Arizona Cardinals: Fantasy football a big business
By Scott Allen
A lot of fans took a huge fantasy football hit with the loss of Arizona Cardinals running back David Johnson
Don’t kid yourselves, despite what players and coaches will tell you, fantasy football is still big business these days. It is still important to a lot of fans, including Arizona Cardinals fans.
When running back David Johnson went down in week one with a two to three month injury, all a lot of people could lament about was their fantasy teams. At first thought has to be the actual health and well being of the player.
No matter how much it hurts your fantasy team, what matters most is the person, team, and game. Truly, fantasy is non-consequential in the big picture when someone has a major injury. If you believe otherwise, you have no heart.
What you should also have though is something that many people do spend a lot of money on. A lot of people pay real money to play their fantasy teams. The concern from that standpoint is understandable.
When a player comes out and says something about fantasy, then you know they’ve been hearing a lot of negative things. Johnson this past week came out and said that “fantasy is the last thing on my mind right now”, according to espn.com.
You can tell he’s been hearing it from people. Not necessarily in all bad ways but if people are talking about it rather than voicing concern over his actual health, where really are people’s priorities?
More from Raising Zona
- Arizona Cardinals: Could Eric Bieniemy come to the desert?
- Would Jonathan Gannon be a good fit for the Arizona Cardinals?
- Arizona Cardinals: Budda Baker right in his take regarding the next coach
- Arizona Cardinals: 3 reasons new coach should want to work with Murray
- Arizona Cardinals special teams could be completely revamped in 2023
That being said, don’t put it all on the fans. Not only has he proven he is a huge commodity in the run game but in the passing game as well. He caught 80 passes last season along with four receiving touchdowns. If you are in a point per reception league, how huge is that?
He helped create the fantasy monster though with those numbers….and his actions. Wasn’t Johnson one of the NFL’s three players in the preseason fantasy football commercials? I’m sure no one put a gun to his head to do that. It’s all about the money.
Look, I’d do the same if presented these opportunities. But don’t pretend you don’t care about fantasy at all especially since you basically marketed yourself for the taking.
In the end, fantasy should not matter over a player’s well being. It’s still a big business though, so you’ll have to excuse the people who spent money investing in you every Sunday.
However, first and foremost we care about Johnson the person in Arizona. We wish him a speedy recovery. Not for fantasy value but for the Arizona Cardinals chances of success in November and December.