“Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this Earth” – Lou Gehrig, July 4, 1939, Yankee Stadium.
That about sums it up for me. Here I am, at 38 years old, embarking on this crazy journey of writing about family, football and life for other people to read.
It’s fitting for me to be writing about the three things in my life that are forever intertwined. As my family and football really are my life.
With fall comes cooler weather, shorter days and Sundays – Glorious Sundays.
I am fortunate to be married to my best friend (I know it sounds cliche, but for me, it’s absolutely true). Jen loves football as much as I do and fantasy football almost more than I do.
We spend Sundays in our basement, with our quickly-growing son, watching football across four different televisions. Tablets and smartphones strewed about as we monitor our teams and players – all intertwined with a slew of kid’s toys. It truly is a family affair.
And it doesn’t stop there.
In addition to the Sunday night game, there’s Monday and Thursday night. We watch so much sports news and analysis during the week, our son knows Will Cain, Teddy Bruschi, Colin Cowherd, Joel Klatt, Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon, just by the sound of their voices. He watches highlights with such amazement and child-like wonder, you’d think he understood exactly what was happening.
I guess it’s fitting that he waited to be born until after the 2017 season opener between New England and Kansas City ended. He popped out barely two hours later. We watched the whole game in the labor and delivery suite at the hospital, all the while my wife was having contractions.
We are a football family.
I pose for a picture with my wife, Jennifer, and my son, Jackson.
But that’s not all of the togetherness. It had long been a dream of ours to be able to work from home together and basically be together ’round the clock.
After our son was born and Jen’s maternity leave was over, it was tough. Those months at home together had been amazing.
But, then it happened. Two years ago she walked away from a great job, and an amazing group of co-workers to be at home full time. And it is incredible. It’s been even better than we could have ever imagined. Time apart isn’t a relief to us. It’s a bummer. We are inseparable.
Introduction aside, I hope to continue to bring columns to you that not only give solid fantasy advice but solid life, relationship and parenting advice, as well.
And with everything up in the air, or as every talking head in the news likes to say “in these unprecedented times,” I think we could all use some laughter too.
And Here Comes the Football Part:
This is my first stab at fantasy advice outside of family and friends who I’m not in leagues with. Most of my advice will be geared towards redraft leagues, as I have only begun to delve into the world of dynasty fantasy football.
I am a big believer that stats, plus film and a little character consideration (read Antonio Brown) is needed to truly evaluate a player’s fantasy value. Oh, and coaches and coordinators are important too.
I’ll get into draft-focused data as we get closer to what will hopefully be the 2020 NFL season. I hope to throw out some sleeper picks no else is talking about, or that one team situation that begs you to look a little deeper at their roster and maybe help you find your own sleeper.
And now, for the humor. Against my better judgment, I’m going to end every column with a dad joke, since I promised laughs, and I’m a dad. This is my time to truly shine.
When the grocery store clerk asks me if I want the milk in a bag, I always tell him, “No, I’d rather drink it out of the carton!”
Thanks for reading and follow me on Twitter @jenatejack2017.