One night during training camp, when I worked for the Packers in 2007, we decided we would have a fantasy football draft among our front office and scouting staff. Just to make sure there would be no semblance of “gambling,” we had two rules: No Packers could be drafted and no money would be exchanged, either for buy-in to the league or to reward the winning teams. Even with these rules, my conscience got the best of me, as I felt like I should run this by someone in the league office. As the group groaned about me being such a downer, I called my contact at the NFL management council to tell him what we were doing.
I explained what we wanted to do, emphasizing that we couldn’t draft our own players and that no money would be involved. There was a long pause on the other end of the line, before he said something to the effect of: Andrew, we didn’t have this conversation. I said: “Excuse me?” He said: “How’s your family?” Even for an innocent and free season-long fantasy football league, the NFL didn’t want to know we were doing it. (Side note: The guys who pick football players for a living—our scouts—were the worst fantasy football players ever. They didn’t get the purpose of the league, as they were drafting late-round nuggets rather than taking the chalk picks that would actually score them fantasy points.)
