Dear Mr. Fantasy I will play no more forever BY SAM PFEIFLE

By all accounts, this should have been a gloriously exhilarating football season. Like no other (except maybe 2002 — but football breeds short memories). Heading into the Super Bowl, my Patriots are firmly ensconced in Houston, riding a 14-game win streak, vying for recognition as one of the best teams of all time. And I was loyal enough through seasons like 1990’s one-win debacle — and drafts like 1992’s Eugene Chung debacle — to now have carte blanche when it comes to celebrating and gloating with friends who chose to align themselves with, say, the star-crossed Philadelphia Eagles (the same sort of friend who then sends emails arguing that he’s allowed to declare himself a Pats fan just because he spent four years at a New England college — shameless!).

But I chose not to fully enjoy it. At one point in the season I even publicly complained that the Patriots were "boring." "No star quarterback," I complained. "No star running back. Troy Brown’s hurt. They might be bringing Vincent Brisby back for another go at wide receiver next week." They were eight and two at the time, at the top of their division. Yet, I was unhappy.

Why?

Because I had been sucked into the horrible, depressing, mind-numbing world of fantasy football, and even though the Patriots had just shut out the pathetic Dallas Cowboys, 17-0, I was upset because Tom Brady had only thrown for 104 yards and (more importantly) scored only 2.08 points for me.

And I called the Cowboys pathetic?

It was all of my own doing, of course. The reason I had never done the whole fantasy football thing before was that I didn’t want to ever have to root against my own team, or for a player I didn’t actually like. The best fantasy teams are populated by the likes of Terrell Owens, Edgerrin James, and Peyton Manning — players I’d sooner cough on than cheer for.

However, when a certain Phoenix sales guy (I’ll refer to all parties by their screen names) named Garbage Claus decided to set up a fantasy league in the office, I thought I’d found my solution. The league was small enough — just six teams — that I could manipulate the draft so as to stock my entire team with Patriots players, past and present. Thus, I’d only have to root for players I would normally root for, and I was fairly certain that my team would still be quite competitive.

So I joined up. Here’s what I got.

Quarterbacks: Drew Bledsoe and Tom Brady. Bledsoe, drafted by the Patsies in 1993, had been the franchise’s savior, no matter what critics might say. Plus, he was a Pro Bowler last year. Brady led the league with 29 TD passes last year. I was looking strong here.

Running backs: This was tough. I went with Antowain Smith, deciding Kevin Faulk just wasn’t going to play much, but I still needed two more running backs. I tried to get Curtis Martin, but he was taken. So I grabbed Ricky Williams (solely for trade bait — I could never root for a Dolphin). I also somehow got Corey Dillon (until recently, Pats fans shared an affinity with Bengals fans, though they won’t admit it publicly). Eh. Running back was going to be a disaster area for me, no doubt about it.

Wide receivers: I needed three wide receivers to start, too. This Pats-only thing was getting tough. I decided if Bledsoe was going to be my quarterback, I’d pretty much have to root Bills when they weren’t playing the Pats. Therefore, I took Eric Moulds and Josh Reed, in addition to Troy Brown (of course) and Deion Branch (for the bench). This seemed like a strong bunch.

Tight end: I grabbed Daniel Graham, convinced he’d be a superstar.

Defense: Patriots, obviously. With the Bills as backup for the bye week.

I was feeling confident. I’d got the team I wanted, and no one else looked stacked. This fantasy squad — dubbed the Crack Smokers, in an ironic nod to my doubters — was ready to stampede.

But week one was a wakeup call. The Bills torched my Patsies, 31 to zippo, and there were bagels all around. My whole team scored a total of two touchdowns, and collected 48.36 points. Need a gauge? Team Mustache Rides dropped 141 points on my head. Priest Holmes scored 28 points by himself. Total disaster.

My team was perceived as so uncompetitive that accusations were thrown around that I should be booted from the league when I tried to trade Ricky Williams for Travis Henry (a Bill) later in the week. I did finally make the trade, but I was forced to take Tony Gonzales, too, and threats were made (I won’t publish such things) regarding what would happen if I kept him on the bench in favor of Graham. Or Christian Fauria.

Things got somewhat better from there. I even won a couple of single weeks. But I was prone to occurrences like week six, when Troy Brown and Tom Brady scored four points between them. Or week eight, when I scored 58 points, having started Mike Cloud two weeks after he scored a touchdown against the Giants, only to have him not even play once I drafted him. Or week nine, when Troy Brown did the previously unheard of: He scored negative .25 points. He actually lost points.

Then Troy Brown got hurt. Then Drew Bledsoe was terrible for about 10 straight games. Then I turned to old hero Doug Flutie during the bye week, and he racked up 30 points by himself. By this point, the season was lost and so I saw this fortuitousness as just another slap in the face.

In the end, I came in last — 462 points behind sales guy Gamblore, more than 350 points behind the fifth place finisher. And the bitterness lingered and soured my otherwise spectacular year of football fandom.

Of course, Gamblore was forced to root for Peyton Manning all season. That’s something I just couldn’t stomach.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at spfeifle@phx.com