I got nominated into PFUFA!

After all the PFUFA speeches and ceremonies, many of the members were heading back home and everyone began saying their good byes. I waited until nearly everyone was gone as I was not in a rush as I was going to attend the Titan v Bills game later that night. I motioned up to Sergeant Colt, just to thank him once again for allowing me to get so involved with the PFUFA reunion over the weekend. He then told me to wait a few minutes as he took something out of his bag.

It was a PFUFA draft card for this year. Sergeant Colt handed me the card and I was dumbstruck. I was speechless and nearly cried I felt so proud. Even if I never actually get drafted to be nominated alongside these NFL legends of fandom, made me incredibly proud. Other PFUFA fans had mentioned they were thinking of nominating me, for it to come from the President made it really special. Plus not only am I the first international fan to be nominated but the Sergeant has only nominated three people since he was drafted five years ago, so I’m pretty lucky.

I told Sergeant Colt I will do my best to come back next year and naturally with 09 tour I will be getting involved with football and their organisation as much as I can. Now as a nominee I can get involved with their organisation in many ways. I can play the “pick ‘em” game, which is where you pick the outcome of each fixture throughout the season and I can be part of their fantasy football league team.

I was on a high when I saw Hans, telling him that I was nominated. Hopefully we can be inducted together next year, when Hans would have completed his goal of attending games at all 31 NFL stadiums. I told him I would now be playing fantasy football. He got excited and told me to use the widget on his site which gives you an insight into player scoring and which players you should pick/draft for your fantasy team.

Fantasy football is slightly different in America. If I pick a certain player for my team, no one else in my league can pick them, so naturally there is a limit to the amount of players in the league. In U.K fantasy football you can pick whoever you want as long as you don’t blow your budget, but you can only usually have three players from any one football club. So you can’t pick your all the players from your favourite team. However in American fantasy football, assuming others don’t pick certain players in the draft, you could in theory pick a whole team made up of players from your favourite team.

As a diehard Bears fan, the whole fantasy football thing has never appealed, because I have never wanted non Bears players in my team, it just won’t be right. I told the others that I will only play fantasy football if I could pick only Bears players. They told me I wouldn’t do too well and then they decided they really wanted me to play, because my team would be pretty crappy, giving them a better chance to win, mainly because it would be hard to draft all the Bears stars, and I would end up with Bears back up players. But I don’t care, because I wouldn’t want to cheer anyone else one, it just doesn’t seem right.

So hopefully my fantasy team will look something like this: QB Cutler, RB Forte, WR Hester, WR Bennett, TE Olsen, Defense Bears, Kicker Gould. That’s not a bad fantasy team at all!