There’s nothing more boring than reading about (or listening to) the arcane details of another man’s fantasy football team, so I will cut to the chase: It would be great if Roy Helu was getting Tim Hightower’s reps right now. If the Redskins started using Helu the way they’re currently using Hightower, a lot of my problems would instantly evaporate. I need Helu to touch the ball 15 times a game, at least until October. But it appears that this is not going to happen. So I am left with three options, all of which ran through my mind during the first half of last night’s Skins-Cowboys contest:

• I could root for Tim Hightower to get hurt.
  Except I can’t. That’s a totally unethical act, and it makes me uncomfortable as a member of the human race. It feels reprehensible to view a stranger’s physical pain as my personal reward, so I refuse to do this.  On this point, I agree with Arian Foster (who, I should note, is also on my roster, which is why I need Rou Helu to touch the ball more). This forces me to consider my second option, which is …

• I could root for Tim Hightower to start playing awful.
  Instead of pulling for some phantom hamstring catastrophe, I could merely hope he fumbles a lot or consistently misses blocking assignments. Mike Shanahan would lose patience with Hightower and give his minutes to Helu. But this desire seems equally immoral; I don’t like the idea of actively hoping that someone’s career starts to tank. As far as I know, Hightower is a decent person who works hard and deserves to start for the Washington Redskins. I shouldn’t be rooting for his decline. Which means I can only pursue my third option, which is …

• I must hope Tim Hightower’s life becomes so awesome he no longer cares about football.
  This is the best-case scenario for my dreams to become a reality, so this is what I’m rooting for. I want Tim Hightower to fall in love with a voluptuous, distracting woman who’s so erotically bewitching he cannot concentrate on his job. Everything becomes secondary to this mind-blowing, time-consuming romance. I want Tim Hightower to start reading books on Eastern religion that make the concept of achieving NFL greatness seem empty and unimportant. I want Tim Hightower to start experimenting with natural hallucinogenics that provide him with a sense of metaphysical enlightenment, and this enlightenment makes him think, “Carrying a football is not my purpose.” I want him to win the lottery, thus eliminating any incentive to practice hard. And I want him to decide that Roy Helu is a great kid, and that Helu is less a competitor and more like a protégé, and that helping Helu become a better pro is more satisfying than anything Hightower could achieve on his own.

So this is what I focused on throughout the second half of last night’s game. People who casually say fantasy football is changing the way people watch the NFL have no idea how right they truly are.

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