat on the couch and screamed at Andy Reid through the TV for hours for not handing the ball to Jamaal Charles enough.

Precious.

This story was originally published October 14, 2014 at 8:37 PM with the headline "Bill Filer: ‘Somewhere Over the Dwayne Bowe,’ fantasy football dreams come true."